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PREFACE. 


Tue writing of this History has extended over a period 
of five years. It began while the conflict of arms was at 
the hottest, and before it had passed its doubtful period; it 
is now concluded nearly three years after the surrender of 
the rebel armies, but before the final stage of Reconstruc- 
tion can be fairly said to have been inaugurated. It has 
been a work of great magnitude, covering as it does the 
events of seven years—and those seven the most important 
in our national history. 

The design of the Authors has been in no respect 
modified by the fact that this is an Illustrated History. 
We have written exactly as we should. have done if the 
interest of our readers depended upon the unadorned re- 
cital of facts. No pains have been spared—no expense 
of time or of study—in order to make this the fullest and 
most complete history of the Civil War which at this time 
is possible. We have not compiled from other histories, 
but have depended entirely upon the original materials 
furnished by documents of every description, military 
and political, no small proportion of which have never 
been published, but have been obtained from prominent 
actors on both sides of the contest. If we had hastened 
to submit our work to the public, much of this material, 
both published and unpublished, would have been lost to 
us, and our work would to that extent have lacked 
completeness and maturity. By waiting we have also 
been enabled to bring the history down to the beginning 
of the present year, thus including the Reconstruction 
acts of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses. In 
the whole scheme of the work no less prominence has 
been given to political than to military events. 

The materials from which we have drawn consist of 
all the official reports, both National and Confederate, 
which have been published, and a large number of 
others which we have obtained in manuscript; the 
official returns of the several armies on both sides; the 
innumerable letters of war correspondents ; conversations 
with prominent military officers, National and Confed- 
erate; miscellaneous documents, maps, memoranda, let- 
ters, and orders, furnished by such officers; the Congres- 
sional Globe ; and numerous biographical sketches, more 


or less extended, of military and_ political characters. 
Wherever it has seemed sufficient, we have simply 
referred to these authorities by citation; and in numer- 
ous instances we have either quoted them in full or 
given a summary of their testimony. 

The Introductory Chapters of the work were written 
early in the war by Mr. Richard Grant White. The 
remainder, commencing with the section headed “The 
War for the Union,” is by us whose names appear on 
the title-page. Each of us has written independently 
of the other, except that we have had access to the 
same materials, and have consulted together at every 
stage of the work. As a rule, not however without 
exceptions, the chapters relating to military operations 
in the East, and the earlier ones upon political history, 
are by Alfred H. Guernsey. ‘Those relating to military 
operations in the West, including the whole of Sherman’s 
Campaigns, together with the later political chapters, are 
by Henry M. Alden. 

While fully confident of the justice of the National 
cause in the Civil War, we have willingly conceded to 
those who opposed that cause the same sincerity of 
motive which we claim for ourselves, and the same 
conviction of justice in their appeal to arms. We have 
written of the living as if they were dead, and have 
endeavored to anticipate the impartial verdict of the 
future. If we have failed in this regard, it has been an 
error of judgment rather than of feeling. In the political 
chapters we have especially striven to avoid special 
pleading in behalf of any party, seeking to take the 
attitude of the spectator and judge rather than that of 
the advocate. 

Such has been the scheme of our work, such the 
materials upon which it has been based, and such the 
spirit with which it has been conducted. The main 
outlines of the struggle which we have here portrayed 
we are confident will stand the test applied by time 
and by the judgment of posterity. 

AH. G. 
H. M. A, 


New Yor, April, 1868, 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by Harrer & Brotuers, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, 


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_ 


CAT THE COMMENCEMENT OF EACH CHAPTER WILL BE FOUND A DETAILED SYLLABUS OF THE MATTERS THEREIN CONTAINED.] 


CHAPTER XXII. 
POPE’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA Page 381 


CHAPTER XXIII. 
THE INVASION OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM...393 


CHAPTER XXIV. 
BURNSIDE’S CAMPAIGN, —FREDERICKSBURG 406 


CHAPTER XXV. 
NAVAL AND COAST OPERATIONS...... 421 


CHAPTER XXVI. 
THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI...... 43 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
THE WAR ON THE MISSISsIPPt (Continued)..457 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 
HOOKER IN COMMAND. —CHANCELLORSVILLE 483 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.— GETTYS- 


CHAPTER XXX. 
MEADE’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.....! 17 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN.—I. THE ARMY 
OF THE CUMBERLAND. .....+0000,020) 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN.—II. THE AD- 
VANCE FROM MURFREESBOROUGH....529 


Thoroughfare Gap, 387. 
Groveton Monument, 389. 
Bull Run Monument, 391. 
. The Confederates crossing the Potomac, 392, 
View from Maryland Heights, 395. 
Signal Station, Maryland Heights, 396. 
Boonesborough and Turner’s Gap, 397. 
After the Battle—At the Fence, 401. 
. After the Battle—Burying the Dead, 401. 
. Stone Bridge over the Antietam, 402. 
. Site of a Battery, 403. 
. Scene of a Charge, 403. 
13. Behind a Breastwork, 403. 
. Shelter for Wounded, 403. 
5. Cavalry Reconnoisance in Virginia, 405. 
3. Fredericksburg from Falmouth, 407. 
- Acquia Creek, 408. 
. An Army Train, 409. 
. Building the Bridge at Fredericksburg, 410. 
Sumner’s Division crossing the Rappahan- 
nock, 411. 
Franklin’s Division crossing the Rappahan- 
nock, 412. 
. Assault upon Marye’s Hill, 414. 
. Franklin’s Division recrossing the Rappa- 
hannock, 415. 
The Campaign in the Mud, 418, 419. 
. Mortar Batteries attacking Fort Pulaski, 
420, 
. Hauling Mortars, 420. 
. Attack on Fort Pulaski, 420. 
Capture of the Harriet Lane, 421. 
. Destruction of the Westfield, 422. 
. Bahia, Brazil, 423. 
. Destruction of the Alabama, 426. 
. A Night Encampment, 427, 
. Battle of Kingston, 427. 
. Action at Whitehall, 428. 
. Skirmish near Goldsborough, 428. 
. Crevasse on the Lower Mississippi, 431. 
. Admiral Porter’s Mortar Fleet, 434. 
. Natchez upon the Hill, 436. 
. Natchez under the Hill, 437. 
. Ellis’s Bluffs, 437. 
. Vicksburg from the River, 438. 
. Porter’s Mortar Fleet in Trim, 439. 
Farragut’s Fleet running the Vicksburg Bat- 
teries, 439. 
. Mortar-boats firing on Vicksburg by night, 
440. 
. Davis’s Fleet on the way to join Farragut’s, 
440. 
. The Arkansas running through the Union 
Fleet, 440, 


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vp. megane 
7 “J Pa bs 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. —IIL 


THE 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE ARMY 
OF THE OHIO,—RECOVERY OF EAST TENNES- 
BEE ci capescsnarcosteiva vaceusescsvenenty ects Page 531 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN.—IV. THE BAT- 
TLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. .....000..)00 
CHAPTER XXXvV. 

THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN.—Y. THE SIEGE 

OF BRORVILD RB sosccse nccveeecQO 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 
CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN—VI. DEFEAT OF 
BRAGG s vevestdesaccceverdsssOOU 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 
SHERMAN’S MERIDIAN CAMPAIGN.....569 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
THE FLORIDA EXPEDITION.........574 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 
THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN........976 


CHAPTER XL. 
PRICE’S MISSOURI RAID.....00000.593 


CHAPTER XLI. 
THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.......s00/ 


CHAPTER XLII. 


THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. —FROM THE RAP- 
IDAN TO THE JAMES....... pevese Ol 


CHAPTER XLIII. 
THE INVESTMENT OF PETERSBURG Page 637 


CHAPTER XLIV. 
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1863...641 


CHAPTER XLV. 
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864...654 


CHAPTER XLVI. 
ABTER (ATLANTA: decceosesreees 670 


CHAPTER XLVII. 
BATTLE OF NASHVILLE.....++ 000 675 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 


SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.— THE MARCH TO THE 
. BEA racers necieecctaiceeess 683 


CHAPTER XLIX. 
THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG........ 693 


CHAPTER L. 


THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.— EARLY AND 
SHERIDAN ccsecacaessnanetee 707 


CHAPTER LI. 
SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE CAROLINA MARCH 
713 

CHAPTER LII. 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—I. WIL- 
MINGTONGsccocsccctaccperessd oe 


SCENES AND 


. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 441. 

3. Death of General Thomas Williams, 442. 

. Destruction of the Arkansas, 443. 

. Cotton Hoards in Southern Swamps, 443. 

. Sixth Missouri at Chickasaw Bayou, 446, 

2. Porter’s Fleet at the Mouth of the Yazoo, 
447, 

3. Attack on Arkansas Post, 448. 

4, Transport bringing Cattle to Vicksburg, 449. 

5. The Queen of the West and the Vicksburg, 
449. 

». Loss of the Queen of the West, 450. 

57. The Indianola running the Vicksburg Bat- 
teries, 451. 

. Admiral Porter’s ‘‘ Dummy,” 451. 

. Lancaster and Switzerland running the Bat- 
teries, 452. 

. Negroes at work on the Canal, 453. 

. Break in Levee near the Canal, 454, 

. In the Swamps, 454. 

. Bayou Navigation, 454. 

. Among the Bayous, 454. 

35. MecClernand’s Corps marching through the 
Bogs, 454. 

. Grant’s Transports running the Batteries, 
455, 

7. Saving the Pearl River Bridge, 456. 

38. Destroying Railroads, 456. 

. Grierson’s Command entering Baton Rouge, 
456. : 

. The advance on Port Gibson, 457. 

. Attack on Grand Gulf, 457. 

2. Logan crossing the Bayou Pierre, 458. 

3. Banks landing at Baton Rouge, 459. 

. Burning of the Mississippi, 460. 

5. View on the Teche, 460. 


76. Occupation of Alexandria, 461. 
77. Banks’s Army leaving Simmsport, 462. 


. Crocker’s Charge at Jackson, 463. 

. McPherson and his Chief Engineers, 465. 

. Cotton Bridge across the Big Black, 466. 

. Vicksburg from the Rear, 467. 

. The Approaches to Vicksburg, 469. 

. The Investment of Vicksburg ~ Sherman’s 
Right, 470. 

. The Assault on Port Hudson, 473. 

5. Port Hudson from the opposite Bank, 474. 

. Entrance of Gallery to the Mine, 475. 

. Miners at work under the Fort, 475. 

. Explosion of Fort, 475. 

9. Battery Hickenlooper, 476. 

. Interview of Grant and Pemberton, 478. 

. Old Vicksburg Monument, 478. 

. New Vicksburg Monument, 478. 


802727 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


INCIDENTS. 


93. 
94, 
95. 


96, 


Surrender of Vicksburg, 479. 

Federal Troops before Jackson, 480. 

Saluting the Flag at Port Hudson, 481. 

Arrival of the ‘* Imperial” at New Orleans, 

482, 

Headquarters of Army of the Potomac,485. 

. Picket Guard, 487. 

. Crossing at United States Ford, 488 

. Cavalry crossing at Ely’s Ford, 488, 

. Sedgwick’s Corps crossing the Rappahan- 
nock, 489. 

. Laying Pontoons for Sedgwick’s Corps, 490. 

. Sedgwick’s Bridges laid, 492. 

. Stampede of Eleventh Corps, 494. 

- Near Chancellorsville, May 1, 495. 

}. Near Chancellorsville, May 1, 496. 

. Chancellorsville, May 1, 497. 

. Burning the Bridge over the Susquehanna, 
504, 

. Gettysburg, 506. 

. Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, 507. 

. Wheat-field where Reynolds fell, 508. 

. Meade’s Headquarters, Cemetery Ridge, 
508. 

3. Lee’s Headquarters, Seminary Ridge, 508. 

. Breastwork in the Woods, 509. 

. Summit of Little Round Top, Gettysburg, 
510, 511. 

}. Union Position near the Centre, Gettys- 
burg, 510, 511. 

. Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, 514, 515, 

- In Camp, 517. 

Camp at the Foot of Blue Ridge, 519. 

. In Camp at Warrenton Springs, 520. 

. Depot of Supplies on the Railroad, 521, 

. Confederate Centre, Mine Run, 522. 

. Recrossing at Germania Ford, 522. 

. Warren’s last Position, Mine Run, 522 


vse. 


125. Winter Quarters—On Picket, 524. 
126. Pack-mules in the Mountains, 527. 


. The Courier Line, 528. 


128. Impromptu Barricade, 532. 
129. Morgan’s Raiders, 532. 
130. Dragging Artillery overthe Mountains, 534. 


- Occupation of Cumberland Gap, 535, 

. Stevenson, Alabama, 536. 

. Chattanooga from the opposite Bank, 540. 

. View of Knoxville from Keith’s Hills, 553. 

. Longstreet’s Assault on Fort Sanders, 554. 

. Attack on a Federal Train above Chatta- 
nooga, 555, 

. The Thomas Medal, 556. 

. Hazen’s Brigade descending the Tennes- 
see, 557, 


CHAPTER LIIIL. 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTTC COAST.— IL. 
CHARLESTON .......6..Fage 733 


CHAPTER LIV. 
THE MOBILE CAMPAIGN. ....e00.6744 


CHAPTER LV. 
WILSON’S AND STONEMAN’S RAIDS....749 


CHAPTER LVI. 
THE CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND 


ee 
io 


CHAPTER LVII. 
THE RETREAT AND SURRENDER OF LEE..767 


CHAPTER LVIII. 
JOHNSTON’S SURRENDER. 000.000.0193 


CHAPTER LIX. 
FLIGHT AND CAPTURE OF DAVIS....777 


CHAPTER LX. 
THE DEATH OF LINCOLN eeccsereee (Sl 


CHAPTER LXI. 


CONDUCT OF THE WAR. cce veces 789 
CHAPTER LXII. 

RECONSTRUCTION. —1865-1867.......799 

UNDE Sacccen tecarmenattaatectectcotecstervdeesesteser, OSG 


139, Chattanooga from the Federal Camp, 558, 
559. 

View of Lookout Mountain from Chatta- 
nooga Creek, 561. 

Top of Lookout Mountain, Noy. 25, 563. 

- Battery on the Top of Lookout, 563. 

3. Hooker’s Column storming Lookout, 563. 

. Crest of Lookout Mountain, 563. 

5. To the Top of Lookout, 563. 

. Capture of Works at White House, 564. 

- Storming of Missionary Ridge, 566. 

. Captured Confederate Cannon, 568. 

- The Fort Pillow Massacre, 573. 

. Forrest’s Attack on Irving Prison, 574. 


140. 


151. Attack on Sabine Pass, 580. 
152. Banks’s Landing at Brazos Santiago, 80. 


. Confederate Evacuation of Brownsville, 
580. 

Porter’s Fleet on Red River, 584. 

- Land Attack on Porter's Fleet, 588. 

- Banks crossing Cane River, 589. 

Fleet passing the Dam, Alexandria, 590. 

Ruins of Lawrence, Kansas, 591. 

Little Rock, Arkansas, 592. 

. Refugees entering St. Louis, 595. 

. Grant receiving his Commission, 599. 

. Signal Station near Ringgold, Georgia, 602. 

. Ringgold, Georgia, 602. 

- Buzzard’s Roost Pass, 603. 

. Geary’s Assault on Dug Gap, 604. 

}. Shelling the Railroad near Resaca, 605. 

. Sherman’s Army entering Resaca, 606. 

. Lost Mountain at Sunrise, 607. 

. Crest of Pine Mountain, where Polk fell, 
607. 

. Kenesaw, from Little Kenesaw, 608. 

. Howard’s Corps crossing the Chattahoo- 
chee, 609. 

172, Distant View of Atlanta, 610. 

3. Scene of McPherson's Death, 613. 

. Sherman in Council, 615, 

5. Ezra’s Church, 616. 

). Dead Brook, Ezra’s Church, 616. 

. Sherman’s Army destroying the Macon 

Railroad, 616. 

78. Atlanta, Georgia, 617. 

79. Confederate Prisoners from Jonesborough, 
618. 

. Confederate Exodus from Atlanta, 619. 


181. Workshops—Army of the Potomac, 622. 
182, Hancock’s Corps crossing the Rapidan, 62% 


. Fighting in the Wilderness, 627, 
; Scene of Wadsworth's Death, 629. 
. Fire-proof where Sedgwick fell, 630, 


1V 


186, 
187. 
188. 
189. 
190. 
191: 
192. 
193. 
194, 
195. 
196. 


OT, 
198. 
199. 
200. 
201. 
202. 


208. 
204, 
205. 
206. 
207. 
208. 


209. 
210, 
211. 
212. 
213. 
214. 
215. 
216. 
217. 
218. 


Spottsylvania Court-house, 631. 

Jericho Mills, North Anna, 632, 

Rifle-pits, North Anna, 632. 

Quarles’s Mills, North Anna, 632. 

Battery on the North Anna, 632. 

Crossing the Ny, 633. 

Crossing the North Anna, 633. 

Crossing the Pamunkey, 634. 

Cold Harbor, 635, 

Petersburg, 638. 

Fight with the Military—New York Riots, 
652. 

New York Rioters hanging a Negro, 652. 

Charge of Police at the Tribune Office, 652. 

Burning of Colored Orphan Asylum, 653. 

Soldiers voting for President, 668. 

Hood’s Attack on Allatoona, 672. 

Destruction of the Dépdts, etc., at Atlanta, 
675. 

Nashville from Edgefield, 680. 

Nashville from the opposite Bank, 680. 

Eastport, Tennessee, 681. 

Saltville, Virginia, 682. 

Salt Valley, 682. 

Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps leaving 
Atlanta, 683. 

Sherman and his Generals, 684. 

Atlanta in Ruins, 685. 

Millen Prison—Exterior, 687. 

Millen Prison—Interior, 687. 

Destruction of Millen Junction, 687. 

Capitol at Milledgeville, 688. 

Fort McAllister, 688. 

Assault on Fort McAllister, 689. 

Sherman’s Army entering Savannah, 690. 

Fort Jackson, Savannah, 691. 


. Map of the Campaign in Virginia, 384. 

5. Map of Operations August 28, 29, 30, 386. 
. Map of Operations in Maryland, 394. 

. Movements from September 10 to 17, 897, 
3. Routes to Richmond, 407. 

. Plan of Attack on Fort Pulaski, 420. 

). Chart of Galveston Bay, 421. 

. Route from Newbern to Goldsborough, 428. 
. Course of the Mississippi River, 429. 

3. Bird’s-eye View of the Mississippi Basin, 


435. 


. Map of Mississippi Central Railroad, 444. 
. Operations on the Yazoo and Arkansas, 


445. 


. Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, 446. 
. Williams’s Canal, 452. 

. The Lake Providence Route, 452. 
. The Yazoo Pass Reate, 452. 

). The Steele’s Bayou Route, 452. 


31. Ames, Adelbert, 728. 

2. Ayres, Romeyn B., 760. 
3. Banks, Nathaniel P., 577. 
. Barlow, Francis C., 400. 
5. Bellows, Henry W., 792. 
386. 
387. 
388. 
389. 
390. 
ool. 
392. 
393: 
394. 
395. 
396. 
397. 
398. 
BEE 
400. 
401. 
402. 
403. 
404, 
405. 
406. 
407. 
408. 
409. 


Birney, David B., 694. 
Blair, Francis, Jr., 684. 
Blake, Homer C., 425. 
Booth, J. Wilkes, 784. 
Brough, John, 654. 
Buford, John, 507. 
Burnside, Ambrose E., 406. 
Canby, E. R.S., 744. 
Chase, Salmon P., 665. 
Colfax, Schuyler, 806. 
Conkling, Roscoe, 810. 
Corbett, Boston, 785. 
Crook, George, 711. 
Curtin, Andrew G., 654. 
Cushing, W. B., 722. 
Dalhgren, Ulric, 523. 
Davis, Charles H., 486. 
Davis, Jeff. C., 684. 
Davis, Henry Winter, 662. 
Dayton, William L., 664. 
Dupont, Samuel F., 734. 
Ellet, Charles, 433. 

Ellet, Charles Rivers, 433. 
Ellsworth, Oliver, 665. 


219. 
220. 
224 
222: 
223. 
224, 
225 
226. 
227. 
228. 
229. 
230. 
231. 
232. 
233. 
234. 
235. 


236. 


237. 
238. 
239. 
240. 
241. 


242, 
243. 
244, 


245. 
246. 
247. 
248. 
249, 
250. 
251. 


410. 
411. 
412. 
413. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Confederates evacuating Savannah, 691. 
Sherman’s Headquarters at Savannah, 692. 


. Battery before Petersburg, 694. 


Building Works, 695. 
A Mortar Battery, 695. 
Return of Kautz’s Cavalry, 696. 


. Signal Station, 697. 


Carrying Powder to the Mine, 697. 


. Explosion of the Mine, 698. 


In the Trenches before Petersburg, 700. 

Confederate Works at Hatcher’s Run, 701. 

Union Works on the Weldon Road, 702. 

Bringing in Prisoners by Night, 702. 

Destruction of the Weldon Railroad, 703. 
Jnion Works before Petersburg, 704. 

Dutch Gap Canal, 705. 

Raid of the Confederate Iron-clads, 706. 

Cutting the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 
707. 

Pillaging at Hagerstown, 708. 

Sacking a Flour-mill, 708. 

Early recrossing the Potomac, 708. 

Ruins of Chambersburg—Main Street, 709. 

Ruins of Chambersburg—The Town Hall, 
709. 

Confederate Rout at Winchester, 710. 

Fort Thunderbolt, Savannah, 714. 

Slocum crossing the Savannah at Sister’s 
Ferry, 715. 

Pocotaligo Dépét, 715. 

Marching through the Swamps, 716. 

Entering Blackville, South Carolina, 716. 

Crossing the South Edisto, 716. 

Sherman entering Columbia, 717. 

Columbia on Fire, 719. 

Winnsborough, South Carolina, 719. 


MAPS AN 


. From Milliken’s Bend to New Carthage, 


455. 


. Scheme of Grierson’s Raid, 456. 

. Map of Port Hudson, 460. 

. The Bayou Teche Campaign, 460, 
5. Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign, 465. 

3. Map of the Vicksburg Defenses, 474. 
. Siege of Vicksburg, 477. 

. Region near Chancellorsville, 491. 

9. Invasion of Pennsylvania, 503. 

. Plan of Gettysburg Cemetery, 507. 

. Battle of Gettysburg, 509. 

. Map of Campaign, July—November, 1863, 


518. 


. Advance through Hoover’s Gap, 530. 

. Middle Tennessee Campaign, 530. 

. Burnside’s East Tennessee Campaign, 533. 
. Rosecrans’s Movements, September, 4-12, 


538. 


pp trptrwypy 
Oe St OU Oe GUS Or 
DARA WL 


wt 


bo bo WO bo bY be OD 
aQ2arAININAIAINAS 
SORDNDSS 


PORTRA 


Emory, William H., 472. 
Ewing, Hugh, 468. 
Fessenden, William Pitt, 800. 
Foster, Lafayette S., 806. 


413a. Franklin, William B., 398, 


414, 
415. 
416. 
417. 
418. 
419. 
420. 
421. 
422, 
423. 
424, 
425. 
426, 
427. 
428, 
429. 
430. 
431. 
432. 
433. 
434, 
435, 
436, 


Geary, John W., 557. 
Gillem, Alyin G., 750. 
Gillmore, Quincy A., 740. 
Granger, Gordon, 745. 
Grant, Ulysses 8., 621. 
Grierson, Benjamin H., 456. 
Griffin, Charles G., 761. 
Grover, Cuvier, 472. 

Halleck, Henry W., 381. 
Hampton, Wade, 718. 
Harold, David C., 787. 
Harker, Charles G., 608. 
Hays, Alexander, 626. 
Hazen, William B., 684, 690. 
Hooker, Joseph, 483. 
Howard, Oliver O., 614, 684. 
Humphreys, Andrew A., 518. 
Jay, John, 665. 

Johnson, Andrew, 799. 
Kearney, Philip, 390. 
Kilpatrick, Judson C., 684, 686. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 781. 
Logan, John A., 463, 684. 


437. 
438. 


439. 
440. 
441. 
442, 
443, 
444, 
445, 
446, 
447, 
448, 
449, 
450. 
451, 
452. 
453. 
454. 
455. 
456. 
457. 
458. 
459. 
461. 
462, 
463. 
464, 
465. 


. Hanging Rock, South Carolina, 719. 

. Foragers starting out, 720. 

. Foragers returning to Camp, 720. 

. U.S. Arsenal at Fayetteville, 720. 

. Tug-boat Donaldson with Supplies, 721. 

. Albemarle attacking the Federal Fleet, 722. 


Sassacus ramming the Albemarle, 723. 
Destruction of the Albemarle, 723. 


. Blockading Fleet, Wilmington—Old Inlet, 


724. 


- Blockading Fleet, Wilmington—New In- 


let, 724. 


. The Powder-boat Louisiana, 725. 

. Fort Fisher, 726. 

. Iron-clad Monitor Monadnock, 726. 

. Federal Fleet at Hampton Roads, 727. 

. Transport Fleet off Federal Point, 728. 

. The Monitors in a Gale, 728. 

. Landing of Troops above Fort Fisher, 731. 
. Fleet celebrating the Capture of Fort Fish- 


er, 732. 


. Fort Sumter, 733. 
. City of Charleston, 733. = 
2. Dupont’s Expedition leaving Beaufort, 735. 


Confederate Rams engaging the Fleet off 
Charleston, 735. 


. Bombardment of Fort Sumter, 736. 

. Sinking of the Keokuk, 738. 

. Ruins of Light-house, Morris’s Island, 740. 
. Sharp-shooters before Wagner, 741. 

. The Swamp Angel, 741. 

. Portion of Charleston under Fire, 742. 

. Confederate Evacuation of Morris’s Island, 


743. 


. Federal Fleet in Mobile Bay, 745. 
2. Capture of the Tennessee, 746. 


PLANS. 


. Position before the Battle of the 19th, 543. 
. Battle of Chickamauga, Sept. 19th, 545. 

. Battle of Chickamauga, Sept. 20th, 547. 

. Siege of Knoxville, 552. 

. Battle of Wauhatchie, 556. 

. Battles about Chattanooga, 565. 

. Map of Mississippi, 570. 


Forrest’s Tennessee Expedition, 571. 


. Map of Louisiana, 578. 


Plan of Fort De Russy, 584. 
The Red River Campaign, 585. 


. Map of Missouri, 594. 

. The Atlanta Campaign, 608, 

. Rousseau’s Raid, 611. 

. Cavalry Raids—Atlanta Campaign, 614, 
2. Operations in Virginia, May, 1864—April, 


1865, 636. 


. Isometric View of the Virginia Campaign, 


639. 


LES: 


Lovejoy, Owen, 648. 
Mansfield, Joseph K., 399. 
Marshall, John, 665. 
McCook, Daniel, 608. 
McCulloch, Hugh, 801. 
McPherson, James B., 465, 613. 
Meade, George G., 501. 
Miles, Nelson A., 761. 
Morgan, James D., 671. 
Mott, Gershom, 694. 
Mower, A. J., 684. 

Negley, James S., 539. 
Parke, John G., 554. 
Payne (Powell), Lewis, 786. 
Pemberton, John C., 464. 
Pendleton, George H., 669. 
Pleasonton, Alfred, 493. 
Pope, John, 382. 

Porter, Benjamin H., 730, 
Porter, David D., 730. 
Potter, Robert B., 531. 
Preston, Samuel W., 730. 
Ransom, T. E. G., 587. 
Rodgers, John, 430. 
Rousseau, Lovell H., 671. 
Ruffin, Edmund, 772. 
Sedgwick, John, 630. 
Semmes, Raphael, 424, 


283. 
284, 
285. 
286. 
287. 
288. 


289. 
290. 
291, 
292. 
293. 
294, 
295. 
296. 
297, 


298. 
299. 
300. 


301, 
302. 
303. 


304. 
305. 
306. 
307. 
308. 


309. 
310. 
311. 
312. 
313. 


Fort Morgan after its Surrender, 747, 

Light-house at Fort Morgan, 747. 

Grant’s Headquarters, City Point, 751. 

Field Hospital, Ninth Corps, 752. 

Negro Quarters—Army of the James, 752. 

Union and Confederate Works before Pe- 
tersburg, 754. 

Bridge on Military Railroad, 756. 

Ewell’s Headquarters, near Richmond, 758. 

Works captured by the Sixth Corps, 762. 

Evacuation of Petersburg, 763. 

Occupation of Petersburg, 764. 

Richmond, from Gamble’s Hill, 765. 

Ruins of Richmond—Main Street, 766. 

McLean’s House, 767. 

Position of Lee’s Army when surrendered, 
770. 

The last Shot, 771. 

The last Review, 772. 

James Bennett’s House—Johnston’s Sur- 
render, 775. 

Johnston’s Surrender, 776. 

Small-arms surrendered by Johnston, 777. 

apa surrendered by Johnston, 
hiks 

Lincoln at Home, 781. 

Lincoln’s Home, Springfield, Illinois, 782, 

Ford’s Theatre, Washington, 783. 

Garrett’s Barn and Outhouses, 785. 

Booth’s Inscription on the Window-pane, 
786. 

Mrs. Surratt’s House, Washington, 787. 

Grand Review at Washington, 790. 

Grand Review at Washington, 793. 

Confederate Prison-camp, Elmira, 794, 

Andersonville Cemetery, 796. 


. Map illustrating Hood’s Invasion, 676. 

. Battle of Nashville, 678. 

. Map of the March to the Sea, 688. 

. The Lines at Petersburg and Richmond. 


693. 


. Approaches to Savannah, 713. 

. Sherman’s Carolina March, 718. 

. Plan of Columbia, South Carolina, 718. 

. Wilmington and its Approaches, 722. 

2. Map of Fort Fisher, 729. 

. Charleston and its Environs, 739. 

- Mobile Bay, 745. 

- Map of Wilson’s Alabama and Georgia 


Campaign, 748. 


. Stoneman’s North Carolina Raid, 749. 

. Five Forks—Warren’s Movements, 759. 
. Retreat and Pursuit of Lee, 769. 

. Flight and Pursuit of Davis, 779. 

. President’s Box at Ford’s Theatre, 783. 


. Seymour, Horatio, 651. 

. Shaw, Robert G., 740. 

. Sheridan, Philip H., 623. 

. Sherman, William Tecumseh, 597, 684. 
. Sickles, Daniel E., 498. 


Sigel, Franz, 388. 


. Slocum, H. W., 684. 

. Smith, A. J., 587. 

. Smith, W. S., 571. 

. Steedman, James B., 679. 

. Stevens, Isaac J., 390. 

. Stevens, Thaddeus, 812. 

. Strong, George C., 740. 

. Sturgis, 8. D., 574. 

. Sumner, Charles, 657. 

. Surratt, John H., 787. 

. Taney, Roger B., 665. 

. Terry, Alfred H., 731. 

. Torbert, Albert, 712 

5. Vallandigham, Clement, L., 644. 
. Wadsworth, James S., 628. 
. Wagner, G. D., 677. 

. Warren, Gouverneur K., 624. 
. Washburne, C. C., 471. 

. Williams, A. S., 721. 

. Wilson, James H., 750. 

2. Winslow, John A., 425. 

. Wright, Horatio G., 630, 


- pes MS as ney 


Juny, 1862. ] POPE'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINTA. 881 


WV \ Vite 


MENRY W, HALLECK, 


CHAPTER XXII. 


POPE’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


Pope placed in command of the Army of Virginia.—Fremont relieved.—Positions of Pope’s 
Forces.—The Plan of Operations.—Pope’s Address. —His General Orders.—Similar Confeder- 
ate Orders.—Pope concentrates his Force.—Jackson ordered to Gordonsville. —Re-enforced by 
Hill.—Battle of Cedar Mountain.—Banks attacks and is repulsed.—The Losses.— Pope re- 
enforced.—Jackson retreats to Gordonsville.—Lee joins Jackson, and Pope withdraws beyond 
the Rappahannock.—Estimate of the Confederate Force.—The Design of Lee.—Manceuvring 
on the Rappahannock.—Speedy re-enforcements promised to Pope.—Stuart’s Raid on Catlett’s 
Station.—Capture of Pope’s Dispatch-book, and its Consequences.—Lee’s new Plan of Opera- 
tions. —Jackson marches for Thoroughfare Gap.—Longstreet follows him.—Pope begins to fall 
back.—Jackson captures Stores at Manassas Junction.—Fight at Bristoe Station.—Fitz John 
Porter ordered to move.—Taylor’s Brigade routed.—Jackson’s Peril.—He falls back to Bull 
Run.—First Battle at Groveton, August 28.—Pope confident of destroying Jackson.—Jackson 
stands at Bay.—Pope’s Plan.—Why it failed.—A ffairs at Washington.—Halleck and McClel- 
lan.—Second Battle of Groveton, August 29.—Sigel’s ineffectual Attack upon the Right.—Fight- 
ing upon the Centre and Left.—Longstreet reaches Thoroughfare Gap.—Skirmish at the Gap. 
—Longstreet’s Advance unites with Jackson.—-McDowell and Porter.—Pope orders Porter to 


1 In addition to the authorities heretofore mentioned, we use mainly in this chapter Pope’s Re- 


port, citing from the official copy, published by order of Congress; and the Report of the Fitz 
John Porter Court-martial, cited as ** Court-martial.”’ 


5 D 


attack.—The Order not obeyed.—Hooker’s and Reno’s Attack upon the Left.—Hatch’s Assault 
along the Turnpike.—Close of the Battle.—Pope claims a Victory.—Pope’s new Order to Por- 
ter.— Third Battle at Groveton, August 30: Strength of the two Armies.—Pope’s Forebodings. 
—Is convinced that the Enemy is retreating, and orders a Pursuit.—The Confederate Position. 
—The Union Line.—Porter attacks Jackson’s Right.—Reno and Heintzelman attack the Cen- 
tre.—Jackson demands Re-enforcements.—Longstreet’s Movements.—Warren’s Stand.—Re- 
treat of the Union Forces.—Losses in the Battles of Groveton.—The Forces after the Battle,— 
Terror at Washington.—McClellan and his Friends. —The Battle of Chantilly, or Ox Hill.— 
Death of Kearney and Stevens.—The Retreat to Washington.—Pope relieved from the Com- 
mand.—Estimate of Pope’s Campaign.—The Difficulties in his Way.—His early Measures ju- 
dicious.—His Error on the 29th.—The Time of Longstreet’s arrival on the Field.—The greater 
Error of the 30th.—Estimate of Lee’s Campaign.—Its different Phases. 


N the 26th of June, the day on which the closing operations before 
Richmond were commenced, General Pope was placed in command of 

the “Army of Virginia,” made up of the corps of Fremont, Banks, and 
McDowell. Fremont took umbrage at being thus placed under an officer 
whom he outranked, and asked to be relieved from his command. The re- 
quest was readily complied with, and he disappears from the history of the 
war, Sigel being placed in command of his corps. Pope found his army 
widely scattered. Of McDowell’s corps of 18,500 men, one half, under King, 


AS 
\\ 


JOUN POPE. 


was at Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock, the other half, under Ricketts, 
at Manassas Junction, thirty miles to the north; Banks, with 8000, and Fre- 
mont, with 11,500, were at Middletown, fifty miles farther to the northwest, 
with the Blue Mountains between them and Manassas. Infantry and artil- 
lery numbered 34,000, and there were about 5000 cavalry. A considerable 
part of the force was in bad condition. 

The Federal government was still nervously apprehensive for the safety 
of Washington, though there was not a single Confederate soldier within 
ten days’ march; every man had been withdrawn from the Shenandoah and 
Rappahannock to the Chickahominy. Pope was ordered, as McDowell had 
been, to cover Washington from attack from the direction of Richmond, as- 
sure the safety of the Valley of the Shenandoah, and then, by menacing the 
Confederate lines of communication with the South by way of Gordonsville, 
to endeavor to draw off some of the force then opposed to McClellan before 
Richmond. The whole plan of the campaign was based upon the supposi- 
tion that Jackson was still threatening the Valley, and thence Washington, 
Maryland, and even Pennsylvania. Pope’s first object was to concentrate 
his scattered command upon the line of the Rappahannock, whence he could, 
by rapid marching, interpose between any body of the enemy moving up the 
Valley and their main force at Richmond. The retreat of the Army of the 
Potomac to the James changed the whole aspect of affairs. Pope soon found 
that his plan for operations was wholly at variance with that of McClellan ; 
and at his suggestion Halleck was summoned! from the West, and, as gen- 
eral-in-chief, placed in command of both. 

Pope, on taking the field, issued an address to his army? censuring, by im- 
plication, the course of McClellan, and breathing a spirit of confidence which 
belied the forebodings which he felt.? “I have come,” he said, “from the 


? July 11. 
* I “took the field in Virginia with gimve forcbodings of the result, but with a 


2 July 14. 
determination to 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


ao 


[ JULY, 1862. 


West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army 
whose business has been to seek the adversary and beat him when found; 
whose policy has been attack and not defense. I presume that I have been 
called here to pursue the same system, and to lead you against the enemy. 
I desire you to dismiss from your minds certain phrases which I am sorry 
to find much in yogue among you. I hear constantly of taking strong po- 
sitions and holding them; of lines of retreat and bases of supplies. Let us 
discard such ideas. The strongest position a soldier should desire is one 
from which he can most easily advance against the enemy. Let us study 
the probable lines of retreat of our opponent, and leave our own to take care 
of themselves.” 

This address was followed by a series of General Orders prescribing the 
mode in which the campaign was to be conducted. The troops were, as far 
as practicable, to subsist upon the country in which their operations were 
carried on; vouchers were to be given for all supplies taken, payable at the 
close of the war, upon proof that the holders had been loyal citizens.‘ The 
cavalry should take no trains for baggage or supplies, only two days’ rations, 
to be carried on their persons; villages and neighborhoods through which 
they passed were to be laid under contribution for the subsistence of the 
men and horses.? People living along railroad and telegraph lines were to 
be held responsible for all damage done to them, and for guerrilla attacks. 
If roads or telegraphs were injured by guerrillas, the inhabitants living 
within five miles were to be turned out to repair them. Ifa soldier was 
fired upon from a house, it was to be razed to the ground, and the inhab- 
itants sent as prisoners to head-quarters. If such an outrage occurred at a 
distance from any settlement, the people within five miles should be held 
accountable, and made to pay an indemnity. Any person detected in such 
outrages, either during the act or afterward, was to be shot, without await- 
ing civil process.? All disloyal male citizens near, within, or in the rear of 
the army lines were to be arrested; those who took the oath of allegiance, 
and gave security for its observance, were to be allowed to remain at home; 
those who refused were to be sent South, beyond the extreme pickets of the 
army, and if thereafter found behind, within, or near the lines, would be con- 
sidered as spies, and subjected to the extreme rigor of military law. If any 
one violated the oath of allegiance, he should be shot, and his property con- 
fiscated. No communication should be held, except through the military 
authority, with any person residing within the lines of the enemy; and any 
person concerned in carrying letters or messages in any other way would 
be considered and treated as a spy.* 

Stringent as these orders were, their severest provisions had been more 
than anticipated by the action of the Confederate government in Tennessee. 
Hight months before,> Judah Benjamin, then Secretary of War, issued offi- 
cial instructions ‘‘as to the prisoners taken among the traitors of Kast 'Ten- 
nessee.” All, said the order, who can be “identified in having been en- 
gaged in bridge-burning, are to be tried summarily by drum-head court- 
martial, and, if found guilty, executed on the spot by hanging. It would 
be well to leave their bodies hanging in the vicinity of the burnt bridges.” 
All who had not been so engaged were to be sent to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 
and to be kept in confinement as prisoners of war. ‘In no case,” continues 
the order, “is one of the men known to have been up in arms against the 
government to be released on any oath or pledge of allegiance. The time 
for such measures is past. They are to be held as prisoners of war, and 
kept in jail until the close of the war. Such as come in voluntarily, take 
the oath of allegiance, and surrender their arms, are alone to be treated with 
leniency.” The Confederate government, however, denounced the orders of 
Pope as gross violation of the rules of war, and by a General Order® it was 
declared that General Pope, and the commissioned officers serving under 
him, were not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, and if any of 
them were captured they were to be kept in close confinement; and if any 
persons should be executed in pursuance of his General Orders, an equal 
number of these prisoners, selected by lot, should be hung. 

Pope’s first movement was to concentrate his scattered forces, so as to 
bring them within something like supporting distance of each other. Sigel, 
who now commanded Fremont’s corps, and Banks, were withdrawn from 
the Valley of the Shenandoah, and posted near Sperryville, east of the Blue 
Mountains; Ricketts, with his division of McDowell’s corps, was brought 
down from Manassas to Waterloo Bridge, twenty miles to the east; King’s 
division of McDowell’s corps was still left at Fredericksburg. The Army 
of Virginia was thus posted along a line of forty miles. The region having 
been abandoned by the Confederates, a rapid march of two days, either from 
his right or left, would have enabled Pope to seize Gordonsville, which com- 
manded the main railroad communication between Richmond and the South. 
Banks, who had in the mean while pushed southward a score of miles to 
Culpepper, was ordered, on the 14th of July, to send Hatch, who commanded 
the cavalry, to seize Gordonsville, and destroy the railroads which centre 
there from both directions. Hatch failed to execute this order, and having 
again failed a few days after, he was superseded in the command of the 
cavalry by Buford.’ 

Tidings of the renewed activity of the Federal forces on the Rappahan- 
nock soon reached Richmond, and although the Confederate capital was still 
threatened by McClellan’s great army on the James, so important was the 
possession of Gordonsville, the key of communication with the South, that 
Lee ventured to weaken his force at Richmond in order to counteract the 
menacing movements of Pope. On the 18th of July, Jackson, with his own 
division and that of Ewell, was ordered to proceed to Gordonsville, with the 


carry out the plans of the government with all the energy and all the skill of which I was mas- 
ter.” —Pope’s Report, 6. 1 Order No. 5. ? Order No. 6. 3 Order No. 7- 
* Order No, 11. 5 Nov. 25, 1861. © No. 54, August 1, 1862. 1 Pope's Report. 


Avaust, 1862. ] 


promise of re-enforcements in case there should be a chance to strike an 
effective blow without withdrawing troops too long from the defense of 
Richmond. Jackson found Pope too strong to warrant him in making any 
offensive movements, and for a fortnight contented himself with holding 
Gordonsville. But there being no indication that McClellan meditated 
moving upon Richmond, Lee, on the 27th of July, sent A. P. Hill to join 
Jackson.! The Confederate force at Richmond was thus reduced by 35,000 
men, fully a third of its number. 

On the 29th of July Pope left Washington to join his army in the field. 
On the 7th of August he advanced their position somewhat, concentrating 
his infantry within a space of ten miles along the road from Sperryville to 
Culpepper, the cavalry being thrown ten miles forward toward Gordons- 
ville. On the same day, Jackson, having been informed that only a part of 
the enemy was at Culpepper, marched his command in that direction, hop- 
ing to strike a portion of Pope’s army before it could be re-enforced. On 
the morning of the 9th, Banks was pushed six miles forward to a strong 
position near Cedar Mountain, and Ricketts was posted three miles in the 
rear. Sigel had been ordered to march to Culpepper, so as to be there in 
the morning; but, owing to misconception of orders, he did not arrive until 
late in the afternoon. 

In the afternoon of the 9th, Ewell, whose division was in the advance, 
came in sight of Banks’s position, near the northwestern flank of Cedar 
Mountain, a conical hill which rises sharply a few hundred feet from a plain 
intersected by creeks and low ridges. On the crest of one of these a body 
of Union cavalry was seen, the infantry and artillery being hidden by the 
opposite slope. ‘T'wo brigades of Ewell’s division, moving to the right, as- 
cended Cedar Mountain, and planted their batteries two hundred feet up the 
side, so as to command the valley below. The remainder of Ewell’s divi- 
sion, with a part of that of Jackson, keeping to the left, passed beyond the 
base of the mountain, and took up a position on a wooded ridge opposite the 
Union line. Hill’s division had not yet come up. Lawton’s brigade, the 
strongest of Jackson’s division, was left behind to guard the trains, and 
task no part in the action. Between the wooded ridges occupied by the 
two armies lay an open plain a few hundred yards wide; here was a corn- 
field, and beyond this a wheat-field, upon which the yellow shooks of grain 
just reaped were still standing. At four o’clock a fierce fire of artillery had 
fairly opened. Some loss was sustained by the Federals from the batteries 
on the mountain side; more by the Confederates in the plain below, Win- 
der, who now led the brigade which still bore the name of “ Jackson’s Own,” 
was killed, and the command of it devolved upon Taliaferro. The cannon- 
ade was kept up for an hour, when Banks, believing that the enemy were 
in no great force,? threw his whole division in two columns across the grain- 
field. One column charged straight across the field upon the Confederate 
right. Early, who was posted there, being sorely pressed, called for re-en- 
forcements. Hill had now come up, and one of his brigades was sent to 
Early’s support. The main assault was upon the Confederate left. So sud- 
den was the onset, that the extremity of the Confederate line was turned, 
and, before they were aware of it, they were charged directly in the rear, 
and forced back upon their centre, which also gave way. All seemed lost. 
The artillery, hurried to the rear, disappeared behind the crest of the ridge, 
while the greater part of the infantry broke away in confusion fast verging 
into rout. Jackson hurried in person to the front, and at length stopped the 
flight and re-formed his broken line. T'wo more brigades of Hill’s division 
had now come up, and were pushed into action. The Confederates on the 
field now outnumbered the Federals by nearly two to one’. The Union 
advance was checked, and then forced back across the open field beyond the 
ridge from which they had come. In the mean while, Pope, who was with 
Ricketts’s division, only three miles in the rear, became convinced, notwith- 
standing the assurances which he had just received from Banks, that the en- 
emy was really in force, and that a serious action was going on. He hur- 
ried forward with Ricketts, and just at dusk met the retreating forces of 
Banks. A new line was formed, toward which Jackson advanced cautious- 
ly in the darkness, opening upon it a sharp artillery fire, which was returned 
so vigorously that a Confederate battery was disabled and withdrawn. Jack- 
son then fell back, and passed the night on the battle-field. 

In this accidental engagement, which might be denominated simply an 
“affair” were it not for the magnitude of the loss on both sides, the Confeder- 
ates lost, in killed and wounded, about 1800; the Union loss was estimated 
at about 1400 killed and wounded, and 400 prisoners. Besides these there 
were a large number of stragglers, who never returned to their commands.* 


1 Tee's Rep., i., 15; 11.,.3. 

? Banks’s dispatches to Pope: ‘‘ August 9, 2 25. The enemy shows his cavalry, which is strong, 
ostentatiously. No infantry seen, and not much artillery. Woods on the left, said to be full of 
troops. A visit to the front does not impress that the enemy intends immediate attack. He 
seems, however, to be taking positions.”—‘‘4 50. About four o’clock, shots were exchanged by 
the skirmishers. Artillery fire on both sides in a few minutes. One regiment of rebel infantry 
advancing. Now deployed in front as skirmishers. I have ordered a regiment on the right, 
Williams’s, to meet them; and one on the left, Augur’s, to advance on the left and in front,”— 
‘5 P.M. They are now approaching each other.”—Pope’s Report, 218. 

3 The Union force consisted only of Banks’s corps, numbering at the outset only 8000. There 
were present, as is shown by the report of losses (Lee's Rep., ii., 49), forty-two regiments of Con- 
federate infantry, 21,000 men in all; but of these only about one half were seriously engaged in 
the actual fight. Two thirds of the loss, indeed, fell upon ten of the regiments of Jackson and 
Ewell. 

* “No report of killed and wounded has been made to me by General Banks. I can, therefore, 
only form an approximation of our losses in that battle. Our killed, wounded, and prisoners 
amounted to about 1800 men, besides which, fully 1000 men straggled back to Culpepper Court- 
house and beyond, and never entirely returned to their commands. . . . No material of war nor 
baggage-trains were lost on either side.”—Pope’s Report, 11. Jackson says: ‘‘ We captured 400 
prisoners, 5302 small-arms, one 12-pounder Napoleon and its caisson, with two other caissons and 
a limber, and three colors. ‘The official reports of the casualties in my command show a loss of 
223 killed, 1060 wounded, 31 missing—total loss, 1314. This was probably about one half that 
sustained by the enemy.”—Lee’s Rep.,ii., 7. There is reason to suppose that Pope’s estimate of 
his loss was too low; for he puts down Banks's force before the battle at 8000, and afterward he 
counts it at 5000, a diminution of 3000. If half of the 1000 stragglers returned to their com- 


POPE'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


383 


During he next two days the armies lay watching each other, neither 
commander venturing upon any offensive movement. King had, on the 
day before the battle, been ordered from Fredericksburg to join Pope. He 
arrived on the evening of the 11th, raising Pope’s force to about 33,000. 
With these, he proposed to fall at daylight upon Jackson, upon his line of 
communications, and compel him “to fight a battle which must have been 
entirely decisive for one army or the other.”! Jackson, whose numbers 
were about the same, had learned of the re-enforeements of Pope, and, sup- 
posing them to be much greater than they were, fell back during the night 
of the 11th, in order to “avoid being attacked by the vastly superior force 
in front of me, and with the hope that General Pope would be induced to 
follow me until I should be re-enforced.” 

The Union cavalry followed the retiring enemy to the Rapidan, and cap- 
tured some stragglers. They then returned to their former position, and 
occupied the line of the Rapidan from Raccoon Ford to the base of the Blue 
Ridge. On the 14th, Reno joined Pope with 8000 men of Burnside’s com- 
mand, which had been brought from North Carolina to Fortress Monroe, and 
thence to Fredericksburg. Pope, with his infantry, now numbering 40,000 
men, pushed forward a little beyond Cedar Mountain. A week had not 
passed, however, before Pope became assured that nearly the whole of the 
Confederate army had left Richmond, and were concentrated in his imme- 
diate front, designing to overwhelm him before he could be joined by any 
part of the Army of the Potomac. He thereupon fell back beyond the Rap- 
pahannock, and by the 19th his army, 45,000 strong, infantry and cavalry, 
was posted for eight miles along the north bank, from Rappahannock Sta- 
tion to Warrenton Springs. Across the river was Lee, with 85,000, being 
the whole of the Confederate army of Virginia, with the exception of D. H. 
Hill’s division, which was left a few days longer at Richmond, and Holmes’s, 
which was not moved at all.? 

Burnside’s corps had been brought from North Carolina to Fortress Mon- 
roe, and early in August it was known at Richmond that it was being em- 
barked on transports. The direction in which it was sent would furnish a 
clear indication of the Federal designs. If it came up the James to McClel- 


mand, there remain 2500 for killed, wounded, and prisoners, or 2100 killed and wounded, which 
we think to be about the true number. If all of the stragglers returned, there would still be a 
loss of 400 prisoners, and 1600 killed and wounded. 

1 Pope’s Report, 11. ? Jackson, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 7. 

° The Confederate ‘‘ Reports of the Army of Northern Virginia,” while minute upon almost 
every other topic, are almost wholly silent as to the force engaged in the operations of August and 
September. We are forced to rely upon other sources for an approximatiye estimate of these 
forces. Four independent lines of investigation, taken in connection with a few hints scattered 
through the Reports, give results so nearly alike, that we consider our estimate as substantially 
correct. 

I. It was shown (ante, pp. 361, 379) that the effective force at the commencement of the ‘* Seven 
Days” was 100,000, and that the losses in battle were about 20,000; to which should be added 
probably 10,000 by sickness during the ensuing six weeks. The conscription law had been fairly 
in operation since the close of June, and had, as the writer was informed by General J. E. John- 
ston, during the five weeks after the battle of Fair Oaks, added about 40,000 to the army at Rich- 
mond. ‘The operation of this law being very uniform, 40,000 were probably added during the six 
weeks preceding the middle of August. The recruits, instead of being sent on from the camps of 
instruction in regiments and brigades, were sent in squads to join the old regiments. This would 
make the entire force at the middle of August a little more than it was at the close of June—that 
is, 110,000. very division and brigade, with the exception of that of Holmes, some 10,000 strong, 
was finally sent from Richmond and Petersburg in the following order: Jackson, July 13; A. P. 
Hill, July 27; Longstreet, August 13; D. H. Hill, August 21, joining Lee on the 23d of Septem- 
ber, three days after the battle of Groveton. This makes the entire force at the outset 100,000 of 
all arms. 

II. The reports of casualties, which will be cited in the appropriate places, give the loss by regi- 
ments in the whole series of battles; and as every regiment was apparently brought into action at 
one time or another, these lists contain the entire number of regiments. We find 177 different 
regiments of infantry from the different states, as follows: Virginia, 39; Georgia, 87; North Car- 
olina, 26; South Carolina, 17; Alabama, 16; Mississippi, 12; Louisiana, 9; Texas, 3; ‘Tennes- 
see, 3; Florida, 2; Arkansas,1. From indicia scattered here and there, we put the aggregate 
strength of the regiments at 500, which gives 88,500 infantry; the artillery and cavalry we put 
down at 5000 each, making a total of 98,500 of all arms. 

II. There were, in all, 40 brigades; each of these comprised from three to six regiments. In 
many cases the numbers which were carried into the separate actions are noted in the reports. 
Comparing these, and taking into account the losses previously reported, we find the brigades to 
have averaged about 2250, making about 90,000 infantry, and 10,000 artillery and cavalry. 

These data thus all indicate, without the probability of any material error, that the entire force 
of the Confederate army, previous to any losses on the march or in action, was about 100,000 of all 
arms. The regiments brought into each action, and the losses in every battle being given through- 
out, we shall be able to arrive at a very close approximation of the actual force at each important 
period of the campaign. 

IV. After the foregoing estimate had been made, I obtained an abstract of the official returns 
of the various Confederate armies during almost the whole period of the war. ‘These returns 
came into the hands of the government at the surrender of the army of Lee. An abstract of these 
was furnished by the War Department to Mr. William Swinton, author of the ‘“‘ Campaigns of the 
Army of the Potomac.” For this, and many other documents as yet inaccessible to the general 
student, I am indebted to Mr. Swinton, These returns corroborate the accuracy with which my 
previous estimates had been framed. I here give the returns of the Confederate ‘* Army of North- 
ern Virginia” from Feb. 28, 1862, to Feb. 28,1865. I shall have frequent occasion, in subsequent 
chapters, to refer to this table. ‘The explanatory notes appended to it are my own. In referring 
to the strength of this army at different periods, I shall consider only those reported as ‘‘ present 
for duty.” It will be seen that the returns are wanting for some of the most important periods, 


RETURNS OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY OF NoRTHERN VirGINIA FROM Fex. 28, 1862, To 
Fern. 28, 1865. 


Present and Aggregate Present resen 

Date. Absent. Absont, ane for Duty. Date. ala Absent. bp ore i Pdr 

1862. Feb. 28° .. 84,225 .. 27,829 .. 56,396 .. 47,617 1863. Nov. 20 .. 96,576 .. 40,488 .. 56,088 .. 48,269 
July 20%.. 137,030 .. 42,344 .. 94,686 .. 69,559 ‘% Dec. 30 .. 91,253 .. 36,5388 .. 54,715 .. 43,558 
* Sept. 30° .. 139,143 .. 76,430 .. 62,713 .. 52,609 | 1864. Jan. 31 .. 79,602 .. 34,463 .. 45,139 .. 35,849 
“ Oct, 20 .. 153,778 .. 74,403 .. 79,395 .. 67,805 ‘+ Feb. 20 .. 68,435 .. 28,873 .. 39,562 .. 33,811 
“ Nov. 20 .. 153,790 ., 67,207 .. 86,583 .. 73,554 © Mar. 10 .. 79,203 .. 38,061 .. 46,151 .. 39,407 
* Dec. 31 .. 152,853 .. 61,799 .. 91,004 .. 79,072 © April10 .. 97,576 .. 36,358 .. 61,21S .. 52,626 
1863. Jan. 31 .. 144,605 .. 51,308 .. 93,297 .. 72,226 June 30 .. 92,685 .. 30,114 .. 62,571 .. 51,863 
% Feb. 284... 114,175 .. 39,740 .. 74,435 .. 59,559 % July 10° .. 135,805 .. 66,961 .. 68,844 .. 57,097 
‘© Mar. 31 .. 109,839 .. 36,460 .. 73,379 .. 60,298 % May 31 ., 146,838 .. 87,854 .. 58,984 .. 44,247 
% May 31 .. 133,689 .. 44,9385 .. 88,754 .. 68,352 Oct. 31 .. 177,103 .. 94,468 .. 82,6385 .. 62,875 
“ July 81 .. 117,602 .. 63,991 .. 53,611 .. 41,135 © Noy. 30 .. 181,826 .. 93,966 .. 87,860 .. 69,290 
Aug. 31 .. 133,264 .. 61,300 .. 71,964 .. 56,327 “ Dec. 20 ., 155,772 .. 76,454 .. 79,318 .. 66,583 
“ Sept. 30° ., 95,164 .. 39,943 .. 55,221 .. 44,367 | 1865. Jan. 31 .. 141,627 ., 71,954 .. 69,673 .. 53,445 
% Oct. 31 .. 97,211 .. 39,960 .. 57,251 .. 45,614 “Feb. 28% .. 160,411 .. 87,062 .. 73,349 .. 59,094 


* Tt has been shown (ante, p. 360) that at the close of May this army numbered 67,000, and (ante, p. 361) that at the 
end of June it had fully 100,000 men present for duty. 

> Three weeks after the close of the ‘Seven Days," its force present for duty, notwithstanding its losses, was near- 
ly 70,000 on the 20th of July. The returns for the next six weeks are wanting; but it is certain that large additions 
were received, bringing its marching force in August fully up to 100,000, 

© On the 30th of September, a fortnight after the battle of Antietam, there were but 72,000 ‘* present,” including 
sick and wounded. By this time all those who had fallen out in the march had rejoined their commands, so that the 
campaign from Cedar Run to Antietam cost 38,000, disabled and deserters, During the next two months the army 
was largely augmented by conscription. 

4 The diminution at this time was owing to a part of Longstreet's corps having been sent to North Carolina, where 
he remained until May. 

© At this time Longstreet had been sent with re-enforcements to Bragg in Tennessee, 

‘ From this time the effects of desertion and sickness became strikingly apparent. The number of the “ absent” 
exceeds, sometimes very considerably, that of the “present ;"" while of those ‘*present’’ only about two thirds were 
fit for ‘‘duty.” The effective strength of the army was only about one third of its nominal force. 

® The returns for the remainder of the period before the surrender are wanting. 


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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


—— 


[ AUGUST, 1862. 


ed attempts to cross at various points, and an almost continuous ar- 
tillery fire was kept up along the whole line of eight miles, with little 
loss on either side.! Lee then began to move slowly up the river, in 
order to turn the Union right. Pope had been directed to keep him- 
self in communication with Fredericksburg, whither the Army of the 
Potomac was being brought, and could not extend his right to check 
the enemy. He was assured, however, that if he could hold his line 
until the close of the 23d, he would receive re-enforcements sufficient 
to enable him to assume the offensive.2 On the 22d he resolved to 
cross the river the next morning, and fling his whole force upon the 
flank and rear of Lee’s long column, which was passing toward his 
right. The manceuvre, except that it involved no long march of the 
attacking column, would have been almost a repetition of that by which 
Lee assailed McClellan’s retreating column at Frazier’s Farm; but such 
was the disparity of force that it could hardly have been other than a 
disastrous failure. But a fierce rain-storm during the night raised the 
waters of the shallow river six or eight feet, swept away the bridges 
and overflowed the fords, so as to render the movement impracticable, 
and also prevented Lee from any serious attempt to cross above, which 
he had begun to do.? 

An episode occurred during that stormy night of the 22d which, 
though trifling in itself, changed the whole course of the campaign. 
Pope’s head-quarters were at Catlett’s Station, ten miles in the rear of 
the centre of his line. Here all the army trains were parked, guarded 
by 1500 infantry and five companies of cavalry. Stuart, with 1500 
cavalry, had crossed the river above Pope’s extreme right, and, gain- 
ing the rear of his line, pressed, without being discovered, down to Cat- 
lett’s Station. Here, in the midst of the darkest night he ever knew, 
Stuart found himself in the very midst of the Union camp. By chance 
he encountered a negro whom he had known before, who offered to 
guide him to the spot occupied by Pope’s staff. A few companies 
stole unperceived up to the tents “occupied by the convivial staff of 
Pope,” charged upon them, captured one or two of the inmates, and 
seized some plunder. But of far more importance than all was Pope’s 
dispatch-book, which revealed just the situation of his army, his im- 
minent need of re-enforcements, and his expectation of the time when 
they would reach him. This bold dash cost one man killed and one 
wounded. When that unnamed negro, accidentally encountered in 
the darkness, guided the Sixth Virginia cavalry to Pope’s tent, he was 
potentially fighting the battles of Groveton and Antietam. 

The disclosures made by this dispatch-book convinced Lee that, if 
he could at once throw his force directly upon the Union rear, cutting 
its communications with Washington, Pope’s whole army could be de- 
stroyed or captured. To do this his force must be divided, a part 
marching rapidly around the enemy’s right to his rear, the remainder 
occupying his attention in front until the departing column was well 
advanced, when it would follow by the same route.6 The manoeuvre 
was a delicate one, depending upon every movement being executed 
at the precise time. A sudden storm, or any other accident interfering 


MAP OF THE OAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


Jan, the siege of Richmond was to be pressed. If it went to the Rappahan- 
nock, McClellan would be withdrawn from the James. Mosby, soon to be 
known as a vigorous partisan leader, had been captured; being set free by 
exchange, he passed Fortress Monroe as Burnside was embarking. He 
learned from a sure source that the destination was the Rappahannock, and 
conveyed to Lee the long-wished-for information. Reports, which, how- 
ever, were premature, also affirmed that a part of McClellan’s army had 
gone to the aid of Pope. It was clear, therefore, that active operations 
against Richmond were no longer contemplated; and Lee believed that he 
might venture to leave the Confederate capital, and advance with almost his 
whole army upon Pope, and overwhelm him before re-enforcements could 
reach him. Some changes had been made in the organization of his army. 
Iluger, whose incompetency had been demonstrated, was displaced; Ma- 
gruder was sent to Texas. Their divisions, and that of Whiting, which had 
been only temporarily attached to Jackson's force during the Seven Days, 
were united with that of Longstreet, and placed under his command. This 
body of 50,000 men left Richmond by the 18th of August, and moved with 
such rapidity that by the 16th it had passed Gordonsville, and was advanc- 
ing toward the Rappahannock, whither Jackson had proceeded the day be- 
fore.2 Thus, two days before McClellan’s advance corps and trains had 
fairly started from their camp on the James, Richmond and Petersburg were 
left defended only by about 20,000, the division of D. H. Hill and Holmes, 
with perhaps a few raw conscripts who had not been assigned to their places 
in the grand army. So secretly had this movement been made, that on this 
very day reports reached McClellan that the enemy were advancing against 
him from the Chickahominy; and on the 17th he wrote that he should not 
feel entirely secure until he had his whole army beyond the Chickahominy ,° 
and a week later he thought it necessary to strengthen the defenses of York- 
town to resist an attack from the direction of Richmond. On that very 
day D. H. Hill left Petersburg with his division, the last to join in the 
movement toward Washington.* 

Early on the morning of the 20th the pickets of Pope’s right at Rappa- 
hannock Station were driven in, and before night the main body of the Con- 
federate infantry, outnumbering him almost two to one, were in his front 
across the Rappahannock. During the two following days Lee made repeat- 


1 Cooke’s Stonewall Jackson. 
8 McC. Rep., 314, 317. 


? Lee's Rep.,i., 18; ii., 81, 90. 
* McC. Rep., 320; Lee's Rep., ii., 111. 


for a single day, would thwart the whole plan. It was also hazardous 

Bie ORY; . : p ; 1Ous, 
for the Union army might fall with equal or superior force upon either 
of the separated divisions. Still, the chance of great success was sufficient 
to warrant the attempt, and not a moment was lost in carrying it out. 

The first part, upon the successful execution of which every thing de- 
pended, was confided to Jackson, whose capacity for conducting a rapid 
march had been abundantly tested. On the morning of the 25th he left 
his position, passed up the south bank of the Rappahannock, crossing the 
river beyond Pope’s extreme right, and then pressed rapidly up the narrow 
valley between Blue and Bull Run Mountains. The column pressed on by 
strange country roads and by “nigh cuts” across open fields, and at mid- 
night, after a march of twenty miles, reached Salem, a little town just op- 
posite the Thoroughfare Gap, through which he hoped to pass the Bull Run 
Mountains, and emerge directly upon Pope’s rear. If that pass shouldbe 
defended the whole movement would be a failure. Stuart, with all the 
cavalry, accompanied the column on its right, scouring the region between 
it and the Union force. It was hoped that the movement would be unper- 
ceived and unsuspected by the enemy. ‘Don’t shout, boys, the Yankees 
will hear us,” said Jackson, as the long column passed by a point where he 
stood, proudly watching their rapid march. ‘“ Who could fail,” he said, “to 
win victory with these men?”® 

Pope, however, was not taken by surprise. Jackson’s march had hardly 
been begun when he was informed that ‘‘a large detachment of the enemy, 
numbering 86 regiments of infantry, with the usual number of batteries of 
artillery and a large cavalry force, was marching rapidly up the North 
Branch, and was then pressing on toward White Plains and Salem, and 
from these points would be able to turn our right by the direction of Thor- 
oughfare Gap, or even north of that place.”” He was, however, compelled 

! The Confederate loss, August 20-23, was 152 killed and wounded.—Lee’s Rep., i., 50. 

? Halleck to Pope, August 21: ‘I have telegraphed to General Burnside to know at what hour 
he can re-enforce Reno. I am waiting his answer. Every effort must be made to hold the Rap- 
pahannock. Large forces will be in to-morrow.””—Later, same day : ‘*T have just sent [query 
received] General Burnside’s reply. General Cox’s forces. are coming on from Parkersburg, and 
will be here to-morrow or next day. Dispute every inch of ground, and fight like the devil till we 
can re-enforce you. Forty- -eight hours more, and we can make you strong enough. Don’t yield 
an inch if you can help it.”—Pope's Report, 221, 222. 

General Haupt, Siperiniesdont of Transportation at Alexandria, to Pope, received August 24: 
‘‘Thirty thousand troops or more demand transport. We can manage 12,000 per day. The 
new troops might march, the veterans go in cars, horses driven; baggage, tents, ete., wait until 
they can be forwarded. Supplies take precedence. »—Later, same day : “We expect to clean out 
all the troops now here, and all that are expected see a ’—Ibid., 227. % Pope's Report, 13. 


* Stuart, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 137. 5 Lee’s Rep.,i., s Caoke’ 8 Stonewall Jackson, 275. 
7 Pope’s Report, 15. Colonel J. 8S. Clark, who at por risk watched Jackson’s march, saw 


Aveust, 1862. ] 


by his orders to hold his force in such a position as to enable him to keep 
up his communication with Fredericksburg. Assurances of speedy re-en- 
foreements were so precise and definite that he felt warranted in holding 
his position. He was assured that 30,000 would reach him by the 25th; 
but on the evening of that day only 8000 had come up.’ 

On the 26th, Longstreet, who had kept up a show of force in front of 
Pope, yet all the while creeping away to his right, commenced his march to 
unite with Jackson, who, having left Salem at daybreak, was pressing through 
Thoroughfare Gap. Pope then abandoned the line of the Rappahannock, 
and undertook to throw his whole force in the direction of Gainesville and 
Manassas Junction. On the morning of the 27th he had 54,000 infantry, 
made up of his own Army of Virginia, and the re-enforcements which had 
reached him from Burnside’s corps and the Army of the Potomac. He had 
also nominally 4000 cavalry, but their horses were so broken dow that 
hardly 500 were fit for service.? 

Jackson, in the mean while, had passed Thoroughfare Gap on the morning 
of the 26th; pressed past Gainesville, which Pope supposed to be strongly 
occupied, but where there was not a single Union soldier, and by sunset was 
at Bristoe Station, on the railroad which formed Pope’s chief means for sup- 
plies. At Manassas Junction, seven miles distant, was a large dépdt of sup- 
plies almost without guard. <A strong body of cavalry under Stuart, and 
about 500 infantry under Trimble, were dispatched to seize these stores. 
They pressed on through the darkness, though the infantry had made a 
march of more than twenty miles that day, and before dawn had effected 
their purpose, capturing the only considerable dépédt of stores between 
Pope’s army and Washington.* These stores were destroyed by the Con- 
federates, and so were of little advantage to Jackson beyond giving his 
hungry troops rations for a single day, but their loss proved a serious dis- 
advantage to Pope. 

On the morning of the 27th the greater part of Jackson’s command moved 
to Manassas, leaving Ewell at Bristoe, upon which place Hooker was march- 
ing. A short action took place in the afternoon, in which Ewell was worst- 
ed, but he fell back in good order to Manassas.° Fitz John Porter, who, with 
4500 men, was at Warrenton Junction, nine miles distant, was ordered by 
Pope to move during the night to Bristoe, to the support of Hooker, whose 
ammunition was entirely exhausted. He was to be there at daybreak, but 
did not reach the place until six hours later.6 Meanwhile a considerable 
body of Union troops came down toward Manassas along the railroad. 
They found the Junction too strongly held to be recovered, and after a gal- 
lant fight, in which General Taylor was killed, they retreated with much loss.’ 

Pope’s force was now concentrating in the neighborhood of Manassas. 
Had this concentration been effected one day earlier, Jackson would have 
marched into the jaws of destruction. As it was, he was in imminent peril. 
He had no alternative but to retreat, but whither it was hard to say. 
McDowell, marching to his right from Warrenton, was at Gainesville, with 
a force equal to his own, cutting him off to the west by the route by which 
he had advanced. To retreat northward toward Aldie would have removed 
him every step farther from the main army of Lee, which was yet beyond 
the Bull Run Mountains. He adopted the only course which could have 
saved him, and even in this the chances were fearfully against him. This 
was to fall back toward the point from which Longstreet was advancing, 
and at the same time deceive his opponent as to the direction of his retreat. 
His own division, now commanded by Taliaferro, moved from Manassas 
directly north, while Ewell and Hill, with the cavalry, marched northeast- 
ward, as if pushing straight for Washington. At Centreville they turned 
sharply west, and during the 28th rejoined Taliaferro a little west and north 
of the battle- field of Bull Run.6 The ruse succeeded. Pope withdrew 
McDowell from Gainesville, marched him directly toward Centreville, and 
ordered Heintzelman in the same direction. Jackson had now secured 
a strong position a little north and west of the battle-field of Bull Run. 
McDowell’s line of march led him close by the right of Jackson, and ex- 
posed him to a flank attack. This was made by Jackson just before sunset, 
and a sharp action, mostly of artillery, ensued, which was terminated by the 
darkness, neither side gaining any decided advantage, and both suffering 
heavy loss. Ewell and Taliaferro were severely wounded."® 

Pope, supposing that Jackson was in full retreat to Thoroughfare Gap, 
was confident that there was no escape for him. At half past nine he wrote 
to Kearney, ‘‘ McDowell has intercepted the retreat of the enemy, and is now 


only a part of his force. Instead of 36 regiments of infantry, Jackson had about 66, all of which 
were on the march, ‘The entire cavalry force of the Confederate army was at this time with 
Jackson, for Longstreet (Lee’s Lep., ii., 81) says that on the 27th he had no cavalry. 

1 Pope’s Report, 15. Also, considerably enlarged, Reb. Rec., v., 348. Also Note %, ante, p. 384. 

? Pope's Report, 17. 

3 At half past ten on the evening of that day, McDowell, then at Warrenton, wrote to Pope, 
‘* Centreville and Manassas are fortified, the former sufficiently to offer a stout resistance, and the 
latter enough to aid materially raw troops.’”’—Pope’s Report, 200. 

* Among the stores captured were 50,000 pounds of bacon, 1000 barrels of beef, 2000 of pork, 
2000 of flour; two trains loaded with stores and clothing, large quantities of forage, 8 guns, 42 
wagons and ambulances, 200 tents ; 300 prisoners, 200 negroes, and 175 horses also fell into their 
hands. —Lee’s Rep., ii., 155. A sharp dispute arose between Stuart and Trimble as to the credit 
of this operation, each denying the claims of the other.—JZbid., 143, 150-159. Jackson (Jbid., 
93) clearly gives it to Trimble. 5 Lee's Rep., 93. 

6 Pope’s Testimony on Porter's Trial. The failure to execute this order formed one of the 
charges against Porter, who was subsequently tried by court-martial and cashiered. 

7 Lee's Rep., ii., 93. 

® Pope indeed says (Report, 18) that, if Jackson had massed his whole force and attacked the 
Union centre at Bristoe Station, the most serious consequences would have ensued ; but the result 
fully justifies Jackson’s course. 

° Pope says, ‘‘ Each party maintained its ground.” Jackson says, ‘‘The Federals did not at- 
tempt to advance, but maintained their ground with obstinate determination. Both lines stood 
exposed to the discharge of musketry and artillery until about nine o’clock, when the enemy slow- 
ly fell back, yielding the field to our troops.” 

1° The actions of this and the two following days are known as indifferently as the ‘‘ Second 
Bull Run Battle,” the “ Battle of Manassas Plains,” the ‘‘ Second Manassas Battle,” and the “ Bat- 
_ tle of Groveton.” They were all one battle, fought on the same ground. We think Groveton the 
most appropriate, that being the name of a small hamlet near the centre of the battle-field. 


5K 


POPE'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


385 


in his front. Unless he can escape by by-paths leading to the north to- 
night, he must be captured.” McDowell must hold his ground at all haz- 
ards, prevent the retreat of Jackson, and by daylight the next morning the 
whole force would be up from Centreville and Manassas Junction, and be- 
tween them the enemy must be crushed. Jackson had now, after his losses, 
exclusive of cavalry, not quite 80,000 men. Pope had, or rather supposed 
that he had, 50,000, who could be brought into action in the morning. Of 
these, 25,000, under McDowell, Sigel, and Reynolds, were supposed to be 
directly west of Jackson, between him and the Gap; 25,000 more, with 
Kearney, Hooker, and Reno, near Centreville, on the east. His only appre- 
hension was that Jackson might retreat northward toward Leesburg, and to 
prevent this, Kearney was to keep close to him during the night of the 
28th. 

This apparently well-conceived plan was based upon a misconception as 
to the purpose and position of the enemy. Jackson had no purpose of re- 
treating, but had taken a position which he meant to hold until he should 
be joined by Longstreet, who was a full day’s march nearer him than Pope 
supposed. ‘The execution of his plan was prevented by a movement previ- 
ously made by McDowell, who had sent Ricketts toward Thoroughfare Gap, 
and had before withdrawn King’s division to Manassas Junction, near which 
place Porter now was. Pope’s force, therefore, instead of being in the rear 
and on the front of Jackson, was on his right flank and front—Sigel’s corps 
near Groveton, close on the flank; McDowell and Porter near Manassas ; 
Reno and Heintzelman in front, toward Centreville. McDowell and Porter 
were ordered, on the morning of the 29th, toward Gainesville, and thus gain 
a position somewhat in Jackson’s rear, while Sigel was to fall upon his flank, 
and Heintzelman and Reno, marching from Centreville, to attack him in 
front. These movements would bring the whole force together; and when 
communication was established, the whole command was to halt, and, above 
all things, to occupy a position from which they could reach Bull Run that 
night; for Pope presumed that it would be necessary to do this on account 
of supplies. ‘‘ The indications,” he said, “are, that the whole force of the 
enemy is moving in this direction at a pace which will bring them here by 
to-morrow night or next day.’ 

Pope’s expectation upon the morning of the 29th was, with his whole 
force, two to one, to fall upon Jackson’s front, right flank, and rear; and he 
hoped, with good reason, “to gain so decisive a victory over the army un- 
der Jackson, before he could have been joined by any of the forces under 
Longstreet, that the army of Lee would have been so crippled and checked 
by the destruction of this large force as to be no longer in condition to pros- 
ecute operations of an aggressive character.”? This accomplished, he would 
have fallen back across Bull Run, and have awaited supplies and re-enforce- 
ments, which would in a day or two have given him a force superior to that 
of the enemy. ‘This plan failed utterly through the determined resistance 
opposed by Jackson, and from the fact that Longstreet was nearer at hand 
than was supposed. At the very moment when this order was written, 
Longstreet was pressing through the narrow gorge of Thoroughfare Gap; 
and, instead of coming to Jackson’s aid “to-morrow night or next day,” he 
was able to give him essential support that afternoon, and by the next morn- 
ing, the 80th, to bring his whole force upon the field. 

In the mean while all was confusion, doubt, and ignorance at the Federal 
capital. McClellan left Fortress Monroe on the 238d for Acquia Creek, on 
the Rappahannock, whither a part of his army had preceded him, and the 
rest was to follow. Next day he telegraphed to Halleck for orders, and es- 
pecially for information as to where Pope was, and what he was doing. ‘I 
do not know,” replied the general-in-chief, “‘where Pope is, or where the 
enemy in force is. ‘These are matters which I have been all day most anx- 
ious to ascertain.” ‘Two days later Halleck telegraphed, ‘There is reason 
to believe that the enemy is moving a large force into the Shenandoah Val- 
ley. Don’t draw any troops down the Rappahannock at present; we shall 
probably want them all in the direction of the Shenandoah. Perhaps you 
had better leave Burnside in charge at Acquia Creek, and come to Alexan- 
dria, as very great irregularities are reported there.” On the 27th still 
there was no sure information as to what was going on. Past midnight, 
McClellan had heard that heavy firing had been heard at Centreville; le 
had sent to ascertain the truth, and, meanwhile, asked anxiously whether 
the works in front of Washington were garrisoned and ready for defense. 
At 1 85 there is news that ‘ Taylor’s brigade, sent this morning to Bull Run 
Bridge, had been cut to pieces or captured ;” and McClellan thinks the best 
policy will be to make the works at Washington “ perfectly safe, and mobil- 
ize a couple of corps as soon as possible, but not to advance them until they 
can have their artillery and cavalry.” At 2 380: “TI still think that we 
should first provide for the immediate defense of Washington on both sides 
of the Potomac. I am not responsible for the past, and can not be for the 
future, unless I receive authority to dispose of the available force according 
to my judgment. Please inform me at once what my position is. I do not 
wish to act in the dark.” At6: “A dispatch from Pope, dated at 10 A.M., 
says, ‘ All forces now sent forward should be sent to my right, at Gaines- 
ville” I have at my disposal here about 10,000 men of Franklin’s corps, 
about 2500 of General Tyler’s brigade, and Colonel Tyler’s 1st Connecticut 
Artillery, which I recommend should be held for the defense of Wash- 
ington. If you wish me to order any part of this force to march to the 
front, it is in readiness to march at a moment’s notice to any point you may 
indicate.”* At 4 10, on the 28th: “Franklin is with me here at Alexan- 


1 Pope’s Report, 19. 

? Pope’s General Order, No. 5, August 29, to McDowell and Porter.—Report, 241. 

3 Pope’s Report, 22. 

* The dispatches are dated 1 35, 2 30, 6 P.M., August 27; but the context indicates that they 


386 HARPER'S 


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PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


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MAP OF OPERATIONS, AUGUST 28, 29, 30. 


dria. I will know in a few minutes the condition of the artillery and cay- 
alry. We are not yet in a condition to move; may be by to-morrow morn- 
ing. I have ordered troops to garrison the works at Upton’s Hill. They 
must be held at any cost. It is the key to Washington, which can not be 
seriously menaced as long as itis held.” Halleck writes: ‘‘ Place Sumner’s 
corps, as it arrives, near the guns, and particularly at the Chain Bridge. 
The principal thing now to be feared is a cavalry raid into this city, espe- 
cially in the night time.” McClellan, on the 29th: ‘“ Franklin’s corps is in 
motion; started about6 P.M. He has but forty rounds of ammunition, and 
no wagons to move more. I do not think he is in condition to accomplish 
much if he meets with serious resistance. I should not have moved him 
but for your pressing order of last night.” And in the afternoon, the battle 
then being fought, though no one at Washington knew it: “The last news 
I received from Manassas was from stragglers, to the effect that the enemy 
were evacuating Centreville and retiring toward Thoroughfare Gap. This 
is by no means reliable. I am clear that one of two courses should be 
adopted: (1st.) To concentrate all our available forces to open communica- 
tion with Pope. (2d.) To leave Pope to get out of his scrape, and at once 
use all our means to make the capital perfectly sure. No middle ground 
will now answer. ‘Tell me what you wish me to do, and I will do all in my 
power to accomplish it.”? 

Official reports from Washington notified McClellan that large bodies of 
the enemy were moving through Vienna, in the direction of the Chain 
Bridge; so McClellan halted Franklin at Annandale, only a few miles to- 
ward Pope.? Yet there was not a Confederate soldier within thirty miles, 
or between him and the forces at Washington. Jackson was sternly hold- 
ing his ground beyond Bull Run, on almost the very spot where a year, a 
week, and a day before he had won the title of ‘““Stonewall;” and Long- 
street, having marched since early dawn, and for three successive days be- 
fore, was within hearing of the noise of the battle which Jackson was so 
firmly waging. 

Early on the morning of the 29th Sigel opened the attack on the Confed- 
erate right? Jackson’s left, under Hill, stretched northward toward Sudley 
Ford, on the Bull Run; then came Ewell’s division, under Lawton, in the 
centre; then Jackson’s own division, now commanded by Starke, on the 
right, resting near the little hamlet of Groveton. His force lay mainly be- 
hind an abandoned railroad, whose deep cuttings formed a strong intrench- 
ment. ‘The ground was thickly wooded. His artillery was mainly massed 
in on low ridges in the rear of his right. Jackson’s front fell back about 
half a mile until they reached the abandoned railroad, where a fierce com- 
bat ensued.* Milroy and Schurz, of Sigel’s corps, charged fiercely upon the 
enemy, sheltered by this embankment, but were driven back; the charge 
was repeated, and again repulsed. The Confederates then advanced, but 
were checked by a hot artillery fire, and fell back to their position.® Jack- 
son was fighting a defensive battle, in order to hold his position until re-en- 
forced by Longstreet, who was rapidly coming up. Pope came upon the 
field about noon, and, in reply to Sigel’s request for aid, told him that he 
must hold his ground, but that he should not be again pushed into action, 
for McDowell and Porter were coming up from Manassas by the Gainesville 


were sent during the night of the 27th, and should properly have been dated at these hours A.M. 
of the 28th. 1 McC. Rep., 321-830. 2 Tbid., 332. 

* Pope says the attack began about daylight. Sigel says: ‘‘ From half past six to half past ten 
our whole infantry and nearly all our batteries were engaged in a most vehement artillery and in- 
fantry contest.” Jackson says: ‘‘In the morning, about ten o’clock, the Federal artillery opened 
with spirit and animation upon our right, which was soon replied to by our batteries.” 

* Pope says: ‘* Jackson fell back several miles, but was so closely pressed that he was compelled 
to make a stand, and make the best defense possible.” ‘This is clearly an error, for Sigel says, 
‘*Milroy and Schurz advanced one mile, and Schenck two miles from their original positions ;” 
and those were from three quarters of a mile to a mile and a half from a belt of woods occupied 
by the Confederate skirmishing-line. This simply fell back a few hundred yards to the railroad, 
Jackson’s real line. * Reports of Milroy and Schurz, in Pope’s Report, 90, 109. 


road, and would soon fall upon the enemy’s flank and probably upon his 
rear.' Heintzelman’s corps, comprising the divisions of Hooker and Kear- 
ney, had meanwhile come upon the field and taken position on the right, 
and Reno’s corps between Sigel and Heintzelman. For four hours a series 
of sharp skirmishes ensued along the centre and left of the Confederate 
line.? 

Longstreet’s command, Lee accompanying, had been advancing in the 
track of Jackson. It reached White Plains, at the western entrance of the 
Thoroughfare Gap, on the evening of the 27th, where the night was passed, 
and at dawn of the 28th pressed forward to that narrow defile, which a thou- 
sand men could have held against five times their number. Presuming it 
to be held, Longstreet sent a part of his force by a rough mountain path to 
Hopewell Gap, three miles northward, to turn the Union rear. But Thor- 
oughfare Gap, the key to every thing, was not held. After some skirmish- 
ing, the Confederates poured through and gained its eastern mouth. Rick- 
etts, commanding a division of McDowell’s corps, had been sent from Gaines- 
ville in that direction “to assist Colonel Wyndham, who, at 10 15 A.M., re- 
ported the enemy passing through Thoroughfare Gap.” He pushed for- 
ward rapidly, but was too late. At three in the afternoon, before reaching 
the Gap, he met Wyndham’s skirmishers retiring before the enemy, who 
were already in possession. After vainly attempting to check them, find- 
ing himself outflanked on both sides, he retreated to Gainesville, and thence 
to Manassas, and the way was open for Longstreet to come to the aid of 
Jackson, who stood at bay on his chosen ground.? 

Karly on the morning of the 29th Longstreet’s columns were united, and 
the advance to join Jackson was resumed. Before they reached Gainesville, 
the noise of the battle, five miles distant, was heard. The wearied troops 
pressed on with renewed vigor. His advance passed through Gainesville 
about nine o’clock,* and in an hour began to come upon the field, and took 
positions on the rear and to the right of Jackson. The Confederate right 
now extended across the Warrenton Turnpike to the Manassas Railroad. 
The joint order to Porter and McDowell directing them to move toward 
Gainesville, found these commands near Bethlehem Church, two miles west 
of Manassas, and four or five miles from the field of battle. King’s division 
had been detached from McDowell, and placed under Porter for a special 
purpose. McDowell, being senior officer, assumed command, and gave Por- 
ter an order for his movements,* and pushed his corps, including King’s di- 
vision, toward the battle-field, which he reached at about four o’clock. Pope, 
who was wholly unaware that Longstreet had united with Jackson,*® now 
sent an order to Porter to come into action. “Your line of march,” he 
wrote, ‘brings you in on the enemy’s right flank. I desire you to push 
forward into action at once on the enemy’s flank, and, if possible, on his 


1 Pope's Report, 21. 

? After the attack in the morning, ‘‘the enemy moved around more to our left to another point 
of attack. This was vigorously repulsed by the batteries. About two o’clock P.M. the Federal 
infantry, in large force, advanced to the attack of our left.” — Jackson, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 95. 
‘From twelve until four o’clock very severe skirmishes occurred constantly at various parts of 
our line, and were brought on at every indication the enemy made of a disposition to retreat.” —~ 
Pope’s Report, 21. 

° Longstreet, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 81; McDowell, in Pope’s Report, 44; Ricketts, Zbid., 169. 

* General John Buford at this time counted 17 regiments of infantry, one battery of artillery, 
and about 500 cavalry. He estimates the regiments at 800 each; this is probably too high.— 
Court-martial, 188. He, however, saw only a part of Longstreet’s force. 

° There is an irreconcilable discrepancy as to the nature of this order. McDowell testifies that 
it was to this effect: ‘You put your force in here [pointing in the direction where a cloud of dust 
indicated that a body of the enemy were approaching], and I will take mine up at the Sudley 
Spring road, on the left of the troops engaged at that point with the enemy. . . . The question 
with me was how soonest, within the limits fixed by the order of General Pope, this force of ours 
could be applied against the enemy,” the limitation being that ‘‘the troops must occupy a po- 
sition from which they can reach Bull Run to-night or in the morning.””—Court-martial, 85. 
Porter asserts that the order was that he should remain where he was. No other persons were 
within hearing when this order was given, or of the conversation which preceded and followed it. 

® **T did not then believe, nor do I now believe, that at that time [4 30 P.M.] any considerable 
portion of Longstreet’s corps had reached the vicinity of the battle-field.”—Pope’s Testimony, 
Qourt-martial, 35, 


Avaust, 1862. ] 


POPE'S CAMPAIGN IN 


VIRGINIA. 387 


THOROUGHFARE GAP, 


rear, keeping your right in communication with General Reynolds. The 
enemy is massed in the woods in front of us, but can be shelled out as soon 
as you engage their flank. Keep heavy reserves, and use your batteries, 
keeping well closed to your right all the time. In case you are obliged to 
fall back, do so to your right and rear, so as to keep you in close communi- 
cation with the right wing.” ‘This order was dispatched at half past four, 
and received by Porter just two hours later. He attempted to get his lead- 
ing division, Morell’s, into position; but, thinking the enemy in front in too 
great force, and judging the country impassable for artillery, did not ad- 
vance, and retained his former position during the remainder of the day, 
knowing nothing of the battle which was going on four miles away. The fail- 
ure to execute this order forms the second and gravest charge against Porter. 

Sharp fighting, something more than mere ‘‘skirmishing,” had been going 
on all the afternoon, especially upon the Confederate left, somewhat weakly 
held by A. P. Hill, with considerable intervals between some of his regi- 
ments. By three o’clock the fighting here had assumed the proportions of 
a battle. Grover, with his brigade of Hooker's division, rushed in upon the 
enemy a little to the right of his extreme left. Of this charge Jackson 
says:' “The Federal infantry, in large force, advanced to the attack of our 
left, occupied by the division of General Hill. It pressed forward, in defi- 
ance of our fatal and destructive fire, with great determination, a portion of 
it crossing a deep cut in the railroad track, and penetrating, in heavy force, 
an interval of nearly 175 yards, which separated the right of Gregg’s from 
the left of Thomas’s brigade. For a short time Gregg’s brigade, on the ex- 
treme left, was isolated from the main body of the command. But the 14th 
South Carolina Regiment, then in reserve, with the 45th Georgia, attacked 
the exultant enemy with vigor, and drove them back across the railroad 
track with great slaughter. The opposing forces at one time delivered their 
volleys into each other at the distance of ten paces.” Grover says:? “ After 
rising the hill under which my command lay, an open field was entered, and 
from one edge of it gradually fell off in a slope to a valley through which 
ran a railroad embankment. Beyond this embankment the forest contin- 
ued, and the corresponding heights beyond were held by the enemy in force, 
supported by artillery. At three P.M.I received an order to advance in 
line of battle over this ground, pass the embankment, enter the woods be- 
yond, and hold it. We rapidly and firmly pressed upon the embankment, 
and here occurred a short, sharp, and obstinate hand-to-hand conflict, with 
bayonets and clubbed muskets. Many of the enemy were bayoneted in 
their tracks; others struck down with the butts of pieces,’ and onward 
pressed our line. In a few yards more it met a terrible fire from a second 
line, which in its turn broke. The enemy’s third line now bore down upon 
our thinned ranks in close order, and swept back the right centre and a por- 
tion of the left. With the gallant 16th Massachusetts in our centre, I tried 
to turn his flank, but the breaking of our right and centre, and the weight 
of the enemy’s lines, caused the necessity of falling back first to the embank- 
ment, and then to our first position, behind which we rallied to our colors.” 
In this fierce conflict, lasting only twenty minutes, Grover, out of less than 
2000 men, lost 484. 

‘In Lee's Rep., ii., 95. 

3 John Esten Cooke says: ‘*Without ammunition, the men of Jackson seized whatever they 
could lay their hands on to use against the enemy. The piles of stones in the vicinity of the rail- 


road cut were used; and it is well established that many of the enemy were killed by having their 
skulls broken with fragments of rock.”—Stonewall Jackson, 293. 


2 In Pope’s Report, 76. 


Kearney, on the extreme Union right, afterward advanced,! and swept 
“with a rush the first line of the enemy. This was most successful. The 
enemy rolled upon his own right. It presaged a victory for us all. Still, 
our force was too light. The enemy brought up rapidly heavy reserves, so 
that our farther progress was impeded.” 

A. P. Hill’ thus describes the fight toward evening: “The evident inten- 
tion of the enemy was to turn our left, and overwhelm Jackson’s corps be- 
fore Longstreet came up; and to accomplish this, the most persistent and 
furious onsets were made by column after column of infantry, accompanied 
by numerous batteries of artillery. Soon my reserves were all in, and up to 
six o’clock my division, assisted by the Louisiana brigade of General Hayes, 
with a heroic courage and obstinacy almost beyond parallel, had met and 
repulsed six distinct and separate assaults, a portion of the time a majority 
of the men being without a cartridge. The enemy prepared for a last and 
determined attempt. Their serried masses, overwhelming superiority of 
numbers, and bold bearing made the chance of victory tremble in the bal- 
ance. Casting about for help, fortunately it was here reported to me that 
the brigades of Generals Lawton and Karly were near by, and, sending for 
them, they promptly moved to my front at the most opportune moment, and 
this last charge met the same fate as the preceding. Having received an 
order from General Jackson to endeavor to avoid a general engagement, my 
commanders of brigades contented themselves with repulsing the enemy 
and following them up but a few hundred yards.” Both sides, as usual, 
claim to have fought against superior numbers; but a comparison of the di- 
visions engaged, as shown in the respective reports, shows that the Confed- 
erates had at the close a considerable preponderance. That is, A. P. Hill, 
Ewell, and Lawton outnumbered Hooker, Kearney, and Reno, to whom they 
were opposed. ‘T'he opportune arrival of Longstreet upon the right enabled 
Jackson to concentrate nearly his whole strength to resist this attack upon 
his left. 

At half past five, McDowell having come up, Pope, supposing that Por- 
ter was advancing, in compliance with the order sent an hour before, but 
only received an hour later, ordered an attack upon Jackson’s right, which, 
ignorant of Longstreet’s arrival, he supposed to be the extreme right of the 
whole Confederate force on the field. This attack was made along the 
Warrenton Turnpike by King’s division, then commanded by Hatch, of 
McDowell’s corps, who, “ trusting to find the enemy in retreat, as he was 
told, and hoping to turn their retreat into a flight, took the men forward 
with an impetuosity akin to rashness.”® Instead of finding a retreating en- 
emy, he was confronted, after marching three quarters of a mile, by a strong 
force. A fierce struggle, lasting three quarters of an hour, took place, mainly 
between Doubleday’s and Patrick’s brigades on the Union side, and those 


? Heintzelman, in Pope’s Report, 55, says not till several orders had been sent to him to do so, 
and after Hooker had been driven back. ? Kearney, in Pope’s Report, 79. 

3 In Lee’s Rep., ii., 125. 

* Pope (Ieport, 17) strangely says: ‘* About half past five I directed Generals Heintzelman and 
Reno to assault the left of the enemy,” and then proceeds to describe Grover’s assault on the rail- 
road embankment; and adds: ‘‘'The whole of the left of the enemy was doubled back toward its 
centre, and our forces, after a sharp conflict of an hour and a half, occupied the field of battle, 
with the dead and wounded of the enemy in our hands.” And again (Report, 21): ‘* While this 
attack [by McDowell] was going on, the forces under Heintzelman and Reno continued to push 
back the left of the enemy in the direction of the Warrenton Turnpike, so that at about eight o’clock 
in the evening the greater portion of the field of battle was occupied by our army.” Whereas the 
truth is that Grover’s attack began at three, and was soon repulsed, as was also the subsequent 
one by Kearney and Reno. ® McDowell, in Pope’s Report, 46. 


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of Hood and Evans on the Confederate. The result, as told by Hatch, was: 
“ Night had now come on. Our loss had been severe, and the enemy oc- 
cupying a position in the woods on our left, I was forced to give the order 
for a retreat. The retreat was executed in good order, the attempt to fol- 
low being defeated by a few well-directed volleys from Patrick’s brigade.” 
Longstreet says: ‘‘ Hood, supported by Evans, made a gallant attack, driv- 
ing the enemy back until nine o’clock at night. The enemy’s entire force 
was found to be massed directly in my front, and in so strong a position 
that it was not deemed advisable to move on against his immediate front, 
so the troops were quietly withdrawn at one o’clock the following morning. 
After withdrawing from the original attack, my troops were placed in the 
line first occupied, and in the original order.” 

The battle, as a mere conflict of force, was wholly undecisive. The Con- 
federates had not been permanently driven a rod from any position which 
they wished to hold; at most, their extreme weak left, which was altogether 
‘in the air,” had been drawn in a little toward the centre. But Jackson 
had gained his object. He had held his ground until Longstreet’s whole 
force had come up and taken position by his side and in his rear. Not so 
thought Pope. He believed that Jackson had suffered a defeat, which only 
the absence of Porter had prevented from being decisive.? Early next 
morning he sent to Washington the news of his success. ‘We fought,” he 
wrote, ‘‘a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the en- 
emy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until after dark, by 
which time the enemy was driven from the field, which we now occupy. 
Our troops are too much exhausted to push matters, but I shall do so in 
the course of the morning, as soon as Fitz John Porter’s corps comes up 
from Manassas. The enemy is still on our front, but badly used up. We 
have lost not less than 8000 men killed and wounded, and from the appear- 
ance of the field, the enemy have lost at least two to our one. He stood 
strictly on the defensive, and every attack was made by ourselves. Our 
troops behaved splendidly. The battle was fought on the identical field of 
Bull Run, which greatly increased the enthusiasm of our men. The news 
just reaches us from the front that the enemy is retreating toward the 
mountains. I go forward to see. We have made great captures, but I am 
not able yet to form an idea of their extent.” McDowell wrote a little 
more cautiously: ‘I have gone through a second battle of Bull Run, on 
the identical field of last year, and unhurt. The victory is decidedly ours.’* 

At half past eight on the evening of the 29th, Pope sent a peremptory 
order to Porter to march at once to the field of battle, where he was to ap- 
pear at daylight.® Two of his brigades, that of Griffin, and Piatt’s, tem- 
porarily attached to his corps, by some misconception of orders, marched 

1 Pope's Report, 179. 2 Lee's Rep., ii., 82. 

5 Pope's Report, 22. * Newspapers, August 31, 

° “Immediately upon receipt of this order, the precise hour of receiving which you will ac- 
knowledge, you will march your command to the field of battle of to-day, and report to me in 


person. You are to understand that you are to comply strictly with this order, and to be present 
on the field within three hours after its reception, or after daybreak to-morrow morning.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


{AuGusST, 1862. 


to Centreville, and took no part in the fighting of the day. The rest of 
his corps, 7000 strong, joined Pope near Groveton early in the morning. 
Pope’s whole force, with the exception of these two brigades, 5000 strong, 
and Banks’s corps of the same number, which was at Bristoe in charge 
of the railroad and wagon trains, was at last concentrated. Its effective 
strength was now reduced to 40,000. Opposed to them were the combined 
forces of Longstreet and Jackson, now under Lee, who was on the field and 
assumed command, numbering about 60,000. Both armies were exhausted 
by their previous marching and fighting, and neither manifested a disposi- 
tion for a while to assume the offensive. Pope was, indeed, greatly dis- 
couraged by a letter which he received at daybreak from Franklin, inform- 
ing him that rations and forage would be sent from Alexandria if he would 
send a cavalry escort to bring out the trains. He had no cavalry to send, 
and if he had, they could not go and return in time to furnish his men with 
the supplies of which they were in sore need. ‘It was not till I received 
this letter,” he says, ‘that I began to feel discouraged and nearly hopeless 
of any successful issue to the operations with which I was charged.” The 
natural course, under the circumstances, would seem to have been the one 
which he had contemplated the day before: to have fallen back to Centre- 
ville, or even beyond, and meet his supplies and the re-enforcements, which 
could not have been long delayed, from Alexandria. Meanwhile he be- 
came convinced that the enemy was actually retreating. Lee was drawing 
in Jackson’s exposed left, and the movement of Longstreet’s strong right 
was hidden from view by intervening hills and woods. A paroled pris- 
oner came in and reported that the whole Confederate army was in rapid 
retreat. This soldier had come into Porter’s lines, and was sent by him to 
Pope with an assurance that he did not believe a word of the story. Pope 
replied that he believed the soldier, and ordered Porter to advance. 

At noon Pope gave a general order to pursue the enemy thus presumed 
to be retreating, and special orders to different commanders.? Lee had no 
occasion or intention of retreating, nor did he propose to attack, but chose 
to await the assault of the enemy. His position was the same as on the 
previous day, except that Jackson’s extreme left was drawn in a little. His 
line stretched northward for a mile, in a somewhat irregular crescent form, 
the convex side facing the east, and following the course of thickly wooded 
heights; its centre was also protected by a deep cutting for an unfinished 
railroad, which formed an admirable earth-work. Longstreet’s line ran 
southeastward behind the crest of another wooded ridge, which concealed 
him wholly from the view of the enemy, to whom his presence and position 
was entirely unknown. His reserves lay considerably beyond the rear of 
Jackson, so that at any moment, without disturbing his front, he could sus- 
tain Jackson. His force being larger and his line shorter than that of Jack- 
son, his brigades were much moré closely massed. The whole line resem- 
bled an irregular L,* Jackson forming the perpendicular, Longstreet the 
horizontal line. Between Jackson’s right and Longstreet was a considera- 
ble interval; this was, however, swept by artillery massed behind the crest 
of a ridge in the rear, only the muzzles of the guns being visible. Pope, 
still believing that Jackson’s right was the right of the entire Confederate 
force, instead of being in fact its centre, directed his main attack, or, as he 
fancied, his “ pursuit,” upon this point. His line of battle conformed close- 
ly to that of Lee. On the extreme right was Heintzelman, then Reno, then 
Sigel, forming the perpendicular, confronting Jackson; the other wing con- 
sisted of McDowell’s command, which comprised his own corps, that of Por- 
ter, and the Pennsylvania Reserves under Reynolds—Porter being in the 
advance, and Reynolds to his right. During the action some changes took 
place. Of McDowell’s corps, King’s division, now, as on the previous day, 
under Hatch, were sent forward with Porter, and Ricketts was added to 
Heintzelman, while Reynolds was in effect left to act for himself.® 

After some hours of sharp cannonading, Sykes’s division of Porter’s corps 
was pushed forward to support an advance to be made by Butterfield: Thus 
far they had seen none of the Confederate infantry or cavalry, and of his ar- 
tillery only the muzzles of the cannon. Butterfield’s advance must have 
been ordered upon the supposition that Jackson was in full retreat. It was 
gallantly made, and gallantly supported, but it failed utterly. Jackson, shel- 
tered by the railway embankment, was as secure as earth-works could make 
him, and poured in a furious fire, which tore in pieces the assailants as they 
emerged from the woods, their own fire being almost harmless against a 
sheltered foe.6 Reno and Heintzelman at the same time assailed Jackson 
farther to the right, aided by Reynolds, who had been moved thither from 
the rear, where they had been posted to support Porter’s “pursuit.” Jack- 
son found his centre and left sorely pressed. ‘‘'The Federal infantry,” he 
says, “about four o’clock moved from under the cover of the wood, and ad- 


1 These estimates include only infantry, the cavalry being of little avail on either side. 

The Union force is stated by Pope (Report, 23) as follows: ‘*McDowell, 12,000; Sigel, 7000; 
Heintzelman, 7000; Reno, 7000; Porter, 7000—40,000 in all. 

We arrive at an approximation to the Confederate force from the following data: Longstreet’s 
whole force was on the field, as well as that of Jackson. These comprised 35 brigades, and at the 
outset, according to our previous estimate, numbered 78,750. In the various engagements from 
Cedar Mountain to the battle of the 29th, they had lost about 8000. The march had been long 
and exhausting, and probably quite 5000 had fallen out of the ranks from fatigue or sickness, 
thus leaving 65,000 available. The entire force seems not to have been actually brought into 
action, for in the detailed list of casualties losses are mentioned in only 115 regiments, which 
probably at the time averaged 400 each—46,000 in all, leaving 19,000 not directly in action. 
Pope brought nearly his whole force into action, probably about 35,000. ? Report, 23. 

3 Extracts FroM Orpers: ‘‘ The following forces will be immediately thrown forward and 
in pursuit of the enemy, and press him vigorously the whole day. Major General McDowell is 
assigned to the command of the pursuit.” McDowell to Porter: ‘‘ Major General McDowell be- 
ing charged with the advanced forces ordered to pursue the enemy, directs that your corps will be 
followed immediately by King’s division, supported by Reynolds's... . . Organize a strong advance 
to precede your command, and push on rapidly in pursuit of the enemy until you come in contact 
with him.”—Pope’s Report, 47. 

4 Longstreet and Sykes describe the line as an irregular \/ reversed (<), but an L represents 
it more closely. 5 McDowell, in Pope’s Report, 48. ® Sykes, in Pope’s Report, 147. 

1 Pope’s Report, 24; Heintzelman, Jbid., 56; Reynolds, Zbid., 67; Watch, Zbid., 178. 


Aveust, 1862.] 


vanced in several lines, first engaging the right, but soon extending the at- 
tack to the centre and left. In a few moments our entire line was engaged 
in a fierce and sanguinary struggle with the enemy. As one line was re- 
pulsed another took its place, and pressed forward as if determined, by force 
of numbers and fury of assault, to drive us from our positions. So impetuous 
and well sustained were these onsets as to induce me to send to the com- 
manding general for re-enforcements.”! Lee informed Longstreet of Jack- 
son’s peril; but, before any succor could be sent, Longstreet found that he 
could better aid Jackson by another movement. “From an eminence near 
by,” he says, “one portion of the enemy’s masses attacking General Jackson 
were immediately within my view, and within easy range of batteries in 
that position. It gave me an advantage that I did not expect to have, and 
I made haste to use it. Two batteries were ordered for the purpose, and 
one placed in position and immediately opened. As it was evident that the 
attack upon General Jackson could not be continued ten minutes under the 
fire of these batteries, I made no movement with my troops. Before the 
second battery could be placed in position the enemy began to retire, and 
in less than ten minutes the ranks were broken, and that portion of the 
army put to flight. A fair opportunity was offered me, and the intended 
diversion was changed into an attack. My whole line was rushed forward 
at a charge.” 

Let us now look at the field on the Union left, as seen from its positions. 
Butterfield’s brigade had marched up the hill upon the as yet invisible ene- 
my. “As he advanced there was a great commotion among the rebel forces, 
and the whole side of the hill and edges of the wood swarmed with men be- 
fore unseen, The effect was not unlike flushing a covey of quails.” War- 
ren—then colonel, soon to be major general—commanding a weak brigade 
of two regiments, numbering together 1000 men, seized a commanding posi- 
tion which had been vacated by the withdrawal of Reynolds, and held it 
until he was fairly enveloped by the advancing enemy, and retreated only 
when the rest of Porter’s corps had been driven back. Out of 480 men of 
the 5th New York, he lost, in killed, 79; wounded, 170; missing, 48. The 
10th New York, out of 510 men, lost 23 killed, 65 wounded, 48 missing— 
412 out of 1000 in this one action.* Porter's corps was thus compelled to 
bear the whole onset of Longstreet’s advance. Outnumbered fully three to 
one, outflanked on the left, and unsheltered on the right, where Reno and 
Heintzelman were falling back from the enfilading fire of Longstreet’s bat- 
teries and the fierce onset of Jackson’s advance, it retreated, first to the pla- 
teau of the Henry House—the scene of the final struggle at Bull Run a year 
before—and then, the enemy still outflanking, across Bull Run to Centre- 
ville. Warren’s desperate stand had not, however, been unavailing. To all 
seeming, it saved the defeat from becoming a rout. The retreat was made 
in good order. Porter’s corps, though defeated, was not routed, and Sykes’s 
regulars covered the retreat of a portion of the army. They had performed 
the same service on the same ground a year before. Out of scarcely 7000 
men, Porter’s corps lost, in the few hours during which this action lasted, 


? Jackson, in Lee's Rep., ii., 96. ? Longstreet, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 82. 

3 Warren, in Pope’s Report, 150. 4 Sykes, in Pope’s Report, 147, 162. 

* Longstreet says, ‘‘The commanding general soon joined me, and a few minutes after Major 
General Anderson arrived with his division.” (This division, the largest in the force, numbering 
at least 24 regiments, formed the rear of Longstreet’s command, and had been held in reserve a 
little to the rear.—Lee’s Rep.,i., 25.) ‘‘'The attack was led by Hood’s brigade, closely support- 
ed by Evans. These were rapidly re-enforced by Anderson’s division from the rear, Kemper’s 
three brigades and D. R. Jones’s division from the right, and Wilcox’s brigade from the left. The 
attacking columns moved steadily forward from point to point, following the movements of the 
general line. These were, however, somewhat detained by an enfilade fire from a battery on my 
left.” (This was Hazlitt’s battery, attached to Warren’s brigade. See Warren, in Pope’s Report, 
150.) ‘‘This threw more than its proper share of fighting upon the infantry, and enabled the en- 
emy to escape with many of his batteries, which should have fallen into our hands.””—Longstreet, 
in Lee’s Rep., ii., 83. 


SN \ PA 


POPE’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


OTS 
“\ WHO FELL aT 


\ 


389 


2164 men, of whom 823 are put down as killed, 1823 wounded, and 518 
missing.} 

The main stress of the battle had fallen upon the centre of both armies, 
from thence extending to the Confederate left and the Union right. Hook- 
er, on the Union right, assailed Hill, and gained some advantage? But 
when the main attack had failed, and the anticipated pursuit had become a 
retreat, the whole Union force was ordered to fall back toward Centreville. 
The order was given at eight o’clock. The army retreated in order. It 
had suffered a defeat; but there was no disgraceful panic like that which 
had marked the close of the battle fought a year before on almost the same 
ground.’ 

In this three days’ battle the Confederate loss was about 8400: 1400 
killed, 7000 wounded. The Union loss was much larger, probably about 
11,000. This, however, by no means measures the diminution which the 
army had undergone. Many had been made prisoners; Lee says ‘more 
than 7000, in addition to about 2000 wounded left in our hands,” The 
straggling had been enormous. “Half of the great diminution of our 


* General Pope says (Report, 24): “The attack of Porter was neither vigorous nor persistent, 
and his troops soon retired in considerable confusion. . . . As soon as they could be rallied, I 
pushed them forward to support our left, and they there rendered most conspicuous service, espe- 
cially the brigade of regulars under Colonel Buchanan.” Buchanan, however (Lbid., 152), says: 
‘* About 5 P.M. the brigade was withdrawn in admirable order.” Chapman, who commanded 
another brigade of Sykes’s division, says (Jbid., 172): ‘About 3 30 P.M., by General Porter’s 
order, the brigade retired in admirable order to the point designated. . . . The movement was 
executed with surprising order, and elicited my warmest admiration.” These, as well as Warren’s 
brigade, belonged to Sykes’s division. Of Morell’s division of this corps we have no special reports ; 
but Sykes incidentally mentions the gallantry with which Butterfield’s ln igade of this division made 
the attack upon Jackson. The losses in Morell’s division of two brigades amounted to 1247, ex- 
ceeding by a third those of Sykes, which certainly does not indicate any want of vigor in its at- 
tack. Among the specifications in the charges against Porter was, that on this day he ‘did so 
feebly fall upon the enemy’s lines as to make little or no impression on the same, and did fall back 
and draw away his forces unnecessarily, and without making any of the great personal efforts to 
rally his troops or keep their lines, or to inspire his troops to meet the sacrifices and make the re- 
sistance demanded by the importance of his position,” ete. This specification was, however, with- 
drawn by the judge advocate, without offering any proof to substantiate it.— Court-martial, 9. 

? **Wooker’s division now advanced into the woods near our right, and drove the enemy back 
some distance.” — Heintzelman, in Pope's Report, 56. ‘The onset was so fierce, and in such 
force, that at first some headway was made; but their advance was again checked, and eventually 
repulsed with great loss.”—A. P. Hill, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 126. 

* The withdrawal was made slowly, quietly, and in good order, no pursuit whatever being at- 
tempted by the enemy.”—Pope's Report, 24. ‘*The obscurity of the night, and the uncertainty 
of the fords over Bull Run, rendered it necessary to suspend operations until morning, when the 
cavalry, being pushed forward, discovered that the enemy had escaped to the strong position at Cen- 
treville.”—Lee’s Rep., i., 25. 

* The Confederate loss can be fixed very closely upon official evidence. In Lee's Rep., i., 50, is 
a detailed ‘List of Casualties at Manassas Plains in August, 1862,” made out by regiments, giv- 
ing the loss in each. The whole number there given is 1090 killed, 6154 wounded. ‘This list is 
apparently not complete, the reports of Longstreet and Jackson adding considerably to the number. 


Killed. Wounded. Total. 
Longstreet (7 bid., ii., 89): ** Total loss in the corps under my command between the 
23d and 30th of August, embracing actions at Rappahannock, Freeman's Ford, 
horoughiarg Gap; ald MAanashasses- ects cate mcs te nee eee ee es 663 4016 4679 
Jackson (Ibid., ii., 98): ‘* Losses in my command in its operations from the Rappa- y 
HANnocletO) tHe, LOLOMACY Sea chess sab maetildctage sobs kan eee homed chienn ate 805 3547 4352 
1408 7563 9031 
Killed. Wounded. 
Deduct from the above losses in minor engagements before the 27th 
(Ltd ES DO) ram ae poetics RN RL ne rece s, QT 94 
And losses (estimated) at Chantilly, Sept. 1.............eeeeceeceee 100 400 127 494 621 
Lotal ir thease: actions: <5 <t;1ceeariele selateja nena alae wiacts alesis o aneeiowb resin soe 1341 7069 8410 


This includes the losses at Bristoe on the 27th, which are also included in the Union losses. 

The Union losses can be given to a considerable extent only by estimate. Porter’s and Rey-~ 
nolds'’s loss is given in full, Heintzelman’s with the exception of one brigade. Sigel puts his whole 
loss at 1983, but does not discriminate between killed, wounded, and missing. We put the last at 
500, and apportion the others in the usual proportion. Of the losses of McDowell and Reno we 
find no lists. 


Killed. Wounded. Mivsing. 
ROVEAN elem emis sicinalokys c.celatemesaenis tee ReeeRs Teme Ree Hote e aoe neeees een aes 333 1323 518 
ROVHOLASI LE ee cree soc tect ene eee rt eee eee tee onke cide seateke 67 397 189 
Heintzelmaln! (ky )rensctiste case ecanccis eee ee eee ern cud lens cGelees 200 1300 400 
SSIBGL (SAYD oc,0.o ches ealelowe gecaeane tina ce oe eee Eee ono eee 300 1200 400 
otal in these divisions, 32). bsrleneclactlood veleate ties ok cade de colemecicce 900 4220 1507 


The losses in McDowell’s and Reno’s corps were probably about equal to the above, and as the 
field remained in the hands of the enemy, many of those reported as missing were doubtless killed 
or wounded ; these may be estimated at 600. Putting all these imperfect data together, we esti« 
mate the Union loss as in the text. 


MONUMENT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD OF GROVETON, 


PHILIP KEARNEY. 


forces,” says Pope, ‘‘ was occasioned by skulking and straggling from the 
army. ‘The troops which were brought into action fought with all gallantry 
and determination, but thousands of men straggled away from their com- 
mands, and were never in any action. I had posted several regiments in 
the rear of the field of battle on the 29th of August, and although many 
thousand stragglers and skulkers were arrested by them, many others passed 
around through the woods, and did not rejoin their commands during the 
remainder of the campaign.”? 

At Centreville, on the morning of September 1, Pope had remaining of 
McDowell's corps, 10,000; Sigel, 7000; Heintzelman, 6000; Reno, 6000; 
Porter, 9000, including the two brigades which had strayed thither on the 
morning of the 30th. Banks, with 5000, had rejoined the army, and Sumner, 
with 11,000, and Franklin, with 8000, had come up from Alexandria, rais- 
ing the whole army to 62,000, exclusive of cavalry, which was so used up as 
to be unavailable.” Lee, after the battle, had, besides cavalry, about 60,000 
present; but D. H. Hill, with his division, which had left Hanover Junction 
on the 26th, was close at hand, and on the 2d of September came up with 
his division of 10,000. The advantage of the situation was then really in 
favor of the Union army. ‘The forces present were nearly equal; but Pope 
had strong intrenchments, and might certainly expect considerable re-en- 
forcements at once.? His troops were, indeed, greatly exhausted by the 
fighting, and marching, and privations of the previous week; but Lee’s could 
not have been in better plight. They had fought as much, marched as far, 
and fared quite as hard.* 

But it was determined at Washington that Centreville should be aban- 
doned, and the whole army once more retreat and take shelter within the 
defenses of Washington. The alarm for the safety of the capital rose again 
to its height. In their terror, the President and Halleck turned to McClel- 
lan. Pope had written to Halleck, charging “‘ many brigade and some di- 
vision commanders of the forces sent here from the Peninsula” with unsol- 
dierly and dangerous conduct. “The constant talk, indulged in publicly 
and in promiscuous company, is, that the Army of the Potomac will not 
fight. You can have hardly an idea of the demoralization among officers 
of high rank in the Potomac Army, arising in all instances from personal 
feeling in relation to changes in commander-in-chief and others. I am en- 
deavoring to do all I can, and will most assuredly put them where they shall 
fight or run away.” He urged that Halleck “should draw back this army 
to the intrenchments in front of Washington, and set to work in that secure 
place to reorganize and rearrange it.”* The President urged McClellan to 
telegraph to his friends in the old Army of the Potomac, adjuring them not 
to fail in their duty. He complied by writing to Porter: “I ask of you, 
for my sake and that of the country, that you and all my friends will lend 
the fullest and most cordial co-operation to General Pope in all the opera- 
tions now going on. Say the same thing to my friends in the Army of the 
Potomac, and that the last request I have to make of them is that, for their 
country’s sake, they will extend to General Pope the same support they ever 


1 Pope’s Report, 26. é 2)Lbid., 20. 

’ Halleck to Pope: “ August 31,11 A.M. You have done nobly. All reserves are being sent 
forward. Couch’s division goes to-day. Part of it went to Sangster’s Station last night with 
Franklin and Sumner, who must be with you. Can’t you renew the attack ?”—Pope’s Report, 246. 

* “Many of the men were barefooted, and limped along weary unto death. They were faint 
from want of food, and broken down by absence of rest. The phenomenon was here presented 
of an army living for many days upon green corn and unripe apples only, and during this time 
making exhausting marches, engaging in incessant combats, and repulsing every assault. ‘The 
flower of the Southern youth, raised in affluence and luxury, were toiling on over the dusty high- 
ways, or lying exhansted by the roadside, or fighting when so feeble that they could scarcely han- 
dle their muskets.”—Cooke's Stonewall Jackson, 277. 5 Pope’s Report, 250. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1862. 


LEZ 


ISAAO I, STEVENS. 


have to me.” In writing thus, McClellan merely complied with the request 
of the President. ‘Neither then, nor at any other time,” he says, “did I 
think for one moment that Porter had been, or would be, in any manner de- 
relict in the performance of his duty.” Porter replied, ““ You may rest as- 
sured that all your friends, as well as every lover of his country, will ever 
give, as they have given to General Pope, their cordial co-operation and 
constant support in the execution of all orders and plans. Our killed and 
wounded attest our devoted duty.” Halleck wrote to McClellan, whom a 
hurried order had virtually stripped of all command, “ You will retain the 
command of every thing in this vicinity not temporarily to be Pope’s army 
in the field. I beg of you to assist me in this crisis with your ability and 
experience.”! 

On the 81st, the day after the battle, a heavy storm set in; but Jackson 
was pushed forward toward Fairfax to turn the Union right, and Pope sent 
McDowell, Heintzelman, and Reno in that direction, intending to attack on 
the morning of the 2d of September. But the heads of the two forces came 
in contact just before dark on the 1st, at Ox Hill, near Chantilly. A fear- 
ful thunder-storm was raging, in the midst of which the engagement began. 
A portion of the Confederates were thrown into some confusion; then re- 
enforced, they drove back Stevens’s division of Reno’s corps. Stevens was 
killed in the front of his troops. Kearney rushed in with his wonted dash- 
ing bravery, and, riding forward alone in advance of his men to reconnoitre 
the ground, fell in with a Confederate soldier, from whom he inquired the 
position of a regiment. Discovering his mistake, he turned to ride away, 
when the soldier fired, and Kearney fell from his saddle mortally wounded. 
Darkness closed the action, each army retaining a portion of the field, and 
both claiming a victory. But before morning the whole Union army was 
in retreat for Alexandria. Lee, with Longstreet’s corps, came up during the 
day, and was joined on the battle-field by D. H. Hill, with his division fresh 
except for its rapid march. 

With the battle of Chantilly, or Ox Hill, as the Confederates name it, 
closed Pope’s campaign in Virginia. He requested at its close, as he had 
done at its beginning, to be relieved from the command of the Army of 
Virginia, and to be returned to his former post in the West. His request 
was granted, and on the 7th of September he departed from Washington. 
The Army of Virginia ceased to exist as such, and the whole force, resum- 
ing its old name of the Army of the Potomac, was again placed under the 
immediate command of McClellan. 


It would be unjust to judge of the campaign of Pope by its unfortunate 
result, or by the censures to which it has been subjected, or even by the ac- 
count of it as told by its commander. If we turn from what was said, and 
review what was actually done, in the light thrown upon it by the Confed- 
erate Reports, we shall find much to praise, and, until the last two decisive 
days, little to censure. The task imposed upon him was a difficult one. 
He found the army which he was to command disorganized and scattered. 
Some of the corps commanders were hostile to others.? His appointment 
was distasteful to many, and he had not acquired a reputation which would 
compel all to acquiesce in its wisdom, however much it might stand in the 
way of their advancement. Then his first address to his army alienated 
the feelings of the whole Army of the Potomac, a portion of whom were to 
serve under him. This feeling, though less strong than he supposed, stood 
iO Rp 80, 34. ee o,f eee 


? We do not care to dwell upon this point. Abundant proofs of it may be found by any one 
who chooses to read the Reports of the commanders of corps and divisions, 


SerremMBeER, 1862.] 


in the way of that open and hearty co-operation which is essential to the 
highest efficiency of an army. While there was, we think, no purposed 
neglect in supporting him in act, still the fact that his plans and’ movements 
were openly censured by officers high in rank could not fail to demoralize 
those of lower grade, and through them the soldiers. Hence the fearful 
amount of straggling and skulking with which he had to contend from the 
outset. That he was opposed to a general who in this campaign, and ever 
after, manifested military capacity of a high order, and whose plans were 
carried out with unswerving fidelity, was a contingency always to be taken 
into account. That he was from the first called to meet greatly superior 
forces was owing to no fault on his part; it should be charged to those who 
failed to send to him the re-enforcements so absolutely essential and so 
positively promised. His first steps toward concentrating his forces were 
none the less commendable because so perfectly obvious. For the battle 
of Cedar Run he is nowise responsible. Had it proved a disastrous defeat 
instead of a bloody but indecisive passage of arms, no blame could have 
attached to him. Fettered by his instructions, and buoyed up by unful- 
filled promises of aid, he could not afterward have done other than attempt 
to hold the line of the Rappahannock. The discovery of his weakness 
made by Stuart’s dash upon Catlett's Station was an accident which might 
have happened to any one, and the like of which happened to Lee three 
weeks later. The destruction of the stores at Manassas could not have 
occurred had the assurances been true, as he had a right to believe, of the 
foree by which that place was held. The marchings and countermarch- 
ings from Manassas to Gainesville, then back toward Centreville, and again 
toward Gainesville, were warranted, and in a measure compelled, by what 
he had at the moment good reason to believe to be the position and move- 
ments of the enemy. 

The battle of the 29th was delivered, and all the orders given on the sup- 
position that Jackson, with about 25,000 men, was the only enemy to be 
encountered, and that Longstreet was at a distance. In the morning he 
thought that “the indications are that the whole force of the enemy is moy- 
ing in this direction at a pace that will bring them here by to-morrow night 
or the next day.” He must have been of the same opinion at half past four 
in the afternoon, when the order was written informing Porter that “ your 
line of march brings you in on the enemy’s right flank,” and directing him 
to “push forward into action at once on the enemy’s flank.” But before 
the order was received, and even before it was written, a considerable part 
of Longstreet’s corps had come upon the field, and taken position upon 
Jackson’s right, so that the line of march prescribed to Porter would have 
brought him far to the left of what was then the enemy’s right flank, and 
directly in front of at least the advance of the enemy’s “whole force.” It 
is certainly strange that at this hour Pope should have been uninformed 
that Longstreet was on the field, instead of being thirty or forty hours’ 
march away; for between nine and ten o’clock Buford reported to McDow- 
ell that before that time he had seen a large body of the enemy, estimated 
by him at more than 13,000 men, passing Gainesville and apparently march- 
ing directly to the battle-field.1 Pope, indeed, on the morning of the 80th, 
when he supposed that he had won a victory and that the enemy were in 
retreat, declared that he had met and 
driven from the field ‘‘ the combined 
force of the enemy,” which can only 
be interpreted to mean the united 


POPE'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


391 


The attack of the 80th was a grave military error, and wholly without 
excuse, if we regard General Pope’s subsequent explanations as setting forth 
the knowledge which he then had of his condition and that of the enemy. 
Shortly after daylight he “began to feel discouraged and nearly hopeless 
of any successful issue to the operations with which he was charged.” He 
was aware, by “twelve or one o’clock in the day, that we were confronted 
by forces greatly superior to our own, and that those forces were being every 
moment largely increased by fresh arrivals;” and he “therefore advanced 
to the attack,” in order to “lay upon the enemy such blows as would crip- 
ple him as much as possible, and delay as long as practicable any farther 
advance toward the capital.” Yet at twelve o’clock he ordered the forces 
under McDowell to “ be immediately thrown forward in pursuit of the en- 
emy, and press him vigorously during the whole day.’”? That is, an infe- 
rior force was to pursue one already superior, which was every moment 
largely re-enforced, in the very direction from which those re-enforcements 
were advancing. Surely the thing then to be done was to fall back beyond 
Bull Run. If his force was sufficient to warrant him in attacking with any 
hope of escaping a complete defeat, it was more than sufficient to have en- 
abled him to hold the line of Bull Run against the same enemy; and so long 
as this line was held, the enemy would be effectually prevented from mak- 
ing any farther direct advance toward the capital. 

This campaign was conducted throughout by Lee and Jackson with rare 
ability. It grew in the end into something very different and far greater 
than was at first intended. Jackson was sent toward the Rappahannock 
merely to prevent the seizure of Gordonsville and the railroad. Lee’s first 
object was to remove McClellan from his position on the James, and it 
seemed to him that ‘the most effectual way to relieve Richmond from any 
attack from that quarter would be to re-enforce Jackson, and advazce upon 
Pope.”? Halleck, at the same time, was equally desirous of relieving Rich- 
mond by withdrawing the Army of the Potomac, and McClellan, sorely 
against his wish, was carrying out this determination, As soon, therefore, 
as Lee was assured that Richmond was no loizer threatened from the James, 
he pushed his main foree toward the Rappahannock, hoping to overwhelm 
Pope before he could be joined by McClellan. To do this, he must cross 
the Rappahannock in front, or by the right or left of Pope, who confronted 
him on the opposite bank. While thus manceuvring, the seizure of Pope’s 
dispatch-book informed him of the precise strength and position of the Union 
forces, and convinced him that it was possible by a rapid march to gain its 
rear, cut it off from retreat, supplies, and re-enforcements, and fall upon it 
with such a preponderance of force as to render its destruction almost in- 
evitable. Rapidity of execution was essential to the success of this plan, 
and a slight failure in any point of detail might be fatal. We have seen 
how the plan was executed. Lee’s operations from the 24th to the 80th of 
August must take a high place in the history of the war. To find its equal 
in boldness of conception, we must go forward nine months to the time 
when Grant passed the batteries at Vicksburg. To find its superior, we 
must go forward two years and three months to the time when Sherman be- 
gan his great March to the Sea. 

1 Report, 23, 24. 


2 Tbid., 47. 3 Lee's Rep., i., 19. 


commands of Jackson and Long- 


street. Still, the battle of the day 


was indecisive, and if Pope had car- 
ried out his plan of the morning, and 
fallen back beyond Bull Run, the 


substantial fruits of victory would 
have been his. 


1 Buford, in Court-martial, 188. Whatever 
was then known or might have been known, 


nothing is now more certain than that a consid- 


erable part of Longstreet’s force joined Jackson 


nM 
SH 


by noon, and bore a considerable part in the ac- 


tion of the 29th, and that before night his whole 


corps, with the exception of Anderson’s divi- 


sion, had arrived, and this came up on the fol- 
lowing morning. Lee says ( Report, i., 23-25), 
‘On the morning of the 29th the whole com- 
mand resumed their march, the sound of can- 
non announcing that Jackson was already en- 
gaged. Longstreet entered the turnpike near 
Gainesville, and moving down toward Grove- 
ton, the head of his column came upon the field 
in the rear of the enemy’s left.” After some 
manceuvring, which is described, ‘* Longstreet 
took position on the right of Jackson, Hood’s 
two brigades, supported by Evans, being de- 
ployed across the turnpike, and at right angles 
to it. These troops were supported on the left 
by three brigades under Wilcox, and by a like 
force on the right under Kemper, D. R. Jones’s 
division formed on the extreme right of the line, 
resting on the Manassas Gap Railroad.” D.R. 


rival at ‘‘about noon.” Longstreet says (/bid., 
81) ‘‘that the noise of battle was heard before 
we reached Gainesville [which must have been 
about eight, for Buford saw his strong advance 


beyond that place by nine], and the head of my 
solumn soon after reached a position in rear 
of the enemy’s flank, and within easy cannon 
shot.” Hood, whose division was in the ad- 
vance, says ([bid., 209), ‘‘ Early in the day we 
came up with the main body of the enemy on 
the plains of Manassas, engaging General Jack- 
son’s forces.” 


Re é * yee BN NA 
Jones (Lbid., ii., 217) fixes the time of his ar- NY) Gea EL = ee 


MONUMENT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD OF BULL RUN. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. (SEPTEMBER, 1862. 


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SEpremBeER, 1862. ] 


CHAPTER XXIII. 
THE INVASION OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


Result of the Campaign in Virginia.—The Invasion of the North.—Maryland! my Maryland !— 
Jackson’s Scheme.—Lee’s Design.—His Force.—Crossing the Potomac.—The Confederate 
Force.—Lee’s Address to the People of Maryland.—His Reception.—The Command given to 
McClellan.—Reorganization of the Federal Army.—Movements of the Army.—Lee divides 
his Force,—Harper’s Ferry.—The March upon the Ferry.—Lee’s Order comes into the Hands 
of McClellan.—The Investment of Harper’s Ferry.—Its Capture.—McClellan and Halleck.— 
McClellan advances.—Battle at Turner’s Gap.—Battle at Crampton’s Gap.—Lee’s Position. — 
He falls back across the Antietam.—The Battle-field of Antietam.—Approach of the Union 
Foree.—Confederate Troops come up from Harper’s Ferry.—Movements of September 16.— 
McClellan’s Plan of Battle for the next Day. — Hooker attacks the Confederate Left. —Is 
wounded.—His Corps repulsed.—Sumner attacks the Left and Centre.—Sedgwick repulsed 
on the Left.—The Fight in the Centre.—State of the Action at Noon.—Arrival of Franklin’s 
Corps.—Its Part in the Engagement.—The Confederates worsted. —Their critical Position on 
the Left.—Over-caution of Sumner and McClellan.—Burnside’s dilatory Movements.—He 
crosses the Antietam and drives back the Enemy.—A. P. Hill comes up from Harper’s Ferry. 
—Burnside repulsed.—Close of the Battle.—Forces in and out of Action.—Estimate of Losses. 
—Results of the Battle.—The President’s Proclamation frecing the Slaves. —After the Battle. 
—Lee recrosses the Potomac.—Affair at Shepherdstown.—McClellan and the Administration. 
—Stuart’s Raid.—The President’s Orders to Advance.—His Letter to McClellan.—McClellan’s 
Plans.—He crosses the Potomac.—Advances toward Warrenton.—Lee moves to Culpepper.— 
Position of the Armies.—McClellan removed from Command, and Burnside appointed. 


1» the brief campaign, lasting only twenty days from the time when the 
contending forces first encountered at Cedar Run, and only a week after 
the decisive movement for taking Pope’s army in the rear was commenced, 
Lee had accomplished more than he had ventured to hope. Not only had 
the siege of Richmond been raised, but Virginia was virtually freed from the 
presence of the Federal armies; the main part of the force which had threat- 
ened North Carolina was withdrawn, and the whole plan of the Peninsular 
campaign thwarted; and, what was of still greater importance, the abundant 
harvests of the Valley of the Shenandoah would be reaped by Confederate 
sickles, and serve for the maintenance of Confederate armies. A bolder 
thought now came into the mind of the Confederate leader. There were 
yet some weeks, the most favorable in all the year for active military oper- 
ations, During these, at least, the war might be carried on in the enemy’s 
country. And so the noise of the battle of Groveton had scarcely ceased, 
when it was resolved to invade the State of Maryland. 

Political considerations had much to do with this determination. It had 
come to be an article of faith that Maryland, from geographical position and 
community of institutions, belonged to the Confederacy. Richmond was 
thronged with refugees from Maryland who declared that the state was held 
within the Union by mere force, and that she wanted only an opportunity 
to break the hated bond. The song, “Maryland! my Maryland!” was 
thrummed on every piano, and sung by every voice. It was held to be the 
utterance of the people.t It needed only the presence of a powerful army 
to arouse the whole state, and bring her at once into the Confederacy. This 
accomplished, all the slave states—for Kentucky and Missouri were already 
claimed by the Confederacy and were represented in its Congress—would 
be detached from the Union. After the secession of Maryland, Washington 
could be no longer held as the Federal capital. 

Jackson had long wished to lead or follow in an invasion of the North. 
Immediately after the battle of Bull Run he proposed to march directly into 
Western Virginia with 10,000 men, there recruit his army to 25,000, and 
then the Army of the Potomac, crossing at Leesburg, should unite with his 
own force; both should advance upon Harrisburg, and thence upon Phila- 
delphia in the spring of 1862. With the heart of the North thus pierced 
by the Southern troops, the strategic points captured, and Washington evac- 
uated, he believed that the Federal government would succumb and agree 
upon terms of peace.* How far Lee shared in these sanguine anticipations 
is doubtful. His Report, prepared seven months later, seems to imply that 
he proposed merely to occupy Maryland, and threaten Pennsylvania. He 
says: “To prolong a state of affairs every way desirable, and not to let the 
season for active operations pass without endeavoring to inflict farther in- 
jury upon the enemy, the best course appeared to be to transfer the army 
into Maryland. The condition of Maryland encouraged the belief that the 
presence of our army, however inferior to that of the enemy, would induce 
the Washington government to retain all its available force to provide 
against contingencies which its course toward the people of that state gave 
it reason to apprehend. At the same time, it was hoped that military suc- 
cess might afford us an opportunity to aid the citizens of Maryland in any 
efforts they might be disposed to make to recover their liberty.” “It was 
proposed to move the army into Western Virginia, establish our communi- 
cations with Richmond through the Valley of the Shenandoah, and, by 
threatening Pennsylvania, induce the enemy to follow, and thus draw him 
from his base of supplies.” 

On the 2d of September Lee was joined at Chantilly by the division of 
D. H. Hill, consisting of five brigades. This gave him a force of about 
70,000 men of all arms with which to undertake the invasion of the North; 
for by battle, disease, and straggling he had lost 30,000. The united army 
pushed rapidly on to the Potomac, Jackson in the advance. He crossed 
the river at a ford midway between Harper’s Ferry and Washington, thirty 
miles from each, almost at the point where eight months before the Union 


1 Here are two stanzas of this song; 
* The despot's heel is on thy shore, 
Maryland! my Maryland! 
His touch is on thy temple door, 
Maryland! my Maryland! 
Avenge the patriotic gore 
That flecked the streets of Baltimore, 
And be the Battle-queen of yore, 
Maryland! my Maryland! 


2 Cooke’s Stonewall Jackson, 86-88. 


“T hear the distant thunder hum, 

Maryland! my Maryland! 

The Old Line’s bugle, fife, and drum, 
Maryland! my Maryland! 

She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb, 

Huzzah! she spurns the Northern scum, 

She breathes, she burns, she'll come, she'll come, 
Maryland! my Maryland !" 


3 Lee's Rep., i., 27, 28. 
5G 


THE INVASION OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


393 


forces had passed over into Virginia to meet the disaster of Ball’s Bluff. 
There was nothing to oppose the passage. As the head of the column 
reached the middle of the river, Jackson, raised from his usual calm de- 
meanor by what seemed the beginning of his cherished plan of an invasion 
of the North, paused, raised his hat, while bands and voices struck up the 
words and music of “My Maryland.”! The entire Confederate force fol: 
lowed hard after, and on the 7th was concentrated near Frederick City, next 
after Baltimore the largest town in Maryland, All told they numbered 
barely 60,000, for without a battle thousands had fallen exbausted by the 
way, unable to keep up with the swift march.? 

Lee issued an address to the people of Maryland. It was right, he said, 
that they should know, as far as concerned them, the purpose which had 
brought the Confederate army into the state. “The people of the Confed- 
erate States had long watched the wrongs and outrages which had been in- 
flicted upon the citizens of a commonwealth allied to the states of the South 
by the strongest social, political, and commercial ties,” and, “believing that 
the people of Maryland possessed a spirit too lofty to submit to such a gov- 
ernment,” the people of the South wished to aid them in “ throwing off this 
foreign yoke.” There would be no constraint or intimidation; “this army 
will respect your choice, whatever it may be; and while the Southern peo- 
ple will rejoice to welcome you to your natural position among them, they 
will only welcome you when you come of your own free will.” 

Butif Lee had anticipated a general rising in Maryland, or even any con- 
siderable accession to his army, he was doomed to disappointment. Brad- 
ley Johnson, a Marylander who held a command in the Confederate army, 
was placed in charge of the provost-guard at Frederick. He put forth an 
address to the people calling upon them to join the delivering forces. ‘‘We 
have arms for you,” he said; ‘I am authorized to muster in for the war 
companies and regiments. Let each man provide himself with a stout pair 
of shoes, a good blanket, and a tin cup. Jackson’s men have no baggage.” 
This prospect was not alluring to those to whom war had presented itself 
as a gay holiday show. When the theoretical secessionists of Maryland saw 
their liberators, officers as well as men, barefoot, ragged, and filthy,° they 
looked upon them with hardly concealed aversion. Yet that ragged and 
begrimed army was as brave a body of soldiers as the world ever saw. The 
enthusiasm of the Maryland secessionists exhausted itself in a few women 
secretly sewing clothing for the army, and in presenting to Jackson a mag- 
nificent horse, which threw him the first time he mounted it.* 


The command of the Union army passed quietly and almost as a matter 
of course into the hands of McClellan even before Pope had asked to be re- 
heved.°. The President and General Halleck went to McClellan’s house on 
the morning of the 2d. Lincoln said that things were going on badly in 
front; the army was in full retreat upon the defenses of Washington, and 
the roads were filled with stragglers. McClellan should go out and meet 
the army, take command of it as it approached the works, and put the troops 
in the best position for defense. Until this was said Halleck had no knowl- 
edge of the President’s purpose.® Lincoln had resolved, in his quiet way, 
that he must exercise his authority as commander-in-chief of the army until 
he could find some man into whose hands this power could be intrusted. 
How often he tried to find such a man, and how fully he trusted him when 
found, this history will show. A formal order was forthwith issued: ‘Ma- 
jor General McClellan will have command of the fortifications of Washing- 
ton, and of all the troops for the defense of the capital.” 

McClellan set vigorously to work to reorganize the shattered army. 
Some changes were made in the distribution of corps and commanders. 
Banks was placed in charge of the fortifications around Washington, the 
command of his corps in the field being given to Mansfield, a veteran offi- 
cer who had never held any prominent command, but had shown at Nor- 
folk high qualifications. Hooker was placed in command of the corps of 
McDowell, who disappeared from active duty. Burnside, Sumner, Frank- 
lin, and Porter retained the command of their corps. Thus, with the ex- 
ception of Burnside, who was his personal friend, all the corps commanders 
had served under McClellan on the Peninsula. The core of the army 
consisted of the force brought from before Richmond. So admirably had 
this been organized by McClellan that, in spite of the shock which it had 
experienced in its retreat from the Chickahominy, its withdrawal from the 
James, and the disasters which a part of it had suffered under Pope, it took 
at once the form of a regular army, and formed a nucleus around which 
were rallied the troops gathered from every quarter. In a week, besides 
72,000 men around Washington, and 13,000, mostly new recruits, left un- 


1 Stonewall Jackson, 308. 

* The extent to which the army was reduced by fatigue and exhaustion is abundantly testified 
to by all Confederate accounts. Lee says (Zep.,i., 35): ‘‘The arduous services in which our 
troops had been engaged, their great privations of rest and food, and the long marches without 
shoes, had greatly reduced our ranks. ‘These causes had compelled thousands of brave men to 
absent themselves, and many more had done so through unworthy motives.” Cooke says (Stone- 
wall Jackson, 341): **All the roads of Northern Virginia were lined with soldiers, comprehensive- 
ly denominated ‘stragglers ;* but the great majority of these men had fallen out from the adyanc- 
ing column from physical impossibility to keep up with it; thousands were not with General Lee 
because they had no shoes, and their bleeding feet would carry them no farther, or the heavy 
march without rations had broken them down. This great crowd toiled on painfully on the wake 
of the army, dragging themselves five or six miles a day; and when they came to the Potomac, 
near Leesburg, it was only to find that General Lee had swept on, that General McClellan's col- 
umn was between him and them, and that they could not rejoin their commands. The citizens 
of that whole region, who fed these unfortunate persons, will bear testimony that numbers suffi- 
cient to constitute an army in themselves passed the Blue Ridge to rendezvous, by General Lee’s 
orders, at Winchester. ‘These 20,000 or 30,000 men were not in the battle.” 

3 «Never had the army been so dirty, ragged, and ill-provided as on this march.’—D. R. 
Jones, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 221. * Stonewall Jackson, 309, 312; Lee's Rep., ii., 111. 

* The government had, indeed, wished to remove him from the command, and had twice urged 
it upon Burnside. He declined to accept it, and declared that if matters could be so arranged 
as to remove the objections to him, McClellan could do more with the army than any other 
man.—Com, Rep., 650. ° McC. Rep., 345; Halleck, in Com. Rep., 451. 


594 


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MAP OF OPERATIONS IN MARYLAND, 


accountably and against McClellan’s wish at Harper’s Ferry, there was a 
movable force of nearly 100,000 men to operate against Lee in Maryland. 
McClellan took the field at the head of this force. 

McClellan took the field in Maryland in person on the 7th, when the 
march toward Lee was fairly begun. The army moved in three columns. 
The right wing, under Burnside, comprised his own corps and that of 


Hooker. ‘The centre, under Sumner, comprised his own corps and that of 
Mansfield. Franklin, in command of his corps and Couch’s division, had 
the left. Porter’s corps, not fully organized, followed after. The move- 


ment was slow, for Lee’s plan had not yet developed itself. In the six 
days, from the 7th to the 13th, the advance was barely thirty miles. 
McClellan was also deceived as to the strength of the enemy, estimating it 
at 120,000 men—twice the real number. 

Lee’s object in crossing the Potomac at a point so near Washington, in- 
stead of at Harper’s Ferry or above, and thence advancing into the heart of 
Maryland, was to assume a position which should threaten both Washing- 
ton and Baltimore. This he supposed would draw the enemy after him; 
and he proposed to give battle to the Union army as far as possible from 
its base of supplies. For the accomplishment of this purpose, he believed 
that the possession of Harper’s Ferry was indispensable, in order to ena- 
ble him to keep open his communications with Richmond through the 
Valley of the Shenandoah. He assumed that the march into Maryland 
would have caused the Union troops at Harper’s Ferry to be withdrawn, 
as they should have been, and as McClellan wished. This not being done, 
Lee undertook to dislodge, and, if possible, capture the forces there. To 
effect this, he divided his army, sending the whole of Jackson’s command 
and half of Longstreet’s toward Harper’s Ferry, retaining with himself D. 
H. Hill’s division, half of Longstreet’s corps, and the greater part of the 
cavalry.’ McClellan’s advance had been so slow that Lee trusted that 
~ 2) Jackson’s “command,” including A. P. Hill’s division, comprised 14 brigades. 


Long- 


Harper’s Ferry could be reduced and his army reunited before he would 
be called upon to meet the enemy.! In forming his plan of operations, Lee 
must have under-estimated the Federal force as greatly as McClellan over. 
estimated that of the Confederates. He could not have supposed that the 
enemy whom he had outnumbered and defeated at Groveton, and whom he 
had seen in full retreat to the fortifications at Washington, should within 
ten days have swelled to a force outnumbering his own almost three to 
one.2 He must have supposed that his own effective force and that of the 
enemy were about equal. 

Harper's Ferry is at the junction of the Potomac and the Shenandoah. 
The Potomac, coming from the north, meets the Shenandoah, ranging from 
the west, at the foot of a spur of the Blue Ridge, here known as Elk Mount- 
ain. ‘The united streams have torn a narrow passage through the mountain, 
rending it from summit to base, leaving on either side steep cliffs a thou- 
sand feet high. The eastern cliff is Maryland Heights; the western, on the 
Virginia side, Loudon Heights. In the angle at the junction of the rivers 
is an elevated plateau, falling steeply toward the Potomac, and sloping gen- 
tly toward the Shenandoah, and stretching backward at the level of the 
surrounding country. The ridge of this plateau is Bolivar Heights, at the 
foot of which nestles the village of Harper’s Ferry. Some one had once 


street’s ‘‘command” properly comprised 21 brigades; but at this time 10 of these were detached 
for the Harper’s Ferry operation, and did not act during the remainder of this campaign under 
Longstreet. In the remainder of this chapter ‘‘Longstreet’s corps” will indicate only the 11 
brigades which remained with him. The others will be designated by the name of the respect- 
ive division commanders, McLaws, Anderson, and Walker. D.H. Hill’s division consisted of 5 
brigades. Thus 24 brigades were detached to Harper's Ferry, and 16 remained with Lee. The 
effective strength of a brigade at this time, previous to losses in battle, was 1500; some, however, 
were much stronger, some much weaker. 1 Lee's Rep., i., 28. 

2 On the 20th of September, after the loss of 15,000 at South Mountain and Antietam, no con- 
siderable re-enforcements having been received in the interval, the Army of the Potomac num- 
bered ‘present for duty” 164,359, of whom 71,210 were stationed within the defenses at Wash- 
ington, leaving in the field directly under McClellan 93,169. The nominal force—present for 
duty, sick, and absent—was 293,798.— Com. Rep., 492. 


SEpTEMBER, 1862." THE INVASION OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


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395 


396 


called this place “the Thermopyle of America.” It 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1862. 


might have been so in the times when war was waged 


with bow and sword, with spear and sling, but with 


the appliances of modern warfare the place has no 
defensive value. It is completely overlooked by 


both Loudon and Maryland Heights at such a dis- 


tance and height that a plunging fire of artillery or 


musketry can be poured into it from either without 


the possibility of reply. It is a mere military trap, 


unless the commanding heights are also held in force ; 
and then it is worthless, as no enemy need go near it 


in order to cross the Potomac from either direction 


to invade Maryland or Virginia. Johnston had per- 
ceived this fifteen months before, and abandoned the 
place without resistance, and against positive orders, 
the moment it was menaced. Lee strangely consid- 
ered its possession essential to his proposed opera- 
tions, and, in order to seize it, divided his army. 
Had he done otherwise, the course of the campaign 
must have been wholly different. He would have 
fought the decisive battle far in the interior with the 
whole, instead of with a part of his force. Had he 
been defeated, his army must have been annihilated, 
for the victorious enemy would have been between 
him and Virginia, cutting off all possibility of succor 
or retreat. Had he been victorious, he might prob 
ably have anticipated Sherman’s march to the sea, 
for beyond the Alleghanies there was no army to 
oppose him; and from Philadelphia he might have 
dictated terms of peace. 

Harper’s Ferry was held by a force of about 13,000, 
including an outpost at Martinsburg. They were 
raw troops, commanded by Colonel Miles. About 
1500 men were posted on Maryland Heights, the re- 
mainder were intrenched on Bolivar Heights. Lee’s 
plan was to surround this force, and thus capture it. 
His orders were issued on the 9th, and their execu- 
tion commenced the next morning. Walker, whose 
two brigades had been sent to the mouth of the Mo- 
nocacy to destroy the canal aqueduct, was to cross 
the Potomac, ascend its right bank, and seize Lou- 
don Heights. McLaws, with eight brigades, was to 


of Maryland Heights, which he was to ascend and 
oecupy, disposing his forces in such a way as to hold 
the roads winding around its base, thus cutting oft 
all retreat in that direction. Jackson, with fourteen 
brigades, was to cross the South Mountain at Tur- 
ner’s Gap, advance to the Potomac, cross it high 
above Harper's Ferry, sweep down its right bank, 
capturing or driving back the force at Martinsburg, 
and then march directly upon Harper’s Ferry. The 
remainder of the army was to march toward Hagers- 
town, where, or at Boonesboro’, it was to be rejoined 
by that portion which, it was assumed, would have 
succeeded in its designs upon Harper's Ferry. 

The directions of this order were executed with 
great precision. Walker took possession of Lou- 
don Heights on the 18th, without encountering the 
slightest opposition. McLaws reached the foot of Maryland Heights on the 
12th. He sent two brigades to scale the ascent and gain the summit. They 
encountered some resistance from the troops posted there, but this was over- 
come, the Federals abandoning their works, pitching the guns down the 
cliff, and making their way across the river to Harper’s Ferry. Maryland 
Heights was in the possession of the infantry of McLaws on the evening of 
the 13th. The next morning was employed in cutting a road to the top of 
the Heights practicable for artillery, along which four guns were laborious- 
ly dragged, and from these fire was opened upon the town. 

Jackson, in the mean while, was pressing upon uis longer march with 
that speed which had gained for his command the name of the “ foot cay- 
alry.” Leaving Frederick on the 10th, he reached the Potomac next day 
at Williamsport, 25 miles above Harper’s Ferry, and on the 12th entered 
Martinsburg. The Federal troops abandoned this place at his approach, 
and fell back to Harper’s Ferry. Jackson followed hard after, and on the 
following morning came in sight of the Union force, drawn up on Bolivar 
Heights. In three days he had marched 80 miles. The remainder of that 
day and the whole of the 14th were spent by Jackson in ascertaining, by 
courier and signal, the positions of Walker and McLaws upon Loudon and 
Maryland Heights. He found that they had gained the positions appointed 
for them, and commanded the only roads by which the Federals could re- 
treat down the Potomac or up the Shenandoah, but that the enemy on 
Bolivar Heights were beyond the effective range of his light guns. Sepa- 
rated as they were from him by rivers, they could afford no direct assist- 
ance in capturing the Federal force as it then stood. Jackson undertook to 


_* Lee’s Rep., i, 28. For the full text of this order, see McC. Rep., 353. D. H. Hill had left 
his copy of the order in his room at Frederick, where it was found and given to McClellan three 
days after. It placed him in full possession of the plans of his enemy; too late, indeed, to enable 
him to thwart them entirely, but in time to enable him to strike an unexpected blow. 


hi 


march from Frederick, pass the South Mountain at Ki iy 
; : ne Ware 
Crampton’s Gap, cross the narrow valley to the foot MS BAS 


SIGNAL STATION, SUMMIT OF MARYLAND MEIGIITS, 


dislodge the enemy from Bolivar Heights, and drive them down into the 
slaughter-pen of Harper’s Ferry. The force with which he was to do this 
exceeded only slightly that opposed to him. Miles had 12,000 or 18,000. 
Jackson’s “command” numbered at the outset about 32,000. It had fought 
at Cedar Run, Bristoe, the three battles near Groveton, and at Chantilly, 
losing in all 6000 men, killed and wounded. Not less than 10,000 had 
fallen out from sickness or exhaustion on the long march from the Rapidan 
to the Potomac. He could not have brought more than 15,000 to Harper’s 
Ferry. For the rest, the affair reads almost like a farce, with a few tragic 
lines interpolated. 

By the morning of the 15th Jackson had fairly surrounded Miles; bat- 
teries from one side opened upon the other on the Bolivar plateau; the 
guns from Loudon and Maryland Heights played at the heads of those be- 
low, and were duly answered; none doing harm, except that one Confed- 
erate shot struck a Federal caisson. Miles called a council of war, and said 
he had resolved to surrender; one or two of his officers wished to “cut 
their way out;” the cavalry, 1500 strong, rode up the Potomac, with or 
without orders, and got off, encountering no opposition, and destroying in 
their way 75 wagons of the Confederate train. If the infantry had gone 
the same way there was nothing to hinder; but they were raw troops, com- 
manded by worse than raw officers. Miles raised the white flag in token 
of surrender. Before it was perceived, he was mortally wounded by a 
chance shot. White, his superior in rank, who, on coming in from Mar- 
tinsburg, had waived the command in Miles’s favor, went to Jackson to ar- 
range terms of surrender.. There was then nothing else to be done, for the 
troops had degenerated into a crowd of frightened men. He found the 
Confederate general fast asleep on the ground. Hill, whom White had first 
encountered, aroused Jackson. ‘ General,” said he, “this is General White, 


THE INVASION 


SerreMBER, 1862. ] 


= 


: —— 
= MIDDLETOWN 


©) MARTINS BURG 


SCALE OF MILES. 
5 10 


R 
—_— 
SS Se See eee f 


MOVEMENTS FROM SEPTEMBER 10 To 17 


A, A. Jackson’s March from Frederick to Sharpsburg. D, D. Walker's March from the Monocacy to Sharpsburg. 
B, B. Longstreet’s 4 va aS I, E. Confederate Position at Antietam. {tietam. 
C, C. McLaws and Anderson's ‘ ae H.H. Franklin’s March from Pleasant Valley to the An- 
Franklin followed the same route as McLaws from Frederick to Pleasant Valley ; the remainder of the Union army 
that of Longstreet from Frederick to Boonesboro’, and thence to the Antietam. ‘The arrows show the direction of the 
march. Where two or more letters come together, it indicates that the several bodies followed the same route. 


of the United States army.” Jackson made a gesture of recognition, and 
again closed his eyes. ‘‘ He has come to arrange terms of surrender,” con- 
tinued Hill. Jackson made no reply; he was fast asleep. Again, half 
awakened, he said, drowsily, ‘The surrender must be unconditional; every 
indulgence can be granted afterward,” then fell fast asleep once more, leav- 
ing Hill to decide upon the terms.!. The terms granted were certainly lib- 
eral. All were to be paroled, retaining their personal effects, and officers 
their side-arms; transportation to be furnished to carry away the property. 
Upon these terms more than 11,000 men were surrendered. The Confed- 
erates gained 73 guns, with but little ammunition, 18,000 small-arms, and a 
considerable amount of stores. The capture cost the Confederates perhaps 
two score of lives, and the Federals about as many.? 

Although the affair at Harper’s Ferry proved of ultimate disadvantage 
to the Confederates, it was disgraceful alike to the military authorities at 
Washington, who left the force in a place where it was of no use, and to the 
officers who attempted no adequate defense. Miles died a few hours after 
the surrender, but his conduct was sharply censured by the Military Com- 
mission. Ford, who shamefully abandoned Maryland Heights, was dis- 
missed from the service on the ground of “such lack of military capacity as 
to disqualify him from a command in the service.” White was commend- 
ed as having “acted with decided capability and courage.” 


Slow as had been McClellan’s advance, it yet carried him farther from 
Washington than was thought prudent by Halleck. With more than 70,000 
men in garrison, the authorities at Washington were nervously apprehen- 
sive for the safety of the capital. When tidings were brought that a Con- 
federate force had recrossed the Potomac, it was assumed that the whole 
army had crossed or was about to cross and assail Washington, either in 
front, or in the rear by recrossing into Maryland below McClellan. Even as 
late as the 16th, when the two armies were face to face on the Antietam, Hal- 
leck still believed that the bulk of the Confederate force was in Virginia. 


' Cooke’s Stonewall Jackson, 325. 

* McLaws speaks of a ‘‘sharp and spirited engagement” on Maryland Heights, but does not 
give his losses.—JLee’s Rep., ii., 163. Walker lost on Loudon Heights one killed and three 
wounded.—Jbid., 204. A. P. Hill lost three killed and 66 wounded. ‘There appear to have been 
no losses in the remainder of Jackson’s command. 3 General Orders, 1862, No. 183. 

* The President to McClellan, Sept. 12: ‘‘Governor Curtin telegraphs me, ‘I have advices that 


OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


397 


The Confederates left Frederick on the 10th, and the place was occupied 
by the Federals on the 12th, after a skirmish with the enemy’s cavalry left 
behind as a rear-guard. On the evening of the next day, accident, which 
had three weeks before favored Lee by disclosing to him the situation of 
Pope, placed in McClellan’s hands the order from Lee disclosing his designs, 
and the position and movements of every division of the Confederate army. 
Thus informed, McClellan’s course was plain. He had 100,000 men within 
a few hours’ march from Frederick. Lee had divided his army into two 
parts, neither of which, by McClellan’s own exaggerated estimate, consisting 
of more than 60,000, and, in fact, of only half as many. Bya rapid march, 
the whole Union army could be thrown right between these two portions. 
He proposed to “cut the enemy in two, and beat him in detail.” His ar- 
rangements were for once made with due promptness. That night orders 
were sent to every general. Franklin was to cross the South Mountain by 
Crampton’s Gap, cut off McLaws, and relieve Harper’s Ferry. The remain- 
der of the army, Hooker and Reno in the advance, followed by Sumner with 
his own corps and that of Mansfield, with the division of Porter which had 
come up, was to march upon the heels of Lee toward Boonesboro’, crossing 
the South Mountain at Turner’s Gap, six miles above Crampton’s, and fall 
upon that half of the Confederate army which had not been sent toward 
Harper’s Ferry. 

Lee had meanwhile moved leisurely past the South Mountain. On the 
11th Longstreet had reached Hagerstown, D. H. Hill stopping at Boonesboro’. 
On the afternoon of the 18th the Confederate commander was startled by 
intelligence that the Federals, whom he had supposed to be quietly resting 
at Frederick, were pressing swiftly toward Turner's Gap. If they succeed- 
ed in passing the mountains they would be fairly between the portions of 
his divided army. Hill was hurried back to the Gap at once to keep the 
enemy in check until Longstreet could be recalled from Hagerstown. Lee 
felt the full peril of his position. He had with him barely 28,000 men, and 
these stretched along a distance of 25 miles. To provide for the worst, he 
sent his trains across the Potomac, escorted by only two regiments.? 

Thill reached the summit of the Gap early in the morning of the 14th, just 
before the head of the Federal force came up. His division had left Han- 
over Junction, a few miles from Richmond, on the 26th of July, and joined 
Lee at Chantilly, fully 150 miles distant, on the 8d of September, and were 
then, without a day’s rest, pushed forward to the Potomac and into Mary- 
land. They had not been engaged in a single action. But “the straggling 
had been enormous, in consequence of heavy marches, deficient commissa- 
riat, want of shoes, and ineflicient officers,” so that he could bring less than 
5000 men into action? out of more than twice that number with which he 
had set out. 

The South Mountain rises to a height of about 1000 feet, the depression 
at Turner’s Gap being about 400 feet. But the Gap is so narrow that a few 
hundred men with artillery could hold the summit against an army. But 


Jackson is crossing the Potomac at Williamsport, and probably the whole rebel army will be drawn 
from Maryland.’ Receiving nothing from Harper's Ferry or Martinsburg to-day, and positive in- 
formation that the line is cut, corroborates the idea that the enemy is recrossing the Potomac.” 
Halleck to McClellan, Sept. 13: “Until you know more certainly the enemy’s force south of the 
Potomac, you are wrong in uncovering the capital. Iam of the opinion that the enemy will send 
a small column toward Pennsylvania to draw your forces in that direction, then suddenly move on 
Washington with the forces south of the Potomac and those he may cross over.” ‘Sept. 14: 
“*Scouts report a large force still on the Virginia side of the Potomac. If so, I fear you are ex- 
posing your left and rear.” Sept.16; ‘I think you will find that the whole force of the enemy 
in your front has crossed the river. I fear now more than ever that they will recross at Harper's 
Ferry or below, and turn your left, thus cutting you off from Washington.”—McC. Rep., 350. 
General Halleck indeed testified (Com. Rep., 453): ‘*In respect to General McClellan’s going 
too fast or too far from Washington, there can be found no such telegram from me to him. He 
has mistaken the meaning of the telegrams I sent to him. I telegraphed to him that he was go- 
ing too far, not from Washington, but from the Potomac, leaving General Lee the opportunity to 
come down the Potomac and get between him and Washington.” But, as McClellan’s left actu- 
ally hugged the Potomac, and his centre and right, moving by parallel roads, were more nearly 
within supporting distance than if they had followed in the rear, it is hard to see how, if he moved 
at all, he could have gone at a less distance from the river. 1 McC. Rep., 360. 
* This significant fact is mentioned only by D. H. Hill, and that merely incidentally, in his re- 
port of the battle of Antietam. ‘‘ Our wagons had been sent off across the river on Sunday, the 
14th, and for three days the men had been sustaining life on green corn and such cattle as they 
could kill in the fields. In charging through an apple orchard at the Yankees, with the imme- 
diate prospect of death before them, I noticed men eagerly devouring apples.’""—Lee’s Rep., ii., 118. 
* D. H. Hill, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 114. 


‘ ~ 
BOONESBORO’ AND YURNER'S GAP, FROM THE WEST. 


398 


\ 


WILLIAM BL. FRANELIN, 


a road, rough though passable, runs along the summits of each of the ridges 
which bound the Gap on either side; by these the main attack of the Fed- 
erals was made, the object being to turn, either by the right or the left, or 
by both, the Confederate force holding the summit of the Gap. Reno’s di- 
vision took the road to the left, and, after sharp fighting, succeeded at noon 
in gaining the summit, or rather one of the summits, for the crest of the 
mountain is cloven by a deep ravine, and beyond this the enemy held a 
strong position. ‘There was now a lull in the contest lasting for a couple 
of hours, while Hooker, who had reached the base of the mountain after 
Reno, was working his way up the road on the right of the pass. <A soli- 
tary peak, which overlooked the country for miles, was the key to the whole 
position. Whoever held that held the pass. Both sides seemed to appre- 
hend this at once, and each endeavored to gain it. Hooker’s men were 
climbing the steep slope, too steep for artillery to be dragged up. Hill, 
from the valley below, trained his guns upon the peak, but with little effect. 
He sent three brigades of infantry up to hold the peak. ‘The lines met, and 
engaged in a fierce but desultory combat, each availing itself of every nat- 
ural defense. 

Until late in the afternoon the battle on the Confederate side had been 
fought wholly by Hill. But about four o’clock Longstreet had come up 
with eight brigades, worn‘and exhausted by the long march from Hagers- 
town. Some of these were hotly engaged, but they came two hours too late 
to change the fortunes of the day. When night closed in the Federals had 
won every position and held the Gap, through which their whole force could 
pour on the following morning. Nothing was left for Lee but to retreat, 
leaving his dead and wounded behind. The action was fought with de- 
termined bravery on both sides. In all, the Federals had brought in about 
30,000 men, the Confederates 17,000.1_ The Federal loss in this action was 
312 killed, 1234 wounded. That of the Confederates was greater, Hill 
lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, nearly 2000; for at Antietam, three 
days later, he could bring into action only 8000.2 Some of Longstreet’s 
brigades also lost heavily. The Federals secured 1500 prisoners, most of 
them from the wounded. The entire loss of the Confederates, in killed and 
wounded, was probably something more than 2000. eno was killed near 
the close of the battle. The Confederates lost Garland. Both were brave 
officers and accomplished gentlemen.® 

Simultaneously with the battle at Turner’s Gap, an action had been going 
on at Crampton’s Gap, a few miles distant. Franklin, with his corps, lack- 
ing Couch’s division, which had not come up, advanced toward this gap. 
The foot of the pass was slightly held, and the force pressed on up the slope. 
Tidings of the approach of Franklin reached McLaws, who had just estab- 
lished himself on Maryland Heights. He sent Cobb back with three bri- 
gades, directing him to hold the pass if it cost the last man, Cobb took 
post near the top of the mountain, behind a stone wall; Slocum’s division 


* McClellan says: ‘‘ We went into action with about 30,000 men.” He supposed that he had 
encountered ‘* D. H. Hill’s corps, 15,500, and a part, if not the whole of Longstreet’s, and perhaps 
a portion of Jackson’s” (Rep., 872). But he had actually met eight brigades of Longstreet’s, about 
12,000, and D. H. Hill’s, 5000. Such was, however, the strength of the position, that if the Con- 
federates had been able in the morning to haye brought 10,000 or 15,000 men to its defense, and 
so held the crests on the two sides of the Gap with artillery, they could not have been dislodged by 
five times their number.—See Longstreet and D, H. Hill, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 84, 114. 

2 Lee’s Rep., ii., 114. 

* D. H. Hill thus brutally mentions the death of these two generals: ‘This brilliant service 
cost us the life of that pure, gallant, and accomplished Christian soldier, General Garland, who had 
no superior and few equals in the service. The Yankees, on their side, lost General Reno, a ren- 
egade Virginian, who was killed by a happy shot from the 23d North Carolina.” 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| Lee. 


_ the troops and artillery.’ 
lated, for between him and Lee was interposed both the Shenandoah and 


[SEPTEMBER, 1862. 


charged this in front, while Smith moved round to assail it in flank and 
rear. The Confederates broke and fled down the slope in confusion, and 
in the evening Franklin debouched into Pleasant Valley, three miles from 
Maryland Heights on the opposite side, and only six from Harper's Ferry, 
whence the sound of firing indicated that the place was still held. The 
Federals lost 115 killed and 416 wounded; the Confederates more, for they 
left behind 600 prisoners, mostly wounded. 

On the morning of the 15th McLaws drew back his whole force, leaving 
only two regiments upon the heights, and formed it across the lower end of 
the Valley, Franklin forming his across the upper end. Both lay watching 
each other all the morning, each supposing the other to be superior, and 
neither daring to attack. The numbers were, in reality, nearly equal, the 
Confederates having a small preponderance. 

The passes of the South Mountain having been forced, the position of 
Lee was perilous. He had with him less than 25,000 men of all arms, in- 
fantry, cavalry, and artillery. So long as Harper’s Ferry held out, the forces 
sent to capture it were cut off from reuniting with him. The position here 
was singular. If Jackson and McLaws held the garrison of the Ferry in a 
vice, that garrison and Tranklin held McLaws and Walker in as close a 
grip. McLaws could not join Lee by marching up Pleasant Valley, for 
franklin barred the way; he could not cross the Elk Mountain, for that 
was impassable for an army; until Harper’s Ferry was taken, he could not 
cross the Potomac, and, by going up its south bank and recrossing, rejoin 
“There was,” he says, ‘‘no outlet in any direction for any thing but 
the troops, and that very doubtful; in no contingency could I have saved 
Walker, on Loudon Heights, was equally iso- 


the Potomac, But when Turner’s Gap was forced, Harper’s Ferry was still 
unecaptured ; but tidings had just come that the place must soon fall, when 
the troops beleaguering, and themselves beleaguered, would be set at lib- 
erty. Ifa battle could be postponed two days, Lee would be able to bring 
into action as many of these separated forces as would be able to endure the 
long march to join him. ‘To shorten this march, he retreated during the. 
night of the 14th toward the Potomac, and, placing the Antietam Creek be- 
tween himself and McClellan, took up a strong defensive position near the 
village of Sharpsburg. 

The Potomac makes a bend shaped somewhat like the two-horned antique 
bow, about six miles from tip to tip. The Antietam is like the loosened 
string of this bow. This stream in itself is no formidable military obstacle, 
It is passable for infantry at almost every point. ‘Three stone bridges and 
several fords, within a distance of three or four miles, afford abundant pas- 
sage for artillery, provided the approaches to them are not fully command- 
ed by an enemy, ‘The region beyond, that is, on the western side, is some- 
what broken. ‘There are low swells, with narrow intervening valleys, and 
patches of woodland and cultivated fields, cut ug by roads, fences, and stone 
walls. The limestone rock every where crops up above the surface, afford- 
ing tolerable shelter for troops. The position is such that, in case of need, 
a general with 20,000 men might fairly venture to hold it against 80,000; 
one with 80,000 might fairly venture to assail an enemy posted there with 
20,000. 

Lee reached this position on the morning of the 15th, the cavalry form- 
ing his rear-guard, somewhat closely pressed by the Union horse. The 
head of the foremost pursuing infantry column reached the east bank of the 
Antietam in the afternoon. McClellan had hoped to bring on an action 
that day. His orders were, that if the enemy were overtaken on the march, 
they should be attacked at once; if found in force and position, the advanced 
corps should halt and await his arrival. Coming to the front late in the 
afternoon, McClellan found the enemy drawn up beyond the Antietam, 
making an ostentatious display of infantry, artillery, and cavalry on the op- 
posite crests. 'T'he Union corps, coming after in different columns, had be- 
come somewhat entangled, and McClellan decided, in view of what he saw 
and could then have known, that it was too late to attack that day. If he 
had been aware how weak was the force in his front, he might, perhaps, 
have determined otherwise. 

Lee had scarcely crossed the Antietam before he learned that Harper’s 
Ferry had been surrendered, and that all obstacles, except those of time and 
space, to the reunion of his army were removed. Orders were at once sent 
for the whole force near the Ferry to hasten to Sharpsburg. Jackson was 
the first to move. 

At 3 in the afternoon his men were ordered to cook two days’ rations, 
and be ready to march. The march was begun an hour past midnight. 
On the morning of the 16th the corps were within two miles of Sharps- 
burg. They had made a night-march of fifteen miles in less than six 
hours, fording the Potomac by the way. The addition which he brought 
to Lee was smallin numbers. The two divisions, Jackson’s, or the “ Stone- 
wall,” and Ewell’s, had set out from Richmond 20,000 strong. Within six 
weeks they had fought at Cedar Run, Bristoe, and during all the three days 
at Groveton. They had marched from the Rappahannock to Manassas, 
from Manassas to the Potomac, from the Potomac to Frederick, from Fred- 
erick to Harper’s Ferry, from Harper’s Ferry back to Sharpsburg, losing 


1 Franklin’s corps (Couch not having arrived) numbered not quite 13,000, McLaws’s command 
was made up of troops which had suffered least in the previous actions, having been mostly in 
reserve, and only partially engaged at Groveton. His eight brigades would probably average at 
this time 1800 each. Deducting the losses of the day before, and the two regiments left on the 
Heights, there would be between 13,000 and 14,000. He himself says (Lee’s Rep., ii., 167): 
“The force in Harper’s Ferry was nearly, if not quite equal to my own, and that above was far 
superior.” He had just before estimated the ‘‘ force above,” that is, Franklin’s, at ‘from 15,000 
to 25,000 and upward.” The force at Harper’s Ferry he knew, at the time of making the report, 
to have been more than 11,000, for that number had surrendered, and the whole cavalry force had 
escaped. Our estimate of McLaws’s strength is also confirmed by the numbers which he was able 
to bring upon the field at Antietam two days later. 2 See McLaws, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 167. 


SepremBer, 1862. ] 


at each step of the long way. Of those 20,000 men, Jackson brought back 
to Lee on the Antietam only himself and 5000 others.’ In the afternoon 
Walker came up. His two brigades had not as yet been engaged in any 
action. They had formed part of the rear-guard at Groveton. The two 
brigades numbered a little more than 8000 men when they rejoined Lee 
that evening. McLaws remained at Pleasant Valley until the morning of 
the 16th. He then crossed the Potomac by the railroad bridge, passed 
through Harper’s Ferry, not giving his men time for rest and refreshment, 
and at dark encamped for a few hours on the south bank of the Potomac, 
close by the ford. At midnight the march was resumed, and by dawn of 
the 17th the command was halted close by Sharpsburg. Of the eight bri- 
gades comprised in this command, three had suffered severely at Cramp- 
ton’s Gap; the others had done hard duty on Maryland Heights, and in 
watching the outlets from Harper’s Ferry. The march to Sharpsburg had 
been trying. Men dropped from the ranks in utter exhaustion. McLaws 
brought with him only 7000 men, barely half his force; of these about 
3000 belonged to his own division, about 4000 to that of Anderson ;? so 
that, on the morning of the 17th, Lee had, exclusive of cavalry, about 
36,000 men, infantry and artillery.® 

Meanwhile, on the afternoon of the 16th, McClellan began to move. 
Hooker was sent across the Antietam at a point above the extreme left of 
the Confederates. The passage was made without opposition. He then 
moved down the west bank, and came in contact with the Confederate left. 
Some sharp skirmishing ensued, the only result being that Hooker estab- 
lished himself in a position from which he could strike on the next morn- 
ing; and Lee could infer from what quarter the first blow would come, and 
make his dispositions accordingly. Mansfield’s corps followed Hooker 
across the Antietam during the night, and encamped a mile in the rear. 
McClellan’s plan, if Hooker understood it rightly, was the true one. He 
had undertaken the offensive. The action at Turner’s Gap had shown that 
he was in superior force. With half his strength he had forced the passage 
through the South Mountain, and his opponent had fallen back in full retreat. 
He had come up with Lee standing at bay at the farthest point to which re- 
treat was possible. Every thing pointed to the one conclusion, that the 
whole Union force should be thrown at the earliest moment upon the Con- 
federates. That this was to be done on the morning of the 17th was the 
decision, as understood by Hooker, to whom the initiative was assigned.* 

Hooker opened the attack at dawn on the morning of the 17th. The on- 
set fell upon a portion of Jackson’s command, which, few in numbers, was 
strongly posted in a wood upon the Confederate left. This was soon swept 
back, with the loss of half its numbers, out of the wood, across an open 
field, and into another wood, where the outcropping rock gave shelter from 
the fierce fire poured in upon it. Lawton, who now commanded Ewell’s 
division, called upon Hood for all the assistance which he could give. 
Hood threw his two strong brigades into action, and was soon followed by 
three brigades from Hill’s division. Hooker still pressed on, meanwhile 
sending back for Mansfield’s corps to come up to his support. This came 
upon the field at about 8 o’clock. While deploying his column, the veter- 
an commander, who had joined his corps only the day before, was killed, 
and the command reverted to Williams. Hooker still pushed on upon the 
extreme left of the Confederates, and by 9 o’clock had gained an elevation 
which commanded the position of the enemy. He thought the battle won. 
The enemy, as far as he could see, were falling back in disorder, while his 
own troops, full of spirits, rent the sky with cheers. Just then, while look- 
ing for a point at which to post his batteries in order to sweep the retreating 
foe, he fell severely wounded. Having directed a telegram to his friends, 
announcing that he had won a great victory, and sending a message to 
Sumner, who was already close at hand, to hasten upon the field, he was 
borne half-conscious to the rear.® 

But when Sumner came up the whole aspect of the battle had changed. 
Hill and Hood had sprung to the relief of Jackson. Their united force was 
far inferior in numbers to that of Hooker and Mansfield, but they were in- 
ordinately strong in artillery. Hill, with but 3000 infantry, had more than 
80 guns at his command.’ These, in front and upon the left, with the 
mounted artillery upon the right, under Stuart, were brought to bear upon 
Hooker’s advancing corps. This was checked, then wavered, and when the 
enemy, with hardly half their numbers, charged from the sheltering woods, 
Hooker’s corps broke and fled in utter rout, not to appear again upon the 
field. Their rout, moreover, threw into confusion a part of Mansfield’s 
corps. The losses in Hooker’s corps had been severe, but absolutely they 
had not been greater, and, relatively to the numbers engaged, had been less 
than they had inflicted. The killed and wounded had been about one sixth 
of the whole number, a ratio hardly one half of that of the forces which 
afterward bore the brunt of the fight on either side.’ 


1 T accept this statement of the force brought by Jackson on the authority of the generals who 
commanded the divisions at Antietam: J. R. Jones, who commanded Jackson’s division, says, 
“‘The old Stonewall division entered the action weary and worn, and reduced to the numbers of 
a small brigade . . . not numbering over 1600 men at the beginning of the fight.”—Zee’s Rep., 
ii., 222. Early, who commanded Ewell’s division, gives its losses at Antietam as 1352 “out of 
less than 3500, with which it went into that action.”—JZbid.,, ii., 196. 

2 Lee's Rep., ii., 116, 172. 

3 From this point we take no account of the cavalry force on either side, as it was not engaged 
in the action of the day. 

4 « When I had left with my corps to make this attack, I had been assured that, simultaneous 
with my attack, there should be an attack upon the rebel army in the centre and on the left the 
next morning. I sent word to General McClellan when I proposed to attack, in order that he 
might direct the other attacks to be made at the same time. At dawn I made the attack.”— 
Hooker, in Com. Rep., 581. 5 Hooker, in Com. Rep., 581. ® Lee's Rep., ii., 115. 

7 The completeness of the rout of Hooker’s corps, after his wounding, is shown by evidence too 
conclusive to be questioned. Sumner says (Com. Rep., 368): ‘On going upon the field, I found 
that General Hooker’s corps had been dispersed and routed. I passed him some distance in the 
rear, where he had been carried wounded, but I saw nothing of his corps at all, as I was advan- 
cing with my command upon the field. There were some troops lying down on the left, which I 
took to belong to Mansfield’s command. General Mansfield had been killed, and a portion of his 


THE INVASION OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


399 


JOSEPH K. MANSFIELD, 


Sumner’s large corps, more than 18,000 strong, was now thrown into ac- 
tion. It advanced in three columns. Sedewick’s division, on the extreme 
right, took the position from which Hooker had been driven so speedily 
that the Confederates were not aware of their signal success, but fell back 
to their former position before what they supposed to be merely re-enforce- 
ments brought up to support a force that had been driven back. Next on 
the left came the divisions of French’s and Richardson’s corps, pressing 
down toward the Confederate centre. Lee perceived that here was to be 
the main stress of the fight. To meet it, he ordered up every disposable 
man from his right. First came Walker’s division, 8000 strong; then 
McLaws with 8000, and Anderson with 4000. So pressing seemed the 
emergency that Lee ventured still farther to weaken his right, detaching 
regiment after regiment, until D. R. Jones, who had been posted there with 
six brigades, had barely 2400 men with which to confront Burnside’s corps 
of 14,000.!. This withdrawal from the right was, however, screened from 
the view of the enemy by the wooded ridge along which the Confederate 
line was formed. 

At ten it seemed that victory was secure for the Union forces. Sedgwick 
had gained a position a little beyond that from which Hooker had been 
driven an hour before, and Jackson’s corps was streaming to the rear. Hood, 
having lost a third of his men and exhausted his ammunition, was with- 
drawn. Hill was sorely pressed by French and Richardson. Three of his 
five brigades were broken and retreating; the other two clung desperately 
to a sunken road which formed a natural rifle-pit. The Confederate left, 
worn by the fight in which it had been engaged for five hours, and pressed 
at every point by a superior force, was on the point of giving way. But 
the strong re-enforcements brought up not only restored the balance, but 
gave them a slight preponderance. All losses being deducted, Lee had here 
on his left about 24,000 men. Sumner had his own corps and half of that 
of Mansfield, now numbering together 22,000. The re-enforcements came 
up almost at the same moment. Jackson, strengthened by McLaws, ad- 
vanced upon Sedgwick, who had gone considerably to the right, leaving a 
wide gap between himself and French. Into this gap Walker flung his di- 
vision, assailing Sedgwick on the flank and threatening his rear. The com- 
bined attack was more than he could endure. The division was forced from 
the strip of woods which it held, and which Hooker had vainly attempted 
to win, across the open field, over which he had been driven for a full half 
mile, until they rallied behind a long line of post and rail fence. Here they 
re-formed, and poured in so fierce a fire that the Confederates were checked, 
and fell back again into the wood. Both sides now occupied here on the 


‘extreme right the positions which they had held in the morning, and the 


fighting in this quarter was closed. In this fierce encounter McLaws lost 
1019 men and Walker 11038 out of the 6000 which they brought into the 
field. Jackson’s loss during this final assault was nearly 1000. Sedgwick’s 
loss was 1186, and Green’s division of Mansfield’s corps lost 650. Thus the 
Confederate loss in this final assault on the Union right was nearly double 
that of their opponents.” 


corps also had been thrown into confusion. General Hooker's corps had been dispersed; there is 
no question about that. I sent one of my own staff officers to find where they were; and Gen- 
eral Ricketts, the only officer we could find, said that he could not raise 8300 men of the corps.” 
General Meade, upon whom the command of General Hooker’s men devolved, reported (McC. 
Rep., 394): ‘*There were but 6729 men present on the 18th; whereas, on the morning of the 22d, 
there were 13,093 men present for duty, showing that previous to and during the battle 6364 
men were separated from their command.” 1 Lee's Rep., ii., 219. 

2 The details of this action are given by McLaws and Walker in Lee’s Rep., 169, 205. Neither 
Lee nor Jackson make any separate mention of the defeat of Hooker in the morning. They 


SS 


FRANCIS 0, BARLOW. 


French and Richardson were gaining slowly but steadily upon Hill. 
Colquitt’s brigade had suffered severely, and fell back to the sunken road, 
where a vain attempt was made to rally them; they broke, and disappeared 
from.the fight. Garland’s brigade was pressing on, when an officer raised 
a shout, “They are flanking us!” “This cry,” says Hill, “spread like an 
electric shock along the ranks, bringing up vivid recollections of the flank 
fire at South Mountain. In a moment they broke and fell to the rear.” 
A part of it was rallied in the sunken road. Ripley’s brigade had also 
fallen back to this road, and behind the crest of a hill which bordered it. 
Hill’s numerous artillery had been withdrawn from his front. It had done 
good service in the conflict of the morning; but McClellan had posted his 
heavy guns near the Antietam in such a position as to command the posi- 
tion. “Our artillery,” says Hill, “could not cope with the superior weight, 
caliber, range, and number of the Yankee guns. They were smashed up 
or withdrawn before they could be effectually turned against the massive 
columns of attack.”? 

Howard, who now commanded the division of Sedgwick, who, having 
been twice wounded, was borne from the field, was still engaged with Jack- 
son, McLaws, and Walker, when French on the right, followed by Richard- 
son on the left, pushed vigorously upon Hill, driving him back toward the 
right and rear, into and beyond the sunken road, which formed a right an- 
gle with his previous line. Kimball, of French’s division, and Meagher, 
of Richardson’s, gained the border of this natural rifle-pit at almost the same 
moment. Here ensued the fiercest fighting of the day. R. H. Anderson 
had now brought his division of 4000 men to the support of Hill, who had 
been farther strengthened by a number of regiments drawn from D. R. 
Jones, who held the extreme Confederate right, opposite Burnside, who had 
hardly made an attempt to cross the Antietam and take his assigned part 
in the-action. The fight here was almost wholly with musketry, scarcely 
a battery being brought into action on either side. Meagher’s Irish brigade 
suffered fearfully. Its commander was disabled by a fall from his horse. 
The brigade, having nearly exhausted its ammunition, was withdrawn to 
replenish, its place being taken by Caldwell’s brigade. Both brigades 
moved, one to the front, the other to the rear, as steadily as though on drill. 
Barlow, then colonel, since major general, now dashed upon the flank of 
the sunken road, capturing the 300 men who still clung to it. 

Anderson was wounded shortly after coming upon the field, and the 
command of his brigade devolved upon Pryor.2. The ground upon which 
Richardson and French had been fighting was broken and irregular, inter- 
sected by numerous ravines, hills covered with corn, inclosed by stone 
walls, behind which the enemy could manceuvre and throw his strength, 
without being perceived, upon every part of the lines. More than half a 
score desperate attempts were made; all were repelled, and the conclusion 
of each found the Union troops in possession of some additional ground and 


were not at all aware that it was an utter rout. So closely had the advance of Sedgwick fol- 
lowed the retreat of Hooker that it was supposed to be a rally of the same troops with strong re- 
enforcements. See also McClellan’s Report, and Sumner, in Com. Rep., 368. 

1 D.H. Hill, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 115. 

* Lee’s Report embodies no reports, either divisional or regimental, from Anderson’s division, 
and its movements are barely alluded to by Hill. It was sharply engaged, losing more than 
1000 men ; but its efforts seem to have been desultory and ineffective. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1862 


important position. Two of these repulses were given by Barlow, who, 
with his two regiments, the 61st and 64th New York, had won the sunken 
road. He fairly won his generalship upon this bloody field. Eighteen 
months before he had enlisted as a private. In one of the last of these, 
Richardson, whose services on this day were second to those of no other 
man, was mortally wounded, and the command of his division fell upon 
TIancock. 

This action on the centre was fairly begun an hour before noon. By 
two hours after noon the Confederates here were worsted, and their force 
was so thoroughly shattered that it needed but a single heavy blow to shiv- 
er 1t to atoms, and, notwithstanding the reverse which Sedgwick had met, 
which was really only slight, to win a complete victory. McClellan had 
then at the very point where the blow should have been struck a force 
three-fold greater than was required to make it effectual. About noon, 
Franklin, with two divisions of his corps, 12,000 strong, had come up from 
Pleasant Valley.'’ The march had been an easy one, and these troops were 
perfectly fresh. McClellan had intended to keep this corps in reserve on 
the east side of the Antietam, to operate on either flank or on the centre, as 
circumstances might require. But when it came up the action was so crit- 
ical that he properly abandoned this purpose, and sent the corps across the 
stream. The leading division, that of Smith, touched the edge of the fight 
somewhat sharply. It came upon the field between Sedgwick and French 
just at the moment when Sedgwick had been forced back. The third bri- 
gade met a force of the enemy coming out of the woods so often contested, 
drove them back, and attempted to enter the woods. Meeting a severe 
fire, it fell back, somewhat disordered, behind the crest of a hill, where it re- 
formed, the Confederates at the same time falling back into the shelter of 
the woods. Smith’s second brigade was sent’a little to the left to support 
French, and encountered a sharp fire from Hill’s artillery.2. Slocum’s divi- 
sion of Franklin’s corps followed directly after that of Smith, and the whole 
corps was ready for action. Franklin had given orders to advance. Had 
this been done, nothing in war can be more certain than that the absolute 
rout and capture of the Confederate army would have followed. This 
corps, 12,000 strong, perfectly fresh and eager for action, lay right in front 
of a great gap which had been left between the Confederate centre and left. 
On the left, Jackson, with McLaws and Walker, had left barely 8000 men; 
Hill, in the centre, with the remnants of his own division, of Anderson’s, 
of the six brigades of Longstreet, including Hood’s two, which returned to 
the field, had remaining not more than 13,000, and these were so utterly 
shattered and broken that, in the utmost emergency, not half that number 
could have been rallied for a fight. Confronting him were the divisions of 
Richardson, French, and Green, of Mansfield’s corps, worn, exhausted, and 
reduced in numbers, it is true, but cheered with success, and still with quite 
13,000 effective men. 

Hill’s condition, as told by himself and his brigade commanders, was in- 
deed pitiable. Of his own five brigades four had been utterly routed. He 
had gone into action at South Mountain with 5000, and lost 2000; of the 
3000 with which he entered the battle of Antietam, he could, the day after 
its close, muster less than 1700. In three days he had lost almost two 
thirds of his men. Thirty-four field-officers had gone into these two bat- 
tles; when they were over, only nine were left; regiments, or the frag- 
ments of them, were commanded by lieutenants. His artillery, eighty guns 
and more, had been “smashed up,” or withdrawn to avoid certain destruc- 
tion. The Thersites of the Confederate army (saving only the point of 
cowardice; for, in spite of his foul pen and tongue, he was a skillful leader 
and desperate fighter), one can not wonder that Hill heaps invectives upon 
friend and foe. Reno is a “renegade Virginian,” killed by “a happy 
shot ;” the force opposed to him are always styled ‘‘ Yankees,” in which 
word he embodies the utmost of his detestation, save in one case, where, for 
deeper emphasis, they are denominated “ the restorers of the Union.” The 
Confederates failed of victory, he says, because McLaws and Anderson came 
up two hours too late; because the artillery was badly handled—“ an artil- 
lery duel between the Washington artillery and the Yankee batteries was 
the most melancholy farce of the war;” and because ‘thousands of thievish 
poltroons had kept away from sheer cowardice ; the straggler is generally a 
thief, and always a coward, lost to all sense of shame; he can only be kept 
in ranks by a strict and sanguinary discipline.” Yet there is something al- 
most sublime in the attitude of Hill at the close of the fight on his front. 
Two brigades had streamed to the rear in confusion, leaving a great gap, 
through which the enemy poured resistlessly. Rallying 150 men, Hill, 
musket in hand like a private, led them on. He himself shall describe the 
closing moments of his part of the engagement: ‘There were no troops 


! Franklin says (Com. Rep., 626): ‘‘The advance of my command arrived on the battle-field 
of Antietam about 10 o’clock.” McClellan says (Report, 385): ‘‘ Between 12 and 1 P.M. General 
Franklin’s corps arrived on the field of battle.” From a comparison of all the indicia of time, I 
conclude that Franklin gives the hour correctly, and that he was actually engaged before noon. 

? This movement of Smith’s division of Franklin’s corps was of considerable importance. The 
Confederate reports respecting it are very full, and greatly exaggerated. Thus Hill says (Lee’s 
Rep., ii., 115): ‘* Franklin’s corps advanced in three parallel lines, with all the precision of a pa- 
rade-day, upon my two brigades. They met with a galling fire, however, recoiled, and fell back, 
and finally lay down behind the crest of a hill, and kept up an irregular fire. I got a battery in 
position, which partly enfiladed the Yankee line, and aided materially to check its advance.” 
Walker (Jbid., ii., 206) describes at length the encounter between Smith’s third brigade and two 
regiments of his division, which were ordered by Longstreet ‘‘to charge the enemy, who was 
threatening his front as if to pass through the opening between the point of timber. This order 
was promptly obeyed in the face of such a fire as troops have seldom encountered without run- 
ning away, and with a steadiness and unfailing gallantry seldom equaled. Battery after battery, 
regiment after regiment, opened their fire upon them, hurling a torrent of missiles through their 
ranks; but nothing could arrest their progress, and three times the enemy broke and fled before 
their impetuous charge. Finally they reached the fatal picket fence. ‘To climb over it in the 
face of such a force, and under such a fire, would have been sheer madness to attempt, and, their 
ammunition being now almost exhausted, Colonel Cooke very properly gave the order to fall back, 
which was done in the most perfect order; after which the troops took up their former position, 
which they held until night.” 5 Lee's Report, ii., 846 


SerreMBeER, 1862.] 


+ Sea © 


= 


BURYING THE DEAD, 


ut YRS 


| i ij 


SCENES ON THE FIELD AFTER THE BATTLE.! 


AT THE FENOE. 


PAY WTA 


oe 


a 


rj 


‘): Wh 


a day or two after the action. They are introduced as presenting the real aspect ofa great battle- 
field. My acknowledgments are due to Mr. Brady for access to, and free use of his immense col- 
lection of scenes and portraits. 

KE 

5 I 


THE INVASION OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


' These views, and those on page 403, are reproduced from Photographs by M. B. Brady, taken 


401 


near to hold the centre except a few hundred rallied from various brigades. 
The Yankees crossed the old road which we had occupied in the morning, 
and occupied a corn-field and orchard in advance of it. They had now got 
within a few hundred yards of the hill which commanded Sharpsburg and 
our rear. Affairs looked very critical. I found a battery concealed in a 
corn-field, and ordered it to move out and open upon the Yankee columns. 
It moved out most gallantly, though exposed to a terrible direct and reverse 
fire from the long-range Yankee artillery across the Antietam, A caisson 
exploded, but the battery was unlimbered, and, with grape and canister, 
drove the Yankees back. I was now satisfied that a single regiment of 
fresh men could drive the whole of them in our front across the Antietam. 
I got up about two hundred men, who said they were willing to advance to 
the attack if I would lead them. We met, however, with a warm recep- 
tion, and the little command was broken and dispersed. About two hund- 
red more were gathered, and I sent them to the right to attack the Yankees 
in flank. They drove them back a short distance, but were in turn re- 
pulsed. These two attacks, however, had a most happy effect. The Yan- 
kees were completely deceived by their boldness, and induced to believe 
that there was a large force in our centre. They made no farther attempt 
to pierce our centre, except on a small scale.” 

McClellan thus relates the closing operations on this part of the field: 
“Hancock, seeing a body of the enemy advancing to the left of his position, 
obtained a battery from Franklin’s corps, which assisted materially in frus- 
trating this attack. The enemy seemed at one time to be about making an 
attack upon this part of the line, and advanced a long column of infantry 
toward this division” (this must have been Hill’s last 200), ‘but on nearing 
the position, General Pleasanton opening on them with sixteen guns, they 
halted, gave a desultory fire, and retreated, closing the operations on this 
part of the field.” Not dreaming that the enemy who had encountered 
them so stubbornly, and who still showed so bold a front, was so utterly 
broken that a single fresh regiment would have put them to utter rout, 
Hancock and French desisted from the attack, and rested in the positions 
they had won. 

Jackson’s plight, had Sumner known it, was no less critical than that of 
Hill. Of the 5000 men whom he had brought from Harper’s Ferry, 2000 
had been killed or wounded in the morning’s fight with Hooker. Re-en- 
forced, he had pressed Sedgwick back for half a mile, and then fallen back 
himself, having not more than 7000 effective men. Sumner, in front of 
him, had left wellnigh 5000 of Sedgwick’s division; of Hooker’s routed 
corps at least 6000 remained with their command, and might have been ral- 
lied; of Mansfield’s first division, which had withdrawn in the morning, 
there must have been 3000. In all, Sumner had at his hand on the extreme 
right twice the force of Jackson at the time when Franklin, fairly on the 
field, was ready and anxious to attack. Had he then thrown his fresh 
12,000 between Hill and Jackson, and upon the flank of both, striking 
either to the right or left, one or the other of these commands must have 
been annihilated, even without an effort on the part of the troops with 
which they had already been engaged. 

That this was not done was no fault of Franklin. He had made every 
preparation, and given orders for an assault upon the woods which had 
been so hotly contested all day, when Sumner came up, and, in spite of 
Franklin’s urgency, forbade the movement. Neither is it to be charged to 
McClellan except in so far that he approved of Sumner’s action.? Sumner, 
indeed, showed on this day a want of vigor and resource utterly at variance 
with the whole tenor of his military career. For six hours he seems not to 
have made the slightest attempt to rally the corps of Hooker and Mansfield, 
which had retreated hardly a mile in his rear. Among these were some of 
the best soldiers in the army. 

McClellan’s plan on the evening of the 16th, as understood by Hooker, 
was to make a simultaneous attack upon the Confederate right, centre, and 
left. By the morning of the 17th he had changed his scheme, and determ- 
ined “to attack the enemy’s left with the corps of Hooker and Mansfield, 
supported by Sumner’s, and, if necessary, by Franklin’s, and as soon as mat- 
ters looked favorably there, to move the corps of Burnside against the ene- 
my’s extreme left; and whenever either of these flank movements should 
be successful, to advance our centre with all their forces then disposable.‘ 
Now Franklin’s corps was fully four hours distant, and did not commence 
its march until an hour, and did not reach the ground until six hours after 


12—. H. Hill, ia Lee's Rep., ii., 116, 117.—This closing attack ‘‘on a small scale” is quite dif- 
ferently described by others. McClellan says: ‘‘The 7th Maine, of Franklin’s corps, without any 
other aid, made a gallant attack against the enemy’s line, and drove in the skirmishers, who were 
annoying our artillery and troops on the right.” Hill says that ‘‘ Pryor had gathered quite a re- 
spectable force behind a hill, when a Maine regiment” (he gives the number erroneously as the 
21st) ‘*came down to this hill, wholly unconscious-that there were any Confederate troops near it. 
A shout and a volley informed them of their dangerous neighborhood. The Yankee apprehension 
is acute; the idea was soon taken in, and was followed by the most rapid running I ever saw.” 

2 Franklin’s testimony, in Com. Rep., 626: ‘*The division of General Slocum arrived on the 
field. I formed two brigades of it in line of battle in front of the Dunker Church, with the inten- 
tion of making an attack at once upon the enemy in that wood. I was waiting for the third bri- 
gade to be a reserve for the other two, when I was informed that General Sumner had detained 
the brigade at his head-quarters for the protection of his right. I sent for it, and it finally ar- 
rived, and General Sumner with it. The general advised me not to make the attack, for if it 
failed, the right would be entirely destroyed, as there were no troops there that could be depended 
upon. J informed him that I thought it a very necessary thing to do, and told him that I would 
»refer to make the attack, unless he assumed the responsibility of forbidding it. He assumed the 
responsibility, and ordered me not to make it. One of General McClellan’s aids was there at the 
time. He informed General McClellan what had been done, and the general himself came up 
and stated that things had gone so well [ill ?] on all the other parts of the field that he was afraid 
to risk the day by an attack there on the right at that time. Therefore no attack was made by 
that division that day.” McClellan’s account (Report, 387) is to the same effect: ‘‘ General 
Franklin ordered two brigades of General Slocum’s division, General Newton’s and Colonel Tor- 
bert’s, to form in column to attack the woods that had been so hotly contested by Generals Sum- 
ner and Hooker; General Bartlett’s brigade was ordered to form the reserve. At this time Gen- 
eral Sumner, having command on the right, directed farther offensive operations to be postponed, 
as the repulse of this, the only remaining corps available for attack, would peril the safety of the 
whole army.” 5 Ante, p. 399. * McC. Rep., 877. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1862. 


THE STONE BRIDGE OVER TITE ANTIETAM, 


the opening of the attack which they were to support. The attack on the 
Confederate right was not opened until at least three hours after it should 
have been made. It is not easy to say how far the blame for this delay 
rests upon McClellan, and how far upon Burnside. McClellan affirms that 
the order to advance upon the bridge was sent at 8 o’clock, which was the 
proper time, unless the attack was to be simultaneous with that of Hooker; 
that the order was twice repeated, at considerable intervals, the second time 
most peremptorily. Burnside testifies that the order was not received until 
about ten o’clock.? 

The part assigned to Burnside was of the highest importance. His ini- 
tial attempts to execute it were feebly made, and were repulsed one after 
another. At length two regiments dashed at the bridge, which had all 
along been commanded by Toombs with two small regiments, numbering 
together less than 500 men, hidden behind fences and in a narrow belt of 
woods. These had been withdrawn a little before, as well as the force 
which commanded the adjacent fords, so that the actual passage of the 
stream was made without opposition.? Burnside’s whole corps, nearly 
14,000 strong, was soon across the stream. Here an unaccountable delay 


? McClellan (2eport, 390) says: *‘ At eight o’clock an order was sent to General Burnside to 
carry the bridge. After some time had elapsed, not hearing from him, I dispatched an aid to as- 
certain what had been done. The aid returned with information that but little progress had been 
made. I then sent him back with an order to General Burnside to assault the bridge at once, 
and carry it at all hazards. The aid returned to me a second time with the report that the 
bridge was still in possession of the enemy. Whereupon I directed Colonel Sackett, the Inspec- 
tor General, to deliver to General Burnside my positive order to push forward his troops without 
a moment’s delay, and, if necessary, to carry the bridge with the bayonet; and I ordered Colonel 
Sackett to remain with General Burnside and see that the order was executed promptly.” Burn- 
side testifies (Com. Rep., 640): ‘On the morning of the 17th I was ordered to place the com- 
mand in position to enable us to attack the enemy at the bridge as soon as I was notified to com- 
mence the attack. About ten o’clock I received an order from General McClellan to make the 
attack on the bridge.” 

* This withdrawal of the troops before the final attempt at crossing is expressly affirmed by D. 
R. Jones and Toombs (Lee’s Rep., ii., 219, 324). Burnside’s Report, however, seems to imply, 
without positively affirming it, that there was a conflict here. 


of two more hours took place, and it was only after McClellan had given 
repeated orders that Burnside advanced.’ To appreciate the vital import- 
ance of these delays to the salvation of Lee’s army, we must turn to the 
movements of the Confederates upon their extreme right. 

Lee’s right wing consisted of six of Longstreet’s weakest brigades, under 
D. R. Jones. These had been reduced one half by various details of bri- 
gades and regiments, so that during the morning Jones had not quite 2500 
men.” When Walker, McLaws, and Anderson came up from Harper’s 
Ierry, they were at first posted on the right and in the rear of the centre; 
but when the heavy attack had fairly developed itself on the left, they were 
all withdrawn thither. This withdrawal took place at about ten. It could 
never have been made had Burnside’s attack been begun at nine; and with- 
out it Jackson and Hill must have been crushed by Sumner, and driven in 
hopeless rout upon their right. Now, at almost four, two full hours after 
the action on the right and centre had ceased, Burnside fairly began his at- 
tack. It was at first successful. The heights which command Sharpsburg 
were won; the Confederates were driven back through the town. Had 
this been done two hours before, a position would have been secured from 
which the whole Confederate line would have been swept by an enfilading 
fire of artillery. But now A. P. Hill had come up from Harper’s Ferry, 
having marched seventeen miles that day. He brought with him five bri- 
gades, or rather such portions of them as could endure the march. One 

1 McC. Rep., 390; Burnside, in Com. Rep., 641. 

* This number is expressly given by both Lee and Jones. The words of the latter, indeed, 
seem to imply that this was the entire strength of his six brigades. He says (Lee’s Rep., ii., 219): 
“*My command had been farther reduced on the right, leaving me for the defense of the right 
with only Toombs’s two regiments, and Kemper’s, Drayton’s, and Walker’s brigades. When it is 
known that on that morning my entire command, of six brigades, comprised only 2480 men, the 
enormous disparity of force with which I contended may be seen.” Now, although these brigades 
had suffered heavily at Groveton, where two of them lost nearly 1500 men, and considerably at 


South Mountain, it is hardly credible that their average strength should have been reduced to 


600 each—not one third of their original strength. The whole six brigades took part in the fight 
with Burnside. 


SEPTEMBER, 1862. ] 


THE INVASION OF MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


403 


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marr 
ibe: 
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+2 ee al 
SNA we > 


SITE OF A BATTERY. 


brigade was reduced to 850 men ;! all told there were not 4000, and of these 
only three brigades, including the weak one, numbering all together not 
more than 2000 men, were brought into the fight. It was over before the 
others could engage. With these and Toombs’s brigade, then not 1000 
strong, Burnside’s whole corps was driven back, just as darkness was com- 
ing on, to the Antietam, which he recrossed the next morning. <A. P. Mill 
hardly exaggerates when he says: “The three brigades of my division ac- 
tively engaged did not number over 2000 men, and these, with the help of 
my splendid batteries, drove back Burnside’s corps of 15,000 men.”* Hill 
lost 846 killed and wounded; Jones lost about 700. Burnside’s loss in kill- 
ed and wounded was 2173. 

Porter’s corps had not been brought into action at all. It was posted in 
the centre, between the right and left wings, to guard the trains, for the safe- 
ty of which McClellan was apprehensive. Portions of it were at times de- 
tached as supports to batteries. It lost only 180. Franklin’s corps can 
hardly be considered as engaged, although in its brief encounter it lost 488 ; 
so that 25,000 men, wellnigh a third of McClellan’s force, and as many as 
Lee had in action at any one moment, were practically unemployed. Lee 
had in all, and at all times, exclusive of cavalry, something more than 40,000, 
of whom all but about 2000 were engaged. McClellan had 83,000, of whom 
58,000 were engaged; but they were sent in by ‘“driblets,” corps after 
corps, at intervals of hours. What the result was has been shown; what 
it would have been had the assault been made in full force can hardly be a 
matter of doubt.? Had the battle of Antietam been fought on the 16th, Lee 


1 Lee's Rep., ii., 263. 

2A. P. Hill, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 129.—It is indeed asserted by Burnside (Com. Rep., 641): “The 
enemy had brought away from opposite the extreme right of our army portions of their forces, 
and concentrated them against us.” There was, indeed, time sufficient for such an operation in 


the interval between the cessation of the action on the right and the beginning of this on the left, 
had the Confederates been in a condition to make it; but I do not find in any of their reports, 
which fully detail the movements of every brigade, with the exception of those of Anderson's di- 
vision, the least intimation of any such movement, and this division was apparently in no condi- 
tion for offense. 

3 “T have always believed that, instead of sending these troops into action in driblets, as they 


BEMINI) A BREASTWOLK, 


| Confederate force we have to estimate that under Longstreet. 


SOENE OF A CHARGE, 


could have mustered barely 27,000 men, while McClellan had—Franklin’s 
corps not being present—fully 70,000. ‘The Union loss was 11,426 killed 
and wounded; that of the Confederates about 10,000. The disparity arises 
mainly from the great excess of Burnside’s loss on the left. On the right 
and centre each side lost about equally. The entire Union loss in the series 
of actions in Maryland, not including missing, was 14,200; that of the Con- 
federates about 12,500.! 


were sent, if General McClellan had authorized me to march these 40,000 men on the left flank 
of the enemy, we could not have failed to throw them right back in front of the other divisions of 
our army on our left, Burnside’s, Franklin’s, and Porter’s corps; and all escape for the enemy, I 
think, would have been impossible. Why that was not done I do not know.’’-—Sumner, in Com. 
Rep., 368. 

1 The Union force at Antietam is given in detail in McClellan’s Report. In summing up the 
We put down the average strength 
of his brigades at 1500—some were less, some greater. He had eleven brigades, and had probably 
lost 500 at Turner’s Gap; this would give him 16,000 at Antietam. The strength present in the 
other commands is stated with sufficient accuracy in the various reports, as previously cited. 
From these data, omitting cavalry on both sides, we construct the following table : 


FORCES PRESENT AT ANTIETAM. 


UNION. CONFEDERATE. 
Hooker's, COMPS'..2 20 caacecgcicvicnevcecce 14,856 Longstreet’s division 16,000 
Sumner’s ‘ S Jackson's ss .. 5,000 
Porter's a Walker's ae 3,000 
Franklin's ‘* McLaws’s sc 3,000 
Burnside's ‘* Anderson's “ 4,000 


Mansfield’s ** 


D. H. Hill’s = 
A. P. Hill's e 


3,000 
4,000 


| REBELVG  APEIUIECEY: o1n ou ceclistaiculnisve 6 .. 2,000 

TOGALGLEG rte ciate sicienie cuetee 82,844 POtal FOPCOL ba das dv aadtidlds osteo 40,000 

Not engaged: Porter and Franklin..... 25,230 Not engaged: Part of A. P. Hill........ 2,000 
Total engaged . 2.6.6 scccensena cs 57,614 Total engaged... .seccesccssonsss 38,000 


Probably, to make the comparison entirely just, some deduction should be made from McClel- 
lan’s numbers, as the Confederate commanders report usually the numbers with which ‘‘they 
went into the action,” while the Union report gives the number ‘‘ present and fit for duty :” there 
will always be some discrepancy between these two modes of enumeration. Lee says (Report, i., 
35): ‘*This great battle was fought by less than 40,000 men on our side ;”” which we think a true 
statement. D. H. Hill, indeed, asserts (Lee’s Rep., ii., 119): ‘*The battle was fought with less 
than 30,000.” Cooke (Stonewall Jackson, 340-342): ‘‘In General Lee’s published official Report 
the exact numbers are given—33,000.”’ I find in Lee’s Report no such statement, but do find the 
one just cited. Again Cooke says: ‘‘ Nor was the bulk of Jackson’s corps present until four P.M., 
toward the end of the action. General Lee fought until late in the day with Longstreet, D. H. 
Hill, Ewell, and two other divisions, a force of about 25,000 men. ‘The re-enforcements of McLaws, 
Anderson, and Hill increased this number to 33,000, with which force General Lee met the 87,164 


SHELTER FOR WOUNDED. 


404 


The action of Antietam was in all respects a drawn battle. The Confed- 
erates had inflicted a greater absolute loss than they had suffered; but they 
had suffered, in proportion to their strength, far more than they had inflict- 
ed. At the close of the fight the positions of the armies were nearly the 
same as at its commencement. On the extreme right and left, the Federals, 
after forcing back the Confederate lines, had been repelled in turn beyond 
the original Confederate lines; but the Confederates then fell back, so that 
neither side held the field of battle. In the centre the Confederate lines had 
been forced back a little, and here the Federals held some ground wrested 
from theenemy. During the night the Confederates changed ground a Iit- 
tle, but in all essential respects their position was as advantageous as it 
had been in the morning. Nor did the battle decide the issue of the in- 
vasion of Maryland; that question had been decided three days before, 
when McClellan, forcing the passes of the South Mountain, interposed his 
army between Lee and his projected line of march into Pennsylvania. 
After the battle, Lee accomplished without hinderance just what he would 
have done had no action taken place. He gave up the invasion of the 
North, recrossed the Potomac, and awaited in Virginia the movements of 
his tardy opponent. But the moral effect of the battle was great. It 
aroused the confidence of the nation, who saw in it a sure presage of the 
speedy overthrow of the insurrection; and, what was more, it emboldened 
the President to issue his warning proclamation for the abolition of slav- 
ery. ‘hat proclamation had been written months before, though only his 
trusted advisers knew of it. If put forth at any time during the disastrous 
summer, it would have been a mockery. It would have sounded to the 
world like a despairing shriek for help. And so the proclamation, writ- 
ten and rewritten, touched and retouched, lay in his desk. How could he, 
without mockery, promise to ‘recognize and maintain” the freedom of all 
slaves in the insurgent states, when the victorious armies of those confeder- 
ated states threatened the capital of the Union? And so, when urged to 
issue such a proclamation, he replied in one of the half-jesting phrases in 
which he was wont to couch his most serious thoughts, that it would be like 
“the pope’s bull against the comet.” But now it seemed that such a prom- 
ise could be maintained. So five days after the battle of Antietam the proc- 
lamation was put forth, and the result of the contest was staked upon an 
issue from which a few months before the nation would have shrunk, and 
for which even now it was scarcely prepared. The principle upon which 
Mr. Lincoln acted then, before, and thereafter, was at the same time clear- 
ly expressed by himself: “ My paramount object is to save the Union, and 
not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without 
freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, 
I would do it; if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, 
I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do 
because I believe it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear 
because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less 
whenever I believe that what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do 
more whenever I believe that doing more will help the cause.” The inex- 
orable march of events had now brought things to such a state that the 
confiict between Slavery and the Union was irrepressible. One or the oth- 
ec must go down. In a few months more all men saw that, whether the 
Union was saved or lost, Slavery was inevitably destroyed. 

The battle was over, except on the extreme right, white the sun was yet 
high in the heavens, and McClellan had to consider whether it should be re- 
newed the next day. Burnside, in spite of his severe repulse, was in favor 


men reported by General McClellan as ‘in action’ on the Federal side.” But McLaws and An- 
derson, instead of being absent until ‘‘late in the day,” were hotly engaged before noon, the divi- 
sion of McLaws losing a larger proportion of its numbers than any other except that of D. H. 
Hill. 

In giving their losses, the Confederate reports do not usually discriminate between the differ- 
ent engagements. ‘The report by regiments (Lee’s Rep., ii., 107, 108) makes their entire loss 1567 
killed, 8274 wounded, 10,291 in all; but this is clearly defective, as is shown by the separate re- 
ports of division commanders. Those of Longstreet, including his entire ‘‘command,” are given 
in Lee's Report, p. 89; Jackson, excluding A. P. Hill’s.at Antietam and Shepherdstown, Jbid., 105; 
A. P. Hill at Antietam, Jbid., 131; D.H. Hill, Zbid., 119. The Union loss in each engagement 
is given separately. The following table presents a summation : 


Losses IN THE Marytanp Campaicn, Sept. 14-17. 


UNION, CONFEDERATES, 
Killed. | Wounded. | Missing.) Total. || — Killed. | Wounded. Missing.| _ Total. 
Hooker. yas ceseweess 3 2,016 255 2,619 Longstreet ........ 96 £ Bes 1310" a 
Sumner 25. onesies 860 3,801 543 5,209 || Juckgon..........+ 821 1809 5T 
Porterics ees eases 21 107 2 M30! )}\ Av PHIM roe eee 63 283 a 
— < ae Ae ; re i‘ ‘ oe Dio Hiller 464 1852 925 
urnside,.. 2 2 329% 12 
Mansfield .........| 974 | 11884 | 85 | 1,743 Reprise} tyees Loto ayaa ee 
Cavalry... cc .ss0cn' 5 382 — 37 || Correcting the apportionment of killed, wound- 
At Antietam...... 2010 | 9,416 | 1043 ) 12,409 || ©4, and missing, and adding prisoners as be- 
Turner's Gap .. 312 13284 29 1.563 low, we give the following as a close approx- 
: pe get? rt 2 ¢ imation: 
Lg! som 8 Gap... ate ze = 533 Killed. | Wounded. | Missing.| Total. 
MOEA srarctelsiseicrs 2437 | 11,066 | 1067 | 14,970 Votalisoaacems 2062 | 10,428 | 4792 | 17,282 


A large proportion of those entered as ‘‘ missing” in the Confederate Reports were undoubt- 
edly killed or wounded. D. H. Hill says (Lee’s Rep.,ii., 118): ** Doubtless a large number of the 
‘missing’ fell into the hands of the Yankees when wounded ;” and Rodes (Jbid., 347): “The 
‘missing’ are either prisoners or killed.” At South Mountain they were forced to abandon their 
killed and severely wounded, and could only enter as such upon the lists those whose fate was 
known. Nearly all the killed and many of the wounded were also left behind at Antietam. It 
is safe to estimate that of the 2292 reported as missing, 1500 were killed or wounded; apportion- 
ing these in the usual ratio adds 250 to the killed and 1250 to the wounded, as reported, diminish- 
ing the missing by the same numbers. 

McClellan puts the Confederate loss much higher. He says (Report, 396): ‘“ About 2700 of 
the enemy’s dead were, under the direction of Major Davis, Assistant Inspector General, counted 
and buried upon the battle-field of Antietam. A portion of their dead had been previously buried 
by the enemy. This is conclusive evidence that the enemy sustained much greater loss than we.” 
Accepting this, and adding the dead at South Mountain, the Confederate killed must have num- 
bered fully 3500, which would make their total loss more than 20,000, besides prisoners, of whom 
there were 6000, about two thirds of whom appear to have been stragglers. We do not under- 
take to reconcile these conflicting accounts as to the killed, and consequently of the wounded, but 
adopt the Confederate statement, with the exception above noted. ‘To the “missing,” however, 
we add 4000 unwounded prisoners, 

The method of the Confederate generals in stating the number of the “ missing” is wholly in- 
explicable. From the 23d of August to the 17th of September they put down in all only 2373, 
while it is certain that they lost nearly three times that number in prisoners during the three last 
days of this period, and all of their reports speak of thousands of stragglers, 

‘ Ante, p. 203. For the proclamation, sce ante, p. 208. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ OCTOBER, 1862. 


of renewing it in the morning if he could have 5000 fresh men. Franklin 
was of the same opinion; he was sure that he could take the hotly-contested 
wood, which would uncover the enemy’s left. Sumner thought otherwise.’ 
McClellan decided to postpone the attack. He reasoned that, ‘‘ Virginia 
lost, Washington menaced, Maryland invaded, the national cause could af- 
ford no risks of defeat. One battle lost, and almost all would have been 
lost. Lee’s army might then have marched as it pleased on Washington, 
Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York, and nowhere east of the Alleghanies 
was there another organized force able to arrest its march.”? Believing, as 
he and most of his generals did, that the enemy was equal or superior in 
numbers, he could not well have come to any other decision. But in truth 
his fresh troops were almost equal in number to Lee’s entire remaining 
force, while those who were worst off were in better plight than the best 
of the enemy. During the morning Humphreys’s and Couch’s divisions, 
14,000 strong, came up; Lee also received some accessions from those who 
had fallen out in the march from Harper’s Ferry, and stood at bay all day 
awaiting an attack. McClellan ordered that this should be made on the 
morning of the 19th. But in the darkness of the night the Confederate 
forces slipped quietly away, and when McClellan looked for them in the 
morning they were safely across the Potomac, and as evening fell they en- 
camped five miles from the river, Next morning a strong reconnoissance 
from Porter’s corps was sent over at Shepherdstown to ascertain the posi- 
tion of the enemy. A. P. Hill, who brought up the Confederate rear, turn- 
ed upon them and drove them back, with considerable loss. 

Gathering up the remnants of his army, and bringing on those who had 
been left behind at Harper’s Ferry, and those who had fallen out on the 
march thence to the Antietam, numbering in all less than 40,000 effective 
men, Lee fell back to Martinsburg, and thence to Winchester, where he had 
ordered all his stragglers to rendezvous. On the 30th of September he had 
but 58,000 men present for duty. On that day, exclusive of 73,000 left be- 
hind for the defense of Washington, McClellan had with him 100,000 effect- 
ive men.* 

Six weeks of beautiful autumnal weather were passed in almost total in- 
action. McClellan, believing that his army was in no condition to provoke 
another battle, posted it along the eastern side of the Potomac, half near 
Harper’s Ferry, and the remainder watching the fords above and below, for 
he still apprehended that Lee would attempt to recross the river. Mean- 
while the old bickerings between the commander of the army in the field 
and the military authorities at Washington were renewed with increased 
pertinacity. McClellan wanted supplies, clothing, horses, and, above all, 
re-enforcements. ‘The Washington authorities would not spare a man from 
the 78,000 lying idle in the defenses of the capital, and the clothing and 
horses forwarded were far less than McClellan demanded. On the 6th of 
October the President issued a peremptory order that the army should at 
once “‘cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy, or drive him South.” 
If the army crossed between the enemy and Washington, so as to cover the 
capital, it should receive 30,000 re-enforcements, otherwise not more than 
15,000. McClellan paid no immediate attention to this order, but reiterated 
his demands and complaints. He assumed that he, being with the army in 
the field, was more competent to determine whether it was in a condition to 
move than was the general-in-chief in his office at Washington.® On the 
10th, Stuart, with 1800 cavalry, crossed the Potomac above the Union posi- 
tions, made a clear circuit around the Union army, and recrossed below, 
without having lost a man. On the 13th the President wrote to McClellan 
earnestly urging him to action, and indicating the true theory upon which 
operations should be conducted. 

“You remember,” he said, “my speaking to you of what I called your 
over-cautiousness. Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you 
can not do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to 
be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? You say that 
you can not subsist your army at Winchester unless the railroad from Har- 
per’s Ferry to that point be put in working order.® But the enemy does 
now subsist his army at Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great from 
railroad transportation as you would have to do. He now wagons from 
Culpepper Court-house, which is just about twice as far as you would have 
to do from Harper’s Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well pro- 
vided with wagons as you are. I should certainly be pleased for you to 
have the advantage of the railroad from Harper’s Ferry to Winchester, 
but it wastes all the remainder of the autumn to give it to you, and, in fact, 
ignores the question of time, which can not and must not be ignored. It is 
one of the standard maxims of war to operate upon the enemy’s communi- 
cations as much as possible, without exposing your own. You seem to act 
as if this applies against you, but can not apply in your favor. Change po- 
sitions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communi- 
cations with Richmond in twenty-four hours? You dread his going into 
Pennsylvania. But if he does so in full force, he gives up his communica- 
tions to you absolutely, and you have nothing to do but to follow and 
ruin him; if he does so with less than full force, fall upon and beat what is 
left behind all the easier. If he should move northward, I would follow 
him closely, holding his communications. If he should move toward Rich- 

1 Com. Rep., 642, 627, 369. 2 McC. Rep., 394. 

* Hill (Lee’s Rep., ii., 130) gives a most exaggerated account of this engagement: ‘‘ A daring 
charge was made, and the enemy driven pell-mell into the river. Then commenced the most ter- 
rible slaughter that this war has yet witnessed. ‘The broad surface of the Potomac was blue with 
the floating bodies of our foe. But few escaped to tell the tale. By their own account they lost 


3000 mt killed and drowned from one brigade alone. My own loss was 30 killed and 233 
wounded.” 


* See ante, p. 383, for Lee’s force. The strength of the Army of the Potomac on the 30th of 
September was, according to the official report, signed by McClellan, 173,745 present for duty, 
of whom 73,601 were around Washington.— Com. Rep., 507. : 

5 McC. Rep., 426. ® This had been destroyed by the Confederates. 


SepremBer, 1862. ] THE INVASION OF 
mond, I would press closely to him, fight him if a favorable opportunity 
should present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside 
track. If he made a stand at Winchester, moving neither north nor south, 
I would fight him there, on the idea that if we can not beat him when he 
bears the wastage of coming to us, we never can when we 
of going to him. In coming to us he tenders to us an advantage which we 
must not waive. We should not so operate as merely to drive him away. 
As we must beat him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier 
near to us than far away. If we can not beat the enemy eee s he ao is, 
we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond.” 

On the 21st McClellan was convinced that his army was nearly in a con- 
dition to move. The cavalry was indeed, he thought, in numbers much in- 
ferior to that of the enemy, but in efficiency was far superior. He now ask- 
ed whether the President wished him “to march on the enemy at once, or 
to await the arrival of new horses.” The reply was that no change was in- 
tended in the order of the 6th. The President did not expect eo. 
ties, but the season should not be wasted in inaction. McClellan’s purpose 
had been to cross the Potomac above Harper’s Ferry, on the western side 
of the Blue Ridge, and move directly upon the Confederate forces, expect- 
ing that they would either give battle near Winchester or retreat. toward 


bear the wastage 


Richmond. He believed that if he crossed below, Lee would recross into 
Maryland. But now the season had come when the river might be expect- 


ed to rise at any hour, rendering the apprehended Confederate movement 
too hazardous to be ventured. McClellan therefore decided to cross on the 
eastern side of the Blue Ridge, thus threatening Lee’s communications. He 
thought it possible, though not probable, that he might throw his force 
through some pass in the mountains, and gain the Confederate rear in the 
Valley of the Shenandoah. Failing this, he still hoped to strike the flank 
of their long retreating column, separate their army, and beat it in detail, 
or, at all events, force them to concentrate as far back as Gordonsville, and 
thus leave his own army free to adopt the Fredericksburg line of advance 
upon Richmond, or to move by his old way of the Peninsula.? 

The crossing of the Potomac began on the 26th of October, and continued 
until the 2d of November, when the whole army was over. Leaving 15,000 
men at and near Harper’s Ferry, the army marched more than 100,000 
strong, besides 20,000 detached from the force at Washington® to co-operate 
with his movement. The weather was favorable, the roads good, and the 
great army moved ae Keeping along the eastern foot of the Blue 
Ridge, Warrenton being the point of direction for the main body, its line of 

march for the greater part of the way being the same, but in a reverse direc- 
tion, as that by which Lee had advanced upon Pope hardly three months 
before. 


' Com. Rep., 524. 

2 McC. Rep., 428, 436. ‘*I still considered the line of the Peninsula as the true approach to 
Richmond, but, for obvious reasons, did not make any proposal to return to it.”—Zbid., 427. 

* According to the official return (Com. Lep., 534) on the 20th of October, the Army of the 
Potomac numbered, ‘‘present for duty,” 133,409, exclusive of 73,593 at Washington. McClellan 
(Report, 430) gives its strength at 1 <: Nees besides some 5000 detached bodies. This discrepancy 
appears to be occasioned (see McC. Rep., 422) by about 12,000 teamsters, officers’ servants, etc., 
being included in the regular returns. 


MARYLAND.—ANTIETAM. 


405 


The Confederate army, during its two months’ repose after Antietam, had 
been recruited to about 70,000.!. As soon as Lee was aware of the threat 
ening movement of McClellan, he hastened to counteract it by moving 
southward in the same direction. Jackson, with his own corps and Stuart’s 

vavalry, was halted to observe, and, if occasion was given, assail the Union 
force upon its march, while the remainder of the army pressed up the Val- 
ley of the Shenandoah. For days the two hostile columns were moving 
parallel to each other, only a few miles apart, but with the Blue Mountains 
between them. Rapid as was the march of the Union army, that of the 
Confederates was still faster. Lee, in advance of his opponent, turned a 
spur of the Blue Ridge, passed from the Valley of the Shenandoah into that 
of the Rappahannock, and took position at Culpepper by the time that 
McClellan had massed his army near Warrenton, a half score of miles to the 
north. But in effecting this operation he had played into his opponent’s 
hands, and given him an opportunity to strike more favorable than he had 
dared to anticipate. McClellan had hoped to separate the Confederate 
army. Lee had himself separated it. Jackson’s corps was left fully three 
days’ rapid march behind that of Longstreet. If an attack had then been 
made, it could hardly have failed to result otherwise than in a serious dis- 
aster to the Confederates. McClellan resolved upon an assault. 
he seemed satisfied that he had the preponderance of force.” 

But this intent of vigorous action came too late. ‘he breach between 
McClellan and the military authorities at Washington had become too wide 
to be closed. His removal from the command had been resolved upon, and 
had been delayed only from the difficulty of deciding upon his successor. 
The choice finally lay between Burnside and Hooker.* Why Sumner, who 
outranked each, and had seen more service than both, was passed over, it is 
hard to say. But the choice now fell upon Burnside. Upon the stormy 
evening of the 7th of November, when McClellan had given directions for 
the movements of the next two days, a messenger from Washington reach- 
ed the head-quarters of the army. He bore an order, couched in briefest 
military phrase, bearing date two days before, removing McClellan from the 
command of the army, and directing Burnside to assume it; and another 
equally curt, from Halleck to McClellan, the writing of which one may im- 
agine to have been a pleasant task.‘ 


For once 


1 Present for duty, October 20, 67,805; November 20, 78,554.—Ante, p. 383. 

2<¢The army was massed near Warrenton, ready to act in any required direction, perfectly in 
hand, and in admirable condition and spirits. I doubt whether, during the whole period that I 
had the honor to command the Army of the Potomac, it was in such excellent condition to fight 
a great battle. . The reports from the advance indicated the possibility of separating the two 
wings of the enemy's forces, and cither beating Longstreet separately or forcing him to. fall back 
at least upon Gordonsville to effect his junction with | the rest of his army. . Had I remained 
in command I should have made the attempt to divide the enemy; and could he have been 
brought to a battle within reach of my ales I can not doubt that the result would have been 
a brilliant victory for our army.”—McC. Rep., 438, 435 

ereere -neral Hooker came very near receiving, aati of me, the command of the Army of the 
Potomac.’”’—Burnside, in Com, Rep., 725. 

* General Orders, No. 182.— — “By ‘direction of the President of the United States, it is ordered 
that Major General McClellan be relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and 
that Major General Burnside take command of the army. By order of the Secretary of War.” 

Halleck to Mc Clellan.—‘‘ GenrRAL,—On the receipt of the order of the President, sent here- 
with, you will immediately turn over your command to Major General Burnside, and repair to 
Trenton, New Jersey, reporting on your arrival at that place, by telegraph, for farther orders.”— 
Com. Rep. > D065. ‘ 


OAVALRY REOONNOISSANCE LN VIRGINIA, 


406 


FSSVc 
SS 


AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE, 


GHAPTER XXALY, 
BURNSIDE’S CAMPAIGN.—FREDERICKSBURG. 


Burnside in Command.—His Plan for the Campaign.—Its Merits and Demerits.—New Organ- 
ization of the Army of the Potomac.—The Movement from Warrenton to Fredericksburg.—De- 
lay in crossing the Rappahannock.—The Pontoons.—Fredericksburg threatened with Bombard- 
ment.—The Confederate Army reaches Fredericksburg-—The Position on the Rappahannock. 
—Burnside’s Preparations for Crossing.—The Delay opposite Fredericksburg.—Lee’s Plan of 
Operations. —Crossing the River, and Preparations for Attack.—Burnside’s final Plan for two 
Assaults. —Franklin’s Attack upon the Left.—Meade’s Advance repulsed. —Gibbon advances, 
and is repulsed.—The Confederate Pursuit checked by Birney. —The Moments of the Action. 
—The Confederate Position on the Right at Marye’s Hill.—Its Strength.—Assailed by Sum- 
ner.—French and Hancock repelled.—Hooker ordered to attack.—Humphreys assaults, and 
is driven back.—Close of the Battle.—The Numbers engaged.—Burnside proposes to renew 
the Battle the next Day.—Is dissuaded by his Generals.—He recrosses the Rappahannock.— 
Lffects of the Battle of Fredericksburg.—Condition of the Union Army.—Burnside designs a 
new Movement.—The proposed Cavalry Expedition.—The President forbids the Movement.— 
The Reasons for the Prohibition.—Franklin and Smith criticise Burnside’s Plan, and propose 
another.—Cochrane and Newton’s Interview with the President.—Burnside and Halleck.— 
Burnside’s third Plan. —The Mud Campaign.—Burnside’s Order No. 8, dismissing Hooker and 
others. —The President refuses to sanction the Order.—Burnside resigns, and Hooker is placed 
in Command.—Sumner and Franklin relieved.—Death of Sumner.—Hooker takes Command. 


uae command of the Army of the Potomac was thrust into the unwill- 
ing hands of Burnside. He had twice declined it, and would have 
done so now had it been left to his choice ;! but the order was peremptory, 
and he had no alternative but to obey. Yet, as if foreseeing the issue, he 
repeated to the messenger who brought the order and to members of his 
own staff what he had before said to the President and the Secretary of 
War, that he did not consider himself competent to take the command of so 
large an army, and, moreover, that from the place which his command had 
held during the campaign, he knew less than any other general of the posi- 


* Com. Rep., 645. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| NOVEMBER, 1862. 


tion, numbers, and character of the several corps." 
Still, with the knowledge then possessed by the 
military authorities, the choice was the wisest that 
could have been made. No other general had held 
an important separate command. His expedition 
to North Carolina had been successful. He had 
become entangled in none of the jealousies which 
impeded, or were thought to impede, the efficiency 
of the army. His personal and military character 
was unreproached and irreproachable. Burnside’s 
modesty, contrasted with Hooker’s vehement self- 
assertion, decided the question of the generalship. 
He was taken at the high estimate which the ad- 
ministration placed upon him, rather than at the 
low one which he placed upon himself. 

Burnside was required not only to take com- 
mand of the army, but to state what he proposed 
to do with it? He had been from the first opposed 
te the movement made by McClellan upon War- 
renton. He argued that if the army was to go to 
Richmond by land, the only way was that by Fred- 
ericksburg. McClellan was half convineed of the 
truth of this, and on the day before he was super- 
seded gave orders which looked toward the aban- 
donment of his present line of operations.* Two 
days after he had been placed in command, Burn- 
side presented his plan. 

Its essential features were that McClellan’s de- 
sign of attacking Lee should be given up, the move- 
ment toward Gordonsville abandoned, and then 
there should be “a rapid move of the whole force 
to Fredericksburg, with a view to a movement 
upon Richmond from that point.” In favor of his 
plan he urged that if the Union army should move 
upon Culpepper and Gordonsville, and even fight a 
successful battle, the enemy would still have many 
lines of retreat, and would be able to reach Rich- 
mond with enough of force to render necessary 
another battle there. Should the enemy fall back 
without giving battle, the pursuit would be simply 
following up a retreating army well supplied with 
provisions in dépéts in its rear, while the pursuing 
army would have to rely for supplies upon a sin- 
gle long line of communication, liable to be cut at 
any point. But in moving by the way which he 
proposed, the army would cover Washington until 
it reached Fredericksburg, where it would be on 
the shortest road to Richmond, the taking of which, 
he thought, ‘should be the great object of the cam- 
paign, as the fall of that place would tend more to 
cripple the rebel cause than almost any other mil- 
itary event, except the absolute breaking up of 
their army.” The presence of a large army on the 
Fredericksburg line would render it impossible for 
the enemy to make any successful movement upon 
Washington. An invasion of Pennsylvania was 
not to be expected at that season of the year; and, 
even should a lodgment be made there by any 
force that could be spared, its destruction would be 
certain soon after winter set in. ‘Could the army before Richmond be 
beaten, and their capital taken,” he added, “the loss of half a dozen of our 
towns and cities in the interior of Pennsylvania could well be afforded.” 

This plan was undoubtedly a judicious one upon the assumption that the 
capture of Richmond was the main aim of the campaign. For an advance 
thither by way of Gordonsville, the main base of supplies must be Alexan- 
dria, involving transportation by land of fully 150 miles by the route which 
must be followed. For an advance by way of Fredericksburg, Acquia 
Creek, on the Potomac, would be the base to which supplies could be sent 
by water, leaving but 75 miles of land transportation, by a line much less 
exposed. The advantage of the Peninsular route are still greater. The 
base of supplies would be at West Point, only 80 miles from Richmond. 
The main objection to this, that the army here would not be in a position 
to cover Washington, would be obviated by concentrating there a force 
sufficient for its defense, which the great numerical preponderance of the 
Union troops rendered easy. In fact, there was at this moment in and 
around Washington, independent of Burnside’s army in the field, a force 
very nearly equal to the whole Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.® 


I) 


1 Com, Rep., 650. 2 Thid., 650. 3 Thid., 649. 

* For the entire text of this plan, see Com. Rep., 643; and for Burnside’s own explanation of 
it, [bid., 650. 

5'The advantages of the Peninsular route, or rather a modification of it, taking the James 
River instead of the York as the base, were set forth six weeks later by Franklin and Smith, in a 
letter to the President, first made public in Swinton’s Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, pp. 
263-265. Mr. Swinton indeed affirms (Jbid., 233), upon the authority of “‘the corps commander 
then most intimate in his confidence,” that ‘‘ Burnside had not matured any definite plan of ac- 
tion, for the reason that he hoped to be able to postpone operations till the spring He did not 
favor operating against Richmond by the overland ronte, but had his mind turned toward a repe- 
tition of McClellan’s movement to the Peninsula; and in determining to march to Fredericks- 
burg, he cherished the hope of being able to winter there upon an easy base of supplies, and in the 
spring embarking his army for the James River.” Not only is there no trace of any such purpose 
to be found in Burnside’s written plan, but every reeommendation implies the design of moving 
by the overland route. 


November, 1862. ] 


The fatal error in Burnside’s plan was that it wholly misconceived the 
main object to be aimed at. The capture of Richmond would indeed have 
been in itself a great material and moral loss to the Confederacy, but it 
would have been of far less moment than the destruction, or even the signal 
defeat of the army. That army was the head and front of the offending, 
and at this the blow should have been aimed. The President, with a keen- 
er insight into the case than any other man had yet attained, had written, 
‘We must beat the enemy somewhere, or fail finally. If we can not beat 
him where he now is, we never can, he being again within the intrench- 
ments of Richmond.” This was as true now as it was a month before. It 
so happened that the Confederate commander had placed his army in such 
@ position as to invite an attacix. A little more than half of it was massed 
at Culpepper, a little less than half was lying three days’ march away in 
the Valley of the Shenandoah. The Union army was massed only a few 
hours’ march from the enemy, outnumbering him more than two to one. 
An attack in force could hardly have resulted otherwise than in a decisive 
victory. Burnside proposed deliberately to throw away the advantage thus 
thrust into his hands, and march directly away from his inferior foe, in 
quest of an object which, even if attained, was of wholly secondary conse- 
quence. The President, however, though with some reluctance, acceded to 
Burnside’s plan, but with the significant intimation, “I think it will sueceed 
if you move rapidly, otherwise not.”! While preparing for this movement, 
Burnside organized his force into three “Grand Divisions’—Sumner being 
placed in command of the “ Right,” Hooker of the “Centre,” and Franklin 
of the “ Left.” 

Burnside began his move- 
ment from Warrenton to 
Fredericksburg on the 15th 
of November. He had pro- 
posed to make it by concen- 
trating his force at Warren- 
ton, as though he intended 
to attack Culpepper or Gor- 
donsville. But Lee was not 
deceived. On the 17th he 
learned that Sumner had 
marched from Catlett’s Sta- 
tion toward Falmouth, and 
that Federal gun-boats had 
entered Acquia Creek. This, 
he thought, “looked as if 
Fredericksburg was to be re- 
occupied,” and he dispatched 
two divisions of infantry, with 
cavalry and artillery, to aug- 
ment the small force which 
had held the town. Next 
day a bold dash by Stuart’s 
cavalry upon Warrenton dis- 
closed that the Federal army 
were gone, whereupon Long- 
street’s whole command was 
sent toward Fredericksburg, while Jackson was ordered from the Valley to 
rejoin the main army.’ Lee, having divined Burnside’s movement, met it 
in just the manner in which one would suppose he would have done, but, 
as it would seem, just in the way his opponent did not anticipate. There 
were five conceivable things to be done: T’o repass down the Valley of the 
Shenandoah and again invade Maryland, and threaten Pennsylvania; to 
make a demonstration upon Washington, with the intent of recalling the 
march to Fredericksburg ; to fall back at once toward Richmond; to remain 
where he was, and await the issue of events; or to throw himself directly 
across the new line of advance proposed by Burnside. The first two move- 
ments Burnside had ruled out as impracticable or ruinous. For the third 
there was no immediate necessity; it could be done, if need were, after- 
ward as well as then. Burnside seems to have supposed that Lee would 
choose the fourth. As it happened, he chose the fifth course, which acci- 
dent enabled him to carry out under auspices far more favorable than he 
could have dared to anticipate. 

Sumner, with the advance of the Union army, reached Falmouth, oppo- 
site Fredericksburg, on the 17th. The design was that he should cross the 
Rappahannock at once, and seize the heights in the rear of Fredericksburg 
before Lee could re-enforce the small force stationed there. The river at 
that point could not be forded by an army in mass, and the railroad and 
turnpike bridges which had spanned it were destroyed. Burnside had, as 
he supposed, made arrangements by which pontoons sufficient to span the 
stream would have been sent to him from Washington so as to meet him 
on his arrival. But none came for a week, during which time nothing 
could be done to carry out the plan of operations. Sumner, indeed, who 


WARRENTON 
° 


ULPEPPER 
aan ocr 


ACQUIN cr 
FREDERICKSBURG 


ROUTES TO RIOUMON , 


This sketch illustrates the advantages, in point of distance, of the 
three proposed routes to Richmond. The first, abandoned by Burn- 
side, assumes the basis of supply to be Alexandria. The second, pro- 
posed by him, assumes it to be at Acquia Creek. The third, that 
adopted by McClellan, places it at West Point. 


! Com. Rep., 645. 

2 Sumner’s Grand Division consisted of the 2d Corps, under Couch, lately Sumner’s, and the 
Sth Corps, under Wilcox, formerly Burnside’s. Iooker’s Grand Division comprised the 3d 
Corps, under Stoneman, from the garrison of Washington, and the 5th Corps, formerly Fitz John 
Vorter’s, under Butterfield. Franklin’s Grand Division consisted of the Ist Corps, formerly 
Hooker's, under Reynolds, and the 6th Corps, formerly Franklin’s, under W. F. Smith. The 
12th Corps, so briefly commanded by Mansfield, was left at Harper's Ferry, under Slocum. The 
lith Corps, under Sigel, detached from the defenses of Washington, was near Manassas Junc- 
tion, guarding the railway line. This corps did not strictly form a part of Burnside’s movable 
army. Among the commanders of “ divisions,” as distinguished from the ‘‘Grand Divisions,” 
wer® Birney, Doubleday, French, Gibbon, Hancock, Howard, Humphreys, Meade, Newton, Sykes. 

3 Lee's Rep., i., 37. ’ , , 

*'This delay, upon which so much hinged, was made the subject of strict scrutiny. Each per- 


BURNSIDE'’S CAMPAIGN.—FREDERICKSBURG. 


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son immediately concerned endeavored to shift from himself the burden of the responsibility. 
Burnside says (Com. Rep., 651, 655): ‘‘My plan had been discussed by General Halleck and 
General Meigs at my head-quarters at Warrenton on the night of the 11th or 12th, and, after dis- 
cussing it fully there, they sat down and sent telegrams to Washington, which, as I supposed, 
fully covered the case, and would secure the starting of the pontoons at once. I supposed, of 
course, that those portions of the plan which required to be attended to at Washington would 
have been carried out there. I understood that General Halleck was to give the necessary orders, 
and then the officers who should receive those orders were the ones responsible for the pontoons 
coming here. I could have carried out that part of the plan through officers of my own; but, 
having just taken the command of an army with which I was unacquainted, it was evident that it 
was as much as I could attend to, with the assistance of all my officers, to change its position 
from Warrenton to Fredericksburg.’ —Halleck says (/bid., 673): ‘‘ On my visit to General Burn- 
side at Warrenton on the 12th of November, in speaking about the boats and things which he re- 
quired from Washington, I told him that they were all subject to his orders. To prevent the ne- 


408 TARPER’S PICTORIAL 


HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ NOVEMBER, 1862. 


ACQUIA OREERK. 


had been fired upon by a battery from across the river, and had silenced it 
so easily as to show that the enemy were there in only trifling force, was 
disposed to send a detachment by a ford which was practicable for the pur- 
pose, and gave an order to that effect. But he had received explicit orders 
not to cross and occupy Fredericksburg; and, “upon reflection, he con- 
cluded that he was rather too old a soldier to disobey a direct order; be- 
sides, he had had a little too much experience on the Peninsula of the con- 
sequence of getting astride a river to risk it here.” So, having revoked 
the order, he sent a note to Burnside, asking whether he should take Fred- 
ericksburg the next morning, provided he could find, what he had already 
found, a practicable ford. Burnside replied in the negative; he did not 
think it advisable to occupy Fredericksburg until his communications were 
established ; and Sumner coincided in this decision.!. Hooker, who brought 
up the rear of the army, requested permission, on the 20th, to send a divi- 
sion across the Rappahannock, which should march down the south side 
and seize the heights behind Fredericksburg. Burnside next day refused 
permission. He thought that although Hooker might “beat any force of 
the enemy he would meet on his way, yet it would be a very hazardous 
movement to throw a column like that beyond the reach of its proper sup- 
port ;” and, moreover, a rain-storm which had set in during the night render- 
ed the movement impossible. Sumner, on the 21st, sent over a message to 
the corporate authorities of Fredericksburg demanding the surrender of the 
town, under pain of bombardment in case of refusal. The civic authorities 
were told by the military commander that “while the town would not be 
occupied for military purposes, its occupation by the enemy would be re- 
sisted.” Directions were given for the removal of the people, and almost 
the entire population left their homes.? No bombardment then took place ; 
but a fortnight later, when the movement across the river was made, Fred- 
ericksburg, which was then used by the Confederates for “military pur- 
poses,” and almost the entire population having been removed in conse- 
quence of the threat, was bombarded. This was fiercely denounced as a 
violation ef the laws of war, but without the slightest ground. The town 
had been formally summoned to surrender; the unarmed population had 
abandoned it afteguabundant notice; and it was used for the direct “ mili- 
' tary purpose” of “resisting the occupation by the enemy.” 
A. fortnight passed, during which time the Union army lay upon the 
north bank of the Rappahannock, waiting for means to cross the stream, 
and for the accumulation of supplies at the Acquia Creek, and the means of 
transporting them from the Potomac to the Rappahannock. The Confed- 
erate army was meanwhile concentrating on the southern side to resist any 
advance. About this time that army was formally organized into two 
corps, under the immediate command of Longstreet and Jackson, who had 
each been raised to the rank of heutenant general. Longstreet’s corps con- 
sisted of the troops formerly belonging to his command. ‘To Jackson was 
assigned, besides those which he had heretofore commanded, the division of 
D. HW. Hill. The two corps were now of nearly equal force, that of Long- 
street being perhaps slightly in excess.‘ 


cessity of the commanding officer here reporting the order for the boats there, the order was drawn 
up on his table and signed by me directly to General Woodbury. I saw General Woodbury on 
my return, and he told me that he had received the order. I told him that in all these matters 
he was under General Burnside’s direction; I had nothing farther to give him except to commu- 
nicate that order to him. I gave no other order or direction in relation to the matter.””-—There 
seems to have been an unaccountable misapprehension as to the purport of the order which was 
addressed to General Woodbury, of the Engineer Brigade. It read: ‘Call upon the chief quar- 
ter-master to transport all your pontoons to Acquia Creck” (/bid., 663). Woodbury did not un- 
derstand that this order demanded instant execution. ‘Had the emergency been made known 
to me in any manner,” he says, ‘‘I could have disregarded the forms of service, seized teams, 
teamsters, and wagon-masters for instant service wherever I could find them, Then, with good 
roads and good weather, they might possibly have been in time. But I had no warrant for such 
a course, which, after all, could only have been carried ont by the authority of the general-in- 
chief” (Ibid., 665).—Quarter-master General Meigs said that the blame did not rest upon his de- 
partment, ‘‘which was no more responsible for the march of a pontoon train than for the march 
of a battery of artillery or of a regiment of infantry. Its business was to provide material for the 
transportation ofan army. If General Woodbury had orders from General Burnside, he was re- 
sponsible for carrying them out” (Jbid., 680). 

1 Sumner, in Com. Rep., 657. * Com. Rep., G54, 666. 3 Lee's Rep.,i., 38. 

* Longstreet’s corps, the First, consisted of the divisions of Anderson, Pickett, Ransom, Wood, 


miles below. 


BURNSIDE’S BABE OF SUPPLY. 


It was almost the middle of December. Four weeks had passed since 
Burnside’s plan had been sanctioned by the President; but the essential 
thing upon which he had based the probability of suecess—-that the move- 
ment should be rapidly made—had failed. The faultiness of the whole 
scheme was now apparent. Burnside had shrunk from assailing the half 
of Lee’s force which lay directly in his front, in a position hastily taken and 
of no great natural strength. He was now confronted by the Confederate 
army, drawn up in a position almost unassailable by nature, strengthened 
by the labor of three unobstructed weeks, which could be assailed only by 
crossing a formidable stream; and even if that were passed, the enemy as- 
sailed and driven from his position, the pursuit would still encounter at ev- 
ery step of the way just the same obstructions which would have been met 
on the line which had been abandoned. If military considerations were 
alone in question, no farther movement would have been made, and the 
army would have gone into winter quarters. But public feeling demanded 
a movement, and Burnside, sanctioned by his generals, resolved to take the 
offensive. The only question was where the intervening river should be 
crossed.? 

The Rappahannock, with a general course from south to north, makes a 
sharp bend westward a mile above Fredericksburg, running between two 
lines of heights. Those on the north, known as Stafford Heights, slope 
steeply down to the river bank, with an elevation sufficient to command the 
valley across the river. On the south side, the hills just in the rear of Fred- 
ericksburg rise sharply something less than a mile from the river; then they 
trend away, in a semicircular form, until they sink down into the valley 
of the Massaponax, six miles below Fredericksburg, leaving an irregular 
broken valley, two miles broad at its widest point. This range of heights 
was mostly covered with dense woods, oaks with branches now leafless, skirt- 
ed with sombre pines, rising southward by a succession of wooded ridges, 
each dominating the one below until lost in a wild wooded region soon to 
become famous under the name of the “Wilderness.” Upon the erests and 
slopes of these wooded heights Longstreet’s corps had been disposed, cover- 
ing a front of about five miles. There was little need of artificial aid to the 
natural strength of the position; but artillery and rifle pits were dug and 
abatis constructed.? D,. H. IMill’s division was posted near Port Royal, twenty 
miles below, to prevent the Union gun-boats from ascending the river, and 
some skirmishing here took place.? The remainder of Jackson’s corps was 


and McLaws, comprising 21 brigades. Jackson’s corps, the Second, consisted of the divisions of 
A. P. Hill, D. H. Hill, Ewell, and Taliaferro, comprising 19 brigades. The cavalry and horse 
artillery, under Stuart, acted somewhat independently with either corps; at the battle of Freder- 
icksburg, mainly with Jackson. 

1 Sumner: ‘I was in favor of crossing the Rappahannock, because I knew that neither our 
government nor our people would be satisfied to have our army retire from this position or go into 
winter quarters until we knew the force that was on the other side of the river, and the only way 
of ascertaining that was by feeling them” (Com. Rep., 658). 

Franklin: “General Burnside called a council, in which it was the unanimous opinion, I think, 
of all the generals present, that if this river could be crossed, it ought to be crossed, no matter 
what might happen afterward. The point of crossing was not then definitely determined upon; 
but I thought at the time that we were to cross several miles farther down. Afterward General 
Burnside called us together again, and informed us that he had determined to cross at the two 
points at which we finally did cross. I had no objection to that, but thought they were as good 
as the point farther down” (/bid., 661). ; 

Hooker: ‘* After the pontoons arrived, it became a matter of importance to determine where 
and in what way we should cross the Rappahannock. The officers commanding the Grand Divi- 
sions were called together to discuss and determine that matter. General Burnside proposed that 
a portion of the command should cross at Fredericksburg, and a portion should cross about twelve 
I objected by my vote in the council to crossing two columns so far apart, and stated 
my preference that the whole army should cross at what is called the United States or Richards’s 
Ford, about twelve miles above ; but I was overruled” (Jbid., 666). 

2 «¢Pits were made for the protection of the batteries; and, in addition to the natural strength 
of the position, ditches, stone fences, and road-cuts were found along different portions of the line, 
and parts were farther strengthened by rifle-trenches and abatis.’””— Longstreet, in Lee’s Rep., 
li., 427. 

3 Hill always managed to say something quite out of harmony with the usual decorum of the 
Confederate official reports. Here, with abridgments, is his account of what took place at his ex- 
tremity of the line: ‘* Four Yankee gun-boats were then lying opposite the town of Port Royal. 
Rifle-pits were constructed to prevent the pirates from ascending. Hardaway opened upon the 
gun-boats. Finding the fire too hot for them, they fled back. Hardaway continned to pelt them, 
and, to stop his fire, the rnffians commenced shelling the town. A dog was killed and a negro 
wounded. The pirates fled down the river ; but a worse fate awaited them than a distant cannon- 
ade—a section of artillery immediately on the bank gave them a parting salute. From Yankee 
sources we learned that the pirates lost six killed and twenty wounded. Whether they over-esti- 


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posted so as to be in a position to support either Hill or Longstreet. Two 


shots in immediate succession were to be the signal giving notice for the: 


whole of the Confederate foree to concentrate upon any point that should be 
menaced in force. 

Burnside had resolved to cross at a point known by the euphoncous des- 
ignation of Skinker’s Neck, about twelve miles below Fredericksburg. The 
movements which were made for this purpose caused the enemy to concen- 
trate much of his strength in that direction. The thought then occurred to 
him to detain this foree there by ostentatious demonstrations, and to make 
the crossing at Fredericksburg. ‘“T decided,” he says, ‘to cross at Freder- 


icksburg, because, in the first place, I felt satisfied that they did not expect | 


us to cross here, but down below; and, in the next place, I felt satisfied that 
this was the place to fight the most decisive battle, because, if we could di- 
vide their forces by piercing their lines at one or two points, separating their 
left from their right, then a vigorous attack with the whole army would sue- 
ceed in breaking their army in pieces.”? 


were sure. Ifit was certain that Lee’s left would be behind Fredericksburg, 


and his right a dozen miles or more away, then an adequate force flung | 


into this great gap would divide the Confederate army, and a vigorous as- 
sault upon its left might be expected to crush it when cut off from aid from 
the right. To carry out this plan, it was necessary that the river should be 
crossed and battle be waged and won in a single day. Failing this, the rest 
must depend upon contingencies which no man could foresee. 

The 11th of December was fixed upon as the day for crossing the riv- 
er. During the previous night nearly one hundred and fifty heavy guns 
were placed in position upon the crest of Stafford Heights, commanding a 
great part of the opposite valley. The intention was to throw three bridges 
across at Fredericksburg, and as many more at a point two or three miles 
below. Sumner’s Grand Division was to cross by the upper bridges, Frank- 
lin’s by the lower, while Hooker’s was to be held in reserve, ready, if the as- 
sault was successful, to spring upon the enemy in his retreat.? It was sup- 
posed that the bridges could be built in two or three hours? Before dawn 
the pontoons were brought down to the river bank, and the work of laying 
the bridges was begun in the darkness. T'wo single shots broke the still- 
ness which reigned through the Confederate lines. These were the signal 
for Longstreet’s corps to concentrate upon the threatened point. Fredericks- 
burg was held by only two regiments of sharp-shooters, who were sheltered 
in houses and rifle-pits, and behind walls on the river bank. In addition to 
the darkness of night, a dense fog filled the valley. The engineers had 
hardly begun to lay the bridges when they were assailed by rifle-shots at 
short range from the opposite shore, and driven off with severe loss. Again 
and again they returned, and again and again were driven off. The two or 
three hours had stretched to six, and the narrow stream was only half span- 
ned, and not another length could be laid under the fierce fire. Burnside 
now ordered that fire should be opened upon the town from his artillery 
which crowned the opposite crests. Nearly one hundred and fifty heavy 
guns at once opened fire into the pall of mist which still shrouded the scene. 
After two hours a column of rising smoke indicated that a part of the town 
was in flames, and another attempt was made to complete the bridges. This 
was repelled as the former ones had been, showing that almost ten thousand 
shot had failed to dislodge the sharp-shooters from their coverts. When the 
fog lifted at noon, it was found that the elevation at which the guns were 
placed was so great that few of them could be sufficiently depressed to bear 
upon the river front of the town. The day was fast wearing away, and 
nothing had been accomplished. The officers reported that the bridges 
could not be built. Burnside said that it must be done, and some means 
must be found to dislodge the sharp-shooters. It was now decided that a 
detachment should cross in open pontoon boats and carry, the town. ‘T'wo 
regiments from Massachusetts and one from Michigan volunteered for the 
perilous work, They rushed down the bank and pushed the boats into the 
stream; a few strong strokes with the oars, and they were under shelter of 
the opposite bluffs, wp which they dashed, and in a quarter of an hour car- 
ried the town.* In half an hour more the bridges were finished, and, as even- 
ing was falling, Couch’s division was over and the first step in the enterprise 
fairly taken. Franklin had indeed met with scarcely a show of opposition. 
His artillery covered the opposite shore, and his bridges were ready before 
noon; but Burnside had resolved that the attack should be made in two 
separate columns, and Franklin was not suffered to cross until the other 
bridges were completed. 

It was no part of Lee’s plan seriously to oppose the passage of the river 
by the Federal force, or even to assail it when over. He wisely chose to 
await its assault upon his strong position,® to which his opponent would 


mated or under-estimated their losses I do not know; they sometimes lie on one side and sometimes 
on another. In a few days the pirates returned with some more of their thievish consorts. Guns 
were brought down to the river under cover of a dense fog, and when it lifted were opened upon 
them. We have learned from the same respectable Yankee source that three of the pirates were 
struck, one three times, and that a captain was killed, and four or five other thieves knocked on 
the head.”—D. H. Hill, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 458. ' Burnside’s Testimony, in Com. Rep., 652. 

2 Hooker, in Com. Rep., 667. 3 Burnside, /bid., 655. 

4 McLaws says (Lee's Rep., ii., 445) that the artillery fire was so severe that his ‘men could 
not use their rifles, and the different places occupied by them becoming untenable, the troops were 
withdrawn from the river bank at half past four, when the enemy crossed in boats, and, completing 
their bridges, passed over in force and advanced into the town.” —° Burnside, in Com. Rep., 656. 

6 Lee indeed believed that it was impossible to prevent the crossing. He says (Rep., i., 39): 
“The plain of Fredericksburg is so completely commanded by the Stafford Heights, that no ef- 
fectual opposition could be made to the construction of bridges or the passage of the river without 
exposing our troops to the destructive fire of the numerous batteries of the enemy. At the same 
time, the narrowness of the Rappahannock, its winding course and deep bed, presented opportuni- 
ties for laying down bridges at points secure from the fire of our artillery. Our position was there- 
fore selected with a view to resist the enemy’s advance after crossing, and the river was guarded 
only by a force sufficient to impede his movements until the army could be concentratec -’—Frank- 
lin, however, was confident that not only might his passage have been prevented, but that his divi- 
sion, when over, could have been crushed. He says (Testimony, in Com, Rep., 661): ‘I always 


No conclusion could, as matters | 
stood, be more sound, provided that the premises upon which it was based — 


| 


BURNSIDE’S CAMPAIGN.—FREDERICKSBURG. 


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412 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. _ (DECEMBER, 1862. 


have been pledged by crossing the river. He seems, indeed, to have been 
uncertain whether the movement in his front was a serious one, or merely a 
feint to cover an attempt upon one of his flanks; for it was not until from 
twenty-four to forty hours after the firing of the signal-guns that Jackson’s 
corps was brought up from its positions nearly a score of miles down the 
river! Could the bridges have been completed, as was expected, early on 
Te: : the morning of the 11th, and the attack made that day, Burnside would have 
/ i eg encountered only half of the Confederate force, and the result of the action 
al could hardly have failed to have been different. 

The whole of the 12th was most unaccountably spent in crossing the river 
and deciding upon the order of the attack on the next day. It was found 
that the extreme Confederate right was protected by a canal, all the bridges 
crossing which had been destroyed; there was, besides, a sluiceway and mill- 
pond, so that this point was unassailable; and an attack upon the right could 
only be made against the steep front of Marye’s Hill, rising in the rear of the 
town and presenting a front of a mile, then sloping off sharply to a ravine 
traversed by a small stream; thence the heights sweep away from the river, 
leaving a broken plain, its edges deeply indented by wooded spurs. This 
plain, about two miles broad, is traversed by the Richmond and Fredericks- 
burg Railroad, which winds around the base of the heights, occasionally cut- 
ting through the extremities of the projecting spurs. Midway between the 
railway and the river runs the old Richmond or Port Royal Road, often em- 
banked and fringed with trees, affording shelter behind which the Union force 
could be deployed. When the final arrangements had been made on both 
sides, the Confederate forces, 80,000 strong, were posted along the ridge of 
the range of hills, their advance line in places pushed forward to the wooded 
base, Jackson’s corps holding the right and Longstreet’s the left. The Union 
army, L00,000 strong, was posted along the Richmond Road, from Freder- 
icksburg down; Couch’s corps, of Sumner’s division, in the town; then 
Wilcox’s corps, forming the connection with Franklin’s Grand Division on 
the left. 

The character of the ground unmistakably indicated that the main attack 
should be made by Franklin; for not only was the Confederate position here 
manifestly weaker, but the plain in front of it was spacious enough to give 
room to deploy his whole force; while to the right, in front of Sumner, the 
plain was so narrow that only a fragment of his force could at any one mo- 
ment be brought into action. If he assailed the strong position before him, 
it must be by successive blows, not by a single attack with his whole force. 
Franklin understood, on the afternoon of the 12th, that Burnside intended 
that he should make the attack with his Grand Division, to which had been 
added a part of Hooker’s. Hooker understood that there was to be a two- 
fold assault, at distinct points, the main one by Sumner, on the right.2_ Burn- 
side clearly proposed a twofold attack in force, that on the left to be the 
first.8 But when, on the morning of the 13th, Franklin received his order, 
it was so worded as to lead him and his generals to suppose that it meant 
he should make merely an armed reconnoissance of the enemy’s lines with 
but one of his eight divisions, to be supported by another, keeping the re- 
mainder in position for a different movement.* Franklin was also informed 
that a column, consisting of a division or more, detached from Sumner’s 
corps, was to move against the heights in the rear of Fredericksburg. Thus, 
as the plan was framed, not more than four divisions, one quarter of the 
force which had crossed or was ready to cross the river, were to assail the 
position held by the Confederates. We can only account for this plan by 
supposing that Burnside thought that the enemy in his front was really in 
inconsiderable force, its bulk being still a score of miles away, and that not 
only had he crossed the Rappahannock at a point where he was not expect- 
ed, but that during the eight-and-forty hours which had passed since the at- 
tempt was begun the enemy had not concentrated his strength in his front. 
Thus only can we explain the part assigned to Hooker, to spring upon the 
enemy on his retreat, and the order to Franklin to be in readiness to march 
down the Richmond Road, that being the direction which the retreating 
Confederates would naturally take. If such was his belief, he must have 
been confirmed in it by the trifling opposition offered to his passage of the 
river. There was, indeed, nothing to show the neighborhood of a great hos- 
tile army. Hardly a reply had been made to his heavy bombardment; not 


FRANKLIN'S GRAND DIVISION OROSSING THE RAPPAHANNOOK. 


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doubted our power to cross, and I do not believe we could have crossed had the enemy chosen to 
prevent it; and I know, from what I have seen since and what I before suspected, that they could 
have prevented our crossing at those two points if they had chosen. However, the crossing was 
successfully made, under cover of a fog, and, as far as my wing was concerned, we got into position 
safely, with the loss of a very few men, Still, we were in such a position that, if the enemy had at 
any moment opened upon us with the guns they had bearing upon us, I think in the course of an 
hour our men would have been so scattered that it would have been impossible to rally them. For 
some unaccountable reason they did not open their batteries.” 

1 «Tt having been definitely ascertained that the enemy had crossed the Rappahannock in large 
force, I was ordered to move my division at dawn on the 12th” (A. P. Hill, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 461).— 
* Just before sundown on the 12th I received an order to march that night to Fredericksburg, as the 
Yankees were expected to attack General Lee that day. A portion of my command was twenty- 
two miles from that city, and the most of them from eighteen to twenty” (D. H. Hill, Zbid., 458).— 
‘A. P. Hill moved his division at dawn on the morning of the 12th. At the same time, Talia- 
ferro, then in command of Jackson’s division, moved from his encampment. Early on the morn- 
ing of the 13th, Ewell’s division, under Early, and D. H. Hill, with his division, arrived, after a se- 
vere night’s march, from their respective encampments, the troops of D. H. Hill being from fifteen 
to eighteen miles distant from the points to which they were ordered” (Jackson, Jbid., 434). 

2 «¢General Burnside said [in the council] that his favorite plan of attack was on the telegraph 
road.” —Hooker, in Com, Rep., 667. 

3 «The enemy had cut a road along in the rear of the line of heights where we made our attack, 
by means of which they connected the two wings of their army, and avoided a long detour through 
a bad country. I wanted to obtain possession of that new road, and that was my reason for mak- 
ing an attack on the extreme left. I did not intend to make the attack on the right until that 
position had been taken, which I supposed would stagger the enemy, cutting their line in two; and 
then I proposed to make a direct attack on their front, and drive them out of their works.”—Burn- 
side, in Com. Rep., 653. 

* Franklin, in Com. Rep., 708. The order is given in full in Com. Rep., 707. The essential por- 
tions are these: ‘‘The general commanding directs that you keep your whole command in posi- 
tion for a rapid movement down the old Richmond Road; and you will send out at once a division 
| at least to pass below Smithfield, to seize, if possible, the heights near Captain Hamilton’s, on this 


ih 
i 


side of the Massaponax, taking care to keep it well supported and its line of retreat open. . .. , 
You will keep your whole command ready to move at once, as soon as the fog lifts.” 


December, 1862. | 


an enemy showed himself during that day or the next besides the few regi- 
ments which had been driven from Fredericksburg, and the scanty line of 
sharp-shooters, hardly more than a picket-guard, scattered along the river 
bank. He had indeed been informed by a German prisoner, who represent- 
ed that he had been impressed into the Confederate service, of the strength 
of the enemy, of their positions and batteries, and that they regarded it as an 
impossibility that the heights could be carried; but Burnside clearly placed 
no faith in his story.! 

The morning of Saturday, December 18, broke with a dense fog resting 
in the valley, shutting the two armies from all sight of each other. So 
dense was it that the Confederates could hear the word of command given 
to the invisible lines before them.? The night had been bitterly cold. 
Some of the Confederate pickets were frozen at their posts. About ten 
o’clock the fog lifted, and showed Franklin’s command in motion. He had 
placed a liberal construction upon the order to assault with at least one di- 
vision, and threw forward Reynolds’s entire corps, Meade’s division in ad- 
vance in the centre, supported by Gibbon’s on the right, and Doubleday’s 
on the left, somewhat in the rear. The Confederate horse artillery, under 
Stuart, was so posted across the Richmond Road as to enfilade the Union 
line, and Doubleday was deflected still farther to the left to dislodge them. 
After an hour’s sharp cannonading Stuart’s guns were withdrawn, and 
Meade opened a fierce artillery fire upon the woods in his front. The Con- 
federate batteries making no response, Meade pushed forward right against 
what proved to be the centre of Jackson’s position.* 

Jackson’s front line was composed of three brigades of A. P. Hill’s divi- 
sion, posted in the woods at Hamilton’s Crossing, the point which Franklin 
had been ordered to assail with a single division; the other three brigades 
formed the second line along the military road, while the divisions of D. H. 
Hill, Kwell, and Taliaferro were in reserve beyond the crest of the heights. 
A wide gap had been left between two of Hill’s front brigades, just behind 
a strip of boggy wood which was supposed to be inaccessible. By one of 
those accidents which sometimes change the result of a battle, Meade ad- 
vanced right upon this point, and his division thrust itself like a wedge 
through the unguarded opening, in the face of a fierce artillery fire now 
opened upon his column from the hitherto silent batteries. This wedge, by 
sheer force of impact, forced itself between and past the Confederate bri- 
gades of Lane and Archer, sweeping back the flanks of each, and gaining 
the second line along the military road. <A part of Gregg’s brigade was 
thrown into confusion, but the remainder of the line stood firm, and check- 
ed the rush of Meade’s column. This had pushed in so rapidly that it was 
separated from Gibbon’s division, which was to be its immediate support, 
and was enveloped, for it had pierced, not shattered, the first Confederate 
line, whose separated portions assailed each of its flanks, while its front was 
headed by the second line. It was now a mere question of force. Meade’s 
three brigades were opposed to Hill’s six, and they fell back in confusion 
over the ground which they had gained. Meanwhile Gibbon’s supporting 
division, after a brief delay, which to Meade seemed long,® came up on his 
right, and for a moment stemmed the Confederate advance. But in the 
mean while a messenger from Hill had dashed up to Harly, who was in the 
rear, bringing tidings that “an awful gap” had been left in the front line, 
through which the enemy were pouring, endangering not only the infantry 
of that line, but all the batteries. arly sent Lawton’s brigade into the 
fight; they rushed in with the wild “cheer peculiar to the Confederate sol- 
dier, and which is never to be mistaken for the studied hurrahs of the Yan- 
kees,”’ closely followed by the remainder of the division. At the same time 
Hood, whose division of Longstreet’s corps was next to Jackson, and who 
had received orders to co-operate with him, sent a brigade to the scene of 
action. This united force swept back Gibbon’s division, as well as the shat- 
tered remains of Meade’s.® 

The consequences of the wording of Burnside’s order, and Franklin’s un- 
derstanding of it, were now apparent. Franklin held his Grand Division in 
a position for a “rapid advance down the Richmond Road,” and so, with the 
exception of Meade and Gibbon, it was stretched along the road, the nearest 
part being a full mile from the scene of conflict, and most of it much farther, 
for Doubleday’s division, which was to have directly supported the attack, 
had gone so far to the left as to be beyond reach. But, fortunately, Stone- 
man’s corps of Hooker’s Grand Division had begun to cross the river oppo- 
site the place of the fight. Birney’s division of that corps, which led, had 
been ordered to follow Meade when he advanced; but the order was coun- 
termanded, and he was directed to retire his men from a hot artillery fire 
which was opening upon them. He had begun to do this when he was told 
to push forward to aid Meade, whose division was flying back in all direc- 


1 Hooker, in Com. Rep., 667. 2 Lee's Rep., ii., 428. 3 Tbid., ii., 487. 

4 Reynolds, in Com. Rep., 698; A. P. Hill, in Lee's Rep., ii., 462. 5 Lee's Rep., ii., 466. 

6 «General Gibbon’s division on my right, which I understood was to have advanced simulta- 
neously with my own, did not advance till I was driven back. It advanced until it came within 
short range of the enemy, when it halted. The officers could not get the men forward to a charge, 
and the division was held at bay there some twenty or thirty minutes, during which time my divi- 
sion had gone forward. That delay enabled the enemy to concentrate their force and attack me 
on my front and both flanks. I had penetrated the enemy’s lines so far that I had no support on 
either flank, and was therefore forced to fall back. As I came out, Gibbon’s forces advanced, 
and got as far probably as the railroad, which was the enemy’s outer line” (Meade, in Com. Rep., 
691).—Gibbon says: ‘‘I saw General Meade’s troops moving forward into action, and I at once 
sent orders to my leading brigade to advance and engage the enemy. Shortly afterward I order- 
ed up another brigade to the support of the first. The fire was very heavy from the enemy’s in- 
fantry, and I ordered up the third brigade, and directed them to take the position with the bay- 
onet, having previously given that order to the leading brigade. But the general commanding 
that brigade told me that the noise and confusion was so great that it was impossible to get the 
men to charge, or to get them to hear any order to charge. The third brigade went in, took the 
position with the bayonet, and captured a considerable number of prisoners. I had just received 
the report of the success of the third brigade, when shortly after I saw a regiment of infantry come 
out on the left of my line, between myself and General Meade. No troops came up in support of 
my division to enable me to hold the position which I had gained” (Jdid., 715). 

7 Karly, in Lee's Rep., ii., 470. 8 Lee’s Rep., ii., 428, 457. 

5 M 


BURNSIDE’S CAMPAIGN.—FREDERICKSBURG. 


413 


tions. The fugitives rushed straight through Birney’s lines, closely pursued 
by the enemy, who dashed within fifty yards of Birney’s guns. Four bat- 
teries of these opened such a furious fire of canister that the Confederates 
were checked; they then recoiled, falling back to their original first line on 
the railroad.’ The battle on the left was now over. It had lasted about 
two hours, counting from the time when Meade advanced down to the mo- 
ment when the Confederates recoiled from the pursuit.2 Burnside, indeed, 
sent an order to Franklin directing him to attack in front, but before this 
was received Franklin deemed it too late to make any change in his dispo- 
sitions.® Jackson also planned an assault under cover of darkness upon the 
Federal position. He proposed to attack with his artillery in advance, fol- 
lowed by the infantry ; but his first guns had hardly moved forward a hund- 
red yards when the Federal artillery reopened its fire, and so completely 
swept his front as to satisfy him that the attempt must be abandoned.‘ 

In this action upon the left the Federals lost, in killed and wounded, 
about 3700, of which nearly 2600 fell upon the two divisions of Meade and 
Gibbon, and 900 upon that of Birney. The Confederates lost about 3200, 
of which half fell upon the division of A. P. Hill, and a fourth upon that of 
Ewell. In their advance the Federals captured 500 prisoners, and lost about 
as many in the retreat.® 


During this action on the left, a still more fiercely contested fight was 
raging three miles away on the right, at the foot of Marye’s Hill, directly be- 
hind Fredericksburg. The Confederate position here was of great strength.® 
“Marye’s Hill, covered with their batteries, falls off abruptly toward Freder- 
icksburg, to a stone wall which forms a terrace on the side of the hill, and 
the outer margin of the Telegraph Road, which winds along the foot of the 
hill. ‘The road is about twenty-five feet wide, and is faced by a stone wall, 
about four feet high, on the city side. The road having been cut out of the 
side of the hill in many places, this last wall is not visible above the surface 
of the ground. The ground falls off rapidly to almost a level surface, which 
extends about a hundred and fifty yards; then, with another abrupt fall of 
a few feet, to another plain, which extends some two hundred yards, and 
then falls off abruptly into a wide ravine, which extends along the whole 
front of the city.” This road, invisible from the direction whence the attack 
was to come, was precisely like the ditch of a fortress, affording perfect pro- 
tection to the men posted in it. Parts of two brigades, numbering in all not 
2000 men, were stationed here, and yet so small was the space that they 
stood four deep.’ The line of this sunken road was continued on each side 
by a stone wall raised above the ground, and by rifle-pits and trenches. The 
crest of the hill was covered with artillery, but so narrow was the space that 
there was here only room for eleven guns of the Washington Artillery ; 
these were mostly 12-pounders. Other guns, about fifty in all, of heavier 
calibre, were posted so as to enfilade the approaches, while the bulk of the 
artillery was held in reserve beyond the crest of the hills, the ammunition 
trains being several miles in the rear. Lee, indeed, seems to have assumed 
that the enemy would succeed in gaining the crest of the hills, and that the 
battle would be fought on the plateau beyond, where his whole system of 
defensive works had been constructed ; while Burnside supposed that these 
crests once gained the victory would be won. 

The attack upon Marye’s Hill was committed to Sumner; but, as Wilcox’s 
corps of his Grand Division had been stretched down the river to keep up 
the connection with Franklin, the burden of the assault was laid upon 
Couch’s corps. French’s division was to begin the attack, followed by that 
of Hancock, “two of the most gallant officers in the army, and two divisions 
that had never turned their backs to the enemy.”® When the fog lifted at 
noon, these divisions were seen formed in two columns of attack, marching 
straight toward the base of the heights, along two roads which here run par- 
allel, that on the right being the ‘“‘ Orange Plank Road,” leading westward to 
the ‘‘ Wilderness,” four months hence to become historical in connection with 


1 Birney, in Com. Rep., 705; Reynolds, Lbid., 698; Jackson, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 4836; A. P. Hill, 
Ibid., 464; Early, Lbid., 471. 

? The moments of the fight are best given in the dispatches of General Hardie, of Burnside’s 
staff, who was placed at Franklin’s head-quarters to report upon the operations. We give the 
main points of his consecutive dispatches, as contained in Com. Rep., 712-714: “* December 13 
740 A.M. Meade’s division is to make the movement from our left; but it is just reported that 
the enemy’s skirmishers are advancing, indicating an attack upon our position on the left.— 
9 A.M. Meade just moved out; Doubleday supports him. Meade’s skirmishers engaged with 
enemy’s skirmishers.—9 40. Two batteries playing upon Reynolds. They must be silenced before 
he can advance.—11 A.M. Meade advanced half a mile, and holds on.—12 M. Birney’s division 
now getting into position. That done, Reynolds will order Meade to advance.—12 5 P.M. Meade’s 
line is advancing in the direction you prescribed this morning.—1 P.M. Enemy opened a battery 
enfilading Meade; Reynolds has opened all his batteries upon it. Reynolds hotly engaged.— 
115 P.M. Heavy engagement of infantry ; Meade is assaulting the hill.—1 25 P.M. Meade is in 
the woods; seems to be able to hold on. Reynolds will push Gibbon in if necessary ; the infantry 
firing is prolonged and quite heavy; things look well enough; men in fine spirits.—1 40 P.M. 
Meade having carried a portion of the enemy’s position in the woods, we have 300 prisoners ; 
tough work; men fight well; Gibbon has advanced to Meade’s right; Meade has suffered severe- 
ly; Doubleday, to Meade’s left, not engaged.—2 15 P.M. Gibbon and Meade driven back from 
the woods; Newton gone forward; Jackson’s corps of the enemy attacks on the left; Gibbon 
slightly wounded ; Bayard mortally wounded by a shell. Things do not look so well on Rey- 
nolds’s front; still we will have new troops in.soon.—2 25 P.M. Franklin will do his best; new 
troops gone in.—3 P.M. Reynolds seems to be holding his own; things look better somewhat.—3 40 
P.M. Gibbon’s and Meade’s divisions are badly used up, and I fear another attack can not be 
made this afternoon. Doubleday’s division will replace Meade’s as soon as it can be collected, 
and if it be done in time another attack will be made. The enemy are in force in the woods on 
our left, threatening the safety of that portion of our line. Just as soon as the left is safe, our 
forces here will be prepared for a front attack ; but it may be too late this afternoon ; indeed, we are 
engaged in front any how. Notwithstanding the unpleasant items I relate, the morale generally 
of the troops is good.—4 30 P.M. The enemy is still in force on our left and front. An attack on 
our batteries in front has been repulsed. A new attack has just opened on our left; but the left 
is safe, though it is too late to advance either to the left or front,” 

3 Com. Rep., 710. * Jackson, in Lee's Rep., ii., 438. 

5 For detail of the losses in this action, and in that on the right, see supra, p. 416. 

5 This description is copied from Kershaw’s Report (in Lee’s Rep., ii., 487). Of all the Reports 
on either side, this of Kershaw, who commanded here, is the only one which gives any adequate 
idea of the strength of the Confederate position. The existence of the sunken road, which, as it 
happened, was the key to the whole action here, seems never to have been known to any of the 
Union generals, even when they furnished their reports. 


’ Thid., 488. ® [bid., 522, 533, 547. ’ Sumner, in Com. Rep., 658. 


414 


TWAT 


Hl 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ DECEMBER, 1862. 


Ih 


fe 


THE ASSAULT UPON MABYE'S HILL. 


the battle of Chancellorsville; the other, the “Telegraph Road,” bending 
southwardly, and leading to Richmond, in which, hidden from view, lay the 
few regiments forming the advance line of the Confederate force, command- 
ed by Cobb; but he having been killed early in the day, the command was 
given. to Kershaw, whose brigade was thrust forward into and near the 
sunken road. 

No sooner had the Federal columns moved in dense masses out of the 
deep ravine, through which some suppose that the Rappahannock once 
flowed, and emerged upon the narrow plain at the foot of Marye’s Hill, than 
they came within range of the Confederate artillery posted upon the crests. 
Every gun opened upon them with terrible effect, “ making great gaps that 
could be seen at the distance of a mile.”* The light guns of the Confeder- 
ates, at this close range, were better than though they had been heavier, for 
they could be worked more rapidly. French’s division, in the advance, 
pressed on in the face of the artillery fire, closing up the great gaps plowed 
through their ranks, and had crossed half of the narrow space toward the 
foot of the hill, when they were met by a sheet of fire full in their faces from 
an invisible foe. It came from the Confederate infantry hidden in the road 
‘cut out of the side of the hill,” not a man of whom was visible above the 
smooth slope. The heads of the advancing columns melted away before 
this solid wall of fire, delivered from ranks four deep,? like a snow-bank be- 
fore a jet of steam. 

French’s division recoiled before this fierce fire, and streamed back over 
the narrow plain across which they had advanced, leaving almost half their 
number behind. Hancock’s came close after; this, with French’s remaining 
men, pushed straight on, disregarding the hot artillery fire from the heights; 
but no sooner did they come within musket-range of the sunken road than 
a solid sheet of lead poured upon them. The front which was to be car- 
ried was so narrow that scarcely more than a brigade could be brought 
upon it at once. Brigade dashed in after brigade, each taking the place of 
one which had been swept back so rapidly that it seemed, from the Union 
lines in the plain, but a single assault, lasting three hours; but, as seen from 
the Confederate positions on the hill, it seemed a succession of waves dashed 
against the rocky wall at its base. But it was not a question of numbers. 
Had twice as many men been brought up the result would have been the 
same, only the loss would have been twice as great. Nor was it a question 
of bravery; for never, not even when, seven months later, the Confederates 
in their turn dashed and were shattered against the steeps at Gettysburg, 
was an assault made with more desperate and unavailing valor.’ The main 
stress of the assault had been borne by divisions of French and Hancock. 
They had pressed across the narrow plain, about 10,000 strong, and lost 
fully 4000 in killed and wounded. 

Burnside had watched the action from the heights across the Rappahan- 
nock. Two full hours had passed, and nothing seemed gained. Assault 
after assault had been made by divisions which had ‘never turned their 
backs to the enemy.” The regiments which he had expected to see crown- 
ing the crest had been repelled from the base. ‘That crest must be crossed 
to-night,” he exclaimed, and directed Hooker to cross and attack upon the 
Telegraph Road—the very position against which French and Hancock had 
been “ butting all day long.” Of Hooker's six divisions, two, and these, he 
says, ‘‘were my favorite divisions, for the one was that which I had edu- 
cated myself, and the other was that which Kearney had commanded, and 
of these I knew more than of any others in my command,” had been sent 
to the left to support Franklin. Another division had been sent across to 
the upper end of Fredericksburg to support Howard, and still another low- 
er down to support Sturgis, both of whom had been pushed forward to aid 
French and Howard. Hooker had then but two divisions left with which 
to act; they were that of Humphreys, composed of new men, and Sykes’s 
regulars, who had fought at Bull Run and Cold Harbor, at Malvern and 
Groveton. Hooker rode forward across the river to consult with the gen- 
erals who had been engaged in the attack. He saw Couch and Wilcox, 
French and Hancock. With a single exception, they were all of opinion 
that no attack could be successfully made there. Hooker examined the po- 
sition himself, and sent to Burnside an aid with a message dissuading from 
a new assault. ‘The messenger returned with orders that an attempt must 
be made. Hooker then rode back, and in person repeated his urgency 


1 T. R. R. Cobb, not to be confounded with Howell Cobb, once Buchanan’s Secretary of the 
Treasury, but now also a general in the Confederate army. ? Lee’s Rep., ii., 429. 

3 TJ found, on my arrival, that Cobb’s brigade occupied our entire front, and our troops could 
only get into position by doubling onthem. ‘This was accordingly done, and the formation along 
most of the line was consequently four deep. As an evidence of the coolness of the command, 
I may mention here that, notwithstanding that their fire was the most rapid and continuous that 
I have ever witnessed, not a man was injured by the fire of his comrades.”—Kershaw, in Lee's 
Rep., ii., 488. 

* The Confederate reports testify abundantly to the desperate bravery with which this assault 
was carried on. Lee says (Rep., i., 42): ‘*Our batteries poured a rapid and destructive fire into 
the dense lines of the enemy as they advanced to the attack, frequently breaking their ranks, and 
forcing them to retreat to the shelter of the houses. Six times did the enemy, notwithstanding 
the havoc caused by our batteries, press on with great determination to within one hundred yards 
of the foot of the hill; but here, encountering the deadly fire of our infantry, his columns were 
broken, and fled in confusion to the town.”—Ransom, whose division bore half the brunt of the 
fight, says (Tbid., 451): ‘ Another line was formed by the enemy, he all the while keeping up a 
brisk fire with sharp-shooters. This line advanced with the utmost determination, and some few 
of them got within fifty yards of our line; but the whole were forced to retire in wild confusion 
before the telling fire of our small-arms at such short range. For some minutes there was a ces- 
sation ; but we were not long kept in expectancy. ‘The enemy now seemed determined to reach 
our position, and formed apparently a triple line, and, almost massed, moved to the charge hero- 
ically, and met the withering fire of our artillery and small-arms with wonderful stanchness. On 
they came to within less than one hundred and fifty paces of our line; but nothing could live be- 
fore the sheet of lead that was hurled at them from this distance. They momentarily recovered, 
broke, and rushed headlong from the field. A few, however, more resolute than the rest, lingered 
under cover of some fences and houses, and annoyed us with a scattering but well-directed fire. 
Nothing daunted by the fearful punishment he had received, the enemy brought out fresh and in- 
creased numbers of troops. Our men held their fire until it would be fatally effective; mean- 
while the artillery was spreading fearful havoc among the enemy’s ranks. Still he advanced, and 
received the destructive fire of our line; even more resolute than before, he seemed determined 
madly to press on; but his efforts could avail nothing.” 


December, 1862. ] 


BURNSIDE’'S CAMPAIGN.—FREDERICKSBURG. 


415 


FRANKLIN'S DIVISION RECROSSING THE RAPPAHANNOCK, 


against an attack. But Burnside was inflexible, and insisted that it should 
be made.? 

The short December day was verging to a close before Hooker was pre- 
pared to attack. He thought that the assault had not been sufficiently con- 
centrated, and proposed to breach “a hole sufficiently large for a forlorn 
hope to enter.” He brought forward batteries, and poured in a fire from 
every gun at his command. It made no more impression than if it had been 
poured upon “the side of a mountain of rock;” indeed, the sunken wall, 
which formed the real Confederate defense, could not be touched by any fire 
from the plain. Just at sunset Hooker ordered Humphreys’s division to 
form in column of assault. Knapsacks, overcoats, and haversacks were 
thrown aside, and the men were directed “to make the assault with empty 
muskets, for there was no time there to load and fire.” At the word, they 
rushed forward with loud hurrahs, charging straight for the stone wall. <As 
it happened, the Confederate artillery, which had been posted on the crest of 
Marye’s Hill, had exhausted its ammunition, and was passing to the rear, 
while other guns were coming forward to supply their places?» Humphreys’s 
men thus escaped tle terrible artillery fire which had staggered French and 
Hancock, and the head of the column gained a few yards—possibly rods— 
beyond the point attained by those who had gone before, and had then been 
hurled back by the musketry fire from the sunken road. Here they met, 
as those who had gone before had met, the solid sheet of lead, winged with 
flame, poured in their faces, and turned, as they had done, from that fierce 
fire. Of the 4000 men whom Humphreys led up to that hidden defense, 
almost a half were stricken down in a quarter of an hour, for so brief had 
been the time between their rush and their repulse. Had Humphreys suc- 
ceeded in his assault, Hooker had proposed to support him by Sykes; but 
the assault had signally failed; and, says Hooker, grimly, “ finding that I 
had lost as many men as my orders required me to lose, I suspended the 
attack, and directed that the men should hold, for the advance line between 
Fredericksburg and the enemy, a ditch that runs along about midway be- 
tween the enemy’s lines and the city, and which would afford a shelter for 
the men.* 

The Confederate army lay on their arms that night, fully expecting that 
the battle would be renewed the next day. The attack had been made by 
so small a portion of the Union force, and had been repulsed, especially on 
the right, by so small a part of the Confederate force, that Lee could not be- 
lieve it to be the final attempt, and he resolved to await its renewal in his 
strong position, rather than run the risk of attacking in turn.’ Burnside 
had crossed the river with 100,000 men. About 55,000 of these were with 
Franklin on the left; of these, about 17,000 had been fairly put into action. 
Against these Jackson had brought in about 20,000, being half of his own 
corps, and a brigade of Hood’s division of Longstreet’s corps. Hooker and 
Sumner, on the Union left, had 45,000; of these, 15,000 had been thrown 

1 Tooker, in Com. Rep., 667; Burnside, /bid., 723. Both generals agree precisely as to facts. 
Burnside, however, considered this delay on the part of Hooker as ‘‘ loss of time, and a prepara- 
tion on the part of an officer for a failure, inasmuch as it was his duty to attack when ordered.” 

2 Lee's Rep., ii., 532. 

3 Hooker says (Com. Rep., 668): ‘The head of General Humphreys’s column advanced to 
within perhaps fifteen or twenty yards of the stone wall, which was the advanced position which 
the rebels held, and then they were thrown back as quickly as they had advanced. Probably the 
whole of the advance and the retiring did not occupy fifteen minutes. They left behind, as was 
reported to me, 1760 of their number out of about 4000,”—McLaws, describing the field as it ap- 
peared after the close of the action, says (Lee’s Rep., ii., 447): ‘‘ The body of one man, supposed 
to be an officer, was found within about thirty yards of the stone wall, and other single bodies 
were scattered at increased distances, until the main mass of the dead lay thickly strewn over the 
ground at something over one hundred yards off, extending to the ravine, commencing at the 
point where our men would allow the enemy’s column to approach before opening fire, and beyond 
which no organized body of men was able to pass.” ; 

* Com. Rep., 668. This ditch is what is called in the Confederate Reports a “ravine.” 

5 «The attack on the 13th had been so easily repulsed, and by so small a part of our army, that 
it was not supposed the enemy would limit his efforts to one attempt, which, in view of the mag- 
nitude of his preparations and the extent of his forces, seemed to be comparatively insignificant. 


Believing, therefore, that he would attack us, it was not deemed expedient to lose the advantages 
of our position, and expose the troops to the fire of his inaccessible batteries beyond the river by 


advancing against him. But we were necessarily ignorant of the extent to which he had suffered.” | 


—Lee's Rep.,i., 43. 


against the stone wall. Actually opposed to them were not more than 5000 
of Longstreet’s corps, though the whole, 40,000 strong, exclusive of Hood, 
could have been brought in had it been necessary; so that, in this twofold 
action, less than one third on either side were actually engaged.’ 

Burnside passed the night in consultation with his officers and men. 
Notwithstanding their dissuasion, he resolved to renew the assault next 
morning. Sumner, with the corps which Burnside himself had originally 
commanded, and which had not been seriously engaged, was to assail the 
heights by a direct attack, conducted just as that had been which had been 
so disastrously repulsed. He thought that these regiments, ‘‘ coming quickly 
after each other, would be able to carry the stone wall and the batteries in 
front, forcing the enemy into their next line, and, by going in with them, 
they would not be able to fire upon us to any great extent.” And so the 
order was given. With Sumner, to receive an order was to set about its 
execution, and before the morning lifted the columns of attack were formed. 
Then, when all was ready for the desperate attempt, the veteran soldier felt 
at liberty to remonstrate. ‘“ General,” he said, “I hope you will desist from 
this attack. I do not know of any general officer who approves of it, and I 
think it will prove disastrous to the army.” Burnside could not but hest- 
tate when such advice was given by one “who was always in favor of an 
advance when it was possible.” He kept the column formed, but suspended 
the order for advance until he could consult with his generals. One and all 
—commanders of corps and divisions on the right—were against the at- 
tempt. He sent for Franklin from the left, and his opinion was the same. 
So, after hours of thought, Burnside resolved that he would not venture 
the attack, which he himself at the time believed would have been success- 
ful, though he soon became convinced to the contrary. Night had almost 
come when he informed his officers that he had determined to recross the 
river with the bulk of the army, but to leave enough to hold Fredericks- 
burg itself, and to protect the bridges, which were to remain, in case he 
should want to cross again. But upon the representations of Hooker and 
Butterfield—two men into whose composition entered no feeble fibre—he 
was convinced that even Fredericksburg could not be held; that every 
thing must be withdrawn across the river, and the whole enterprise aban- 
doned as a failure.2, Sumner alone, of all the council, was still in favor of 
holding on to Fredericksburg. He thought this might have been done by 
a single division, provided the batteries across the river were rightly posted, 
and so the upshot of the affair would have presented a better appearance: 


1 There is some discrepancy of statement as to the numbers of Union force which crossed the 
river, the forces constituting each wing, and the numbers actually engaged. Burnside, how- 
ever, testifies (in Com. Rep., 656): ‘‘We had about 100,000 men on the other side of the river. 
Every single man of them was under artillery fire, and about half of them were at different times 
formed into column of attack. Every man was put in column of attack that could be got in.” 
But a careful perusal of all the testimony shows that of the divisions formed into “columns of 
attack,” fully a third were not fairly thrown into action,—Franklin estimated (Com. Rep., 709): 
‘’'The force under my command was somewhat over 40,000 men. I do not think it was over 
50,000, counting Stoneman’s two divisions; but I can not tell without looking at the figures. 
There were six divisions engaged in supporting the attack—Meade’s, Doubleday’s, Gibbon’s, Bir- 
ney’s, Sickles’s, and Newton’s; I think the number was about 40,000.” But, as has been shown, 
only three of these six were seriously engaged—Meade’s and Gibbon’s, of Reynolds’s corps, which 
together lost fully 2500 out of the 2800 in Franklin’s Grand Division, leaving only 300 for the 
three divisions of Doubleday, Sickles, and Newton, and of these 200 were from Doubleday’s. 
Birney’s division of Hooker’s command was also engaged, losing nearly 1000 (/bid., 706). Three 
davs before the battle Meade’s and Gibbon’s divisions, according to the returns of the day, num- 
bered not quite 12,000 ‘‘ present for duty,” of which Meade had 6800; but he says he brought 
into action only 4500. Birney’s numbered 7000 (Lbid., 691, 702, 706); so that the estimate of 
17,000 brought into action by Franklin on the left is fully equal to the truth. On the right we 
have seen that the three divisions of French, Hancock, and Humphreys were the only ones brought 
directly into the fight: the utmost strength of these divisions was 5000 each. 

In placing the Confederates at 80,000 I am guided mainly by the official returns (Ante, p. 406), 
which give the numbers ‘present for duty” on the 20th of November, a fortnight before the bat- 
tle, at 73,554; and on the 31st of December, a fortnight after the battle, at 79,092. At each date 
there were about 12,000 reported as ‘‘ present,” besides those ‘‘ present for duty ;”’ while the nom- 
inal strength, ‘‘ present and absent,” exceeded 150,000, being greater at the first date than the 
last. Of the ‘‘absent” I suppose that none could in the interval have been brought back ; of those 
‘* present,” but not reported as ‘‘ for duty,” probably a few thousand might have been available in 
an emergency. The Confederate Reports give the movements and losses of every brigade and 
regiment, so that, assuming their whole force to have been 80,000 effective men, I am able to give, 
without the possibility of material error, the numbers actually engaged on any part of the field. 

2 Burnside, in Com. Rep., 653. 


416 


it would have been merely “a change of tactics—a drawing back a little in 
order to try it again.”? 

During Sunday, the 14th, and the greater part of Monday, the 15th, the 
two great armies lay in their positions, each expecting when the morning 
fog lifted to be attacked by the other. There was some firing at different 
points along the extended lines, but nothing which approached to an en- 
gagement. On the afternoon of the 15th a formal truce for the purpose of 
removing the wounded was agreed upon between Jackson and Franklin on 
their part of the field—the Union left and the Confederate right.2 Opposite 
Fredericksburg, on the Union right, while there was no formal truce, there 
was little actual hostility. ach force was waiting to see what the other 
would do. Burnside, after some hours of deliberation, ordered, on the after- 
noon of the 15th, that his whole force should recross the Rappahannock. A 
cold rain-storm had in the mean while set in during the night, under cover 
of which the passage was effected without its being suspected by the enemy. 
Next morning, the 16th, when the fog lifted from the valley, the whole 
Union force was seen across the Rappahannock; the pontoons were swung 
back, and the river once more separated the two armies. Burnside left 
nothing behind save a part of the dead in front of the stone wall, some am- 
munition, and 9000 muskets which had fallen from the hands of his slain 
and wounded. 

The Confederates lost about 4600 men, of whom 600 were killed and 
4000 wounded. The Union loss was nearly twice and a half as great: 
about 1500 killed and 9000 wounded. The Confederates lost also 650 pris- 
oners, the Federals 900,‘ besides 1200 stragglers who never rejoined their 
commands. In the action on the left the losses were not greatly dispropor- 
tionate, that of the Federals being somewhat in excess. But on the right, 
in front of the stone wall, the disproportion was enormous. Of the 1800 
losses in Longstreet’s corps, 250 occurred in holding Fredericksburg on the 
11th, and as many more in Hood’s division which supported Jackson, leav- 
ing but 1300 who fell in the defense of Marye’s Hill.° The Union loss here 
was fully 6500, of which probably 5000 fell before the fire of the 2000 in- 
fantry who held the stone wall. These lost not more than 500, and most 
of these fell while getting into position; when once behind that defense 
they were perfectly sheltered, except when a man exposed himself accident- 
ally to a chance shot from a skirmisher. T'wo thirds of the Confederate 
loss at Marye’s Hill was sustained by regiments posted on the surrounding 
slopes, and partially exposed to distant artillery fire. In the final charge, 
when Humphreys’s division dashed with unloaded muskets toward the sunk- 
en road, and were flung back in a quarter of an hour with a loss of 1700 
men, it is doubtful whether the Confederates suffered the loss of a single 
man killed or wounded.® 

Severe as were the casualties of the battle, they formed a small part of 
the injury inflicted upon the Union army. Its morale was seriously im- 
paired. It was clear to every man, the commanding general only excepted, 
that the whole plan of the campaign was thwarted. Whatever might have 
been the chances of its success had it been promptly executed, they were 
all destroyed by the fatal delay of a month. Officers in their tents, and sol- 
diers by their bivouac fires, discussed the campaign, and declared that it 
was not possible even to cross the Rappahannock, much less to march to 
Richmond. The feeling of discouragement was universal from the private 
up to the commander ofa grand division. Burnside alone appeared ignorant 
of the real condition of his army. ‘TI do not,” he said, “‘ consider the troops 
demoralized, or the condition of the army impaired, except so far as it has 
been by the loss of so many men.”” But his officers knew otherwise. Sum- 
ner, a week after the battle, thought the army far more demoralized than 


' Sumner, /did., 659. ? Lee’s Rep., ii., 438. 

S Tbtd,, ie to 5 Thid., ii., 433. 

° The Official Reports of Losses (Union, in Com. Rep., 681; Confederate, in Lee’s Rep., ii., 
433, 439) are as follows: 


3 Lee’s Rep.,i., 43. 


Union. CONFEDERATE. 

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total. Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total. 
Sumner's Grand Div. ...480....4159.... 855... .5494 Longstreet's Corps....... 251....1516....127....1894 
Hooker’s = ** Oe Achy LICo aes .-. 748 3548 Jackson's SE cing lotele-ee 344,...2545....526...,3415 
Franklin’s ‘* MG 5. 398... 2430. ....18 4679 ae ae - 
Engineers’ “ © (1. 7... 43..2. 100.... 50 ayy pct CA ae ee 

1152 9101 3234 13771 


This Union Report, furnished by the Medical Inspector General soon after the battle, requires 
some considerable emendations. Of those set down as ‘‘ missing,” about 1200 returned to their 
commands (Halleck’s Report of Operations), reducing the missing to 2078. The Confederates 
claim about 900 prisoners (Lee's Rep., i., 48), leaving nearly 1200 missing to be accounted for. 
I have no doubt that a third of these were slain outright on the field, in addition to those reported 
as killed. I attribute all these to the assault on the stone wall on the right, for on the left the 
dead and wounded were buried or removed by truce between Franklin and Jackson. It is only 
by making such an addition that I can explain the great disproportion between the killed and 
wounded on the right, as reported. The usual ratio in a close engagement is one killed to five 
or six wounded ; here it is put down as a little more than one to ten, while all the circumstances 
of the fight indicate that the killed must have borne an unusual proportion to the wounded. 
Moreover, the Medical Inspector says, ‘‘ The return of killed may be too small.” I have there- 
fore adopted these emendations into the text, increasing the killed by 450, and diminishing the 
missing by 1650. 

As the Confederates remained in undisturbed possession of the entire field of battle, they were 
able to account for every man of their army. I adopt their Official Report as accurate. In Lee’s 
Report, i., 33, there is a statement of the Confederate losses, making them 458 killed and 3743 
wounded; and there seems to have been published a statement purporting to be Lee’s Official 
Report, making his entire loss only 1800 killed and wounded. I find this reproduced in several 
histories, notably in Pollard’s Lost Cause, p. 346, where it appears thus: ‘‘General Lee, in his 
official dispatch, writes, ‘Our loss during the entire operations since the movements of the enemy 
began amounts to about 1800 killed and wounded.’” This was published fully two years after 
the real official report of Lee was printed by order of the Confederate Congress. I can account 
for this statement only by supposing that as Lee -was with Longstreet’s corps during the whole 
action, he only referred to the casualties in that corps, not including that in Jackson’s corps, which 
were almost twice as many. 

The estimate of losses at various movements, and on the different parts of the field, has been 
formed from a careful analysis of the reports on both sides. The absolute loss in each army was, 
however, much less than the reports indicate, the proportion of those wounded so slightly as not to 
be disabled having been unusually large on both sides. Several of the Confederate reports note 
this fact. The Union Medical Inspector General says (Com. Rep., 681) that, of the 9101 reported 
as wounded, there were only 1630 whose cases required to be treated in hospitals; these, added 
to the 1152 reported as killed—which he thought probably too small—amounting in all to 2782, 
would, he was confident, ‘* cover the whole amount of disabling casualties occurring at the battle 
of Fredericksburg.” 7 Testimony in Com. Rep., 656. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| DECEMBER, 1862. 


was warranted by its losses. “There is a great deal too much croaking; 
there is not sufficient confidence,” he said; but he still thought that “ with- 
in a few days, with sufficient exertion, the army will again be in excellent 
order.”? But this revival of confidence never came. The tone of the army 
was indicated by resignations among officers and desertions among privates, 
which increased to an alarming extent. 

Burnside meanwhile determined upon another attempt, which was in ef- 
fect a repetition of the one which he had first proposed, of crossing the river 
some miles below Fredericksburg, and thus turning the Confederate right, 
wholly avoiding the strong position from which he had been so disastrously 
hurled. Meanwhile a cavalry force of 2500 was to cross the Rappahannock 
by the upper fords, and gain the rear of Lee’s army; they were then to 
separate, a part returning by different routes, while a picked body of 1000 
men, with four pieces of artillery, were to press on, passing to the south of 
Richmond, and joining General Peck at Suffolk, where steamers were to be 
in waiting to bring them back to Acquia Creek. The object of this caval- 
ry expedition was twofold: To attract the attention of the enemy from his 
main movement, and to ‘blow up the locks on the James River Canal, the 
iron bridge over the Nottoway, on the Richmond and Weldon Railroad,” 
thereby seriously interrupting the Confederate communications and sources 
of supply. 

On the 26th of December, all the preparations for this movement were 
made. The place of crossing had been selected, the positions for artillery to 
protect the passage chosen, and orders given that three days’ rations should 
be cooked for the whole army, while ten or twelve days’ supply of food, 
forage, and ammunition should be provided, and the whole army be in read- 
iness to move at twelve hours’ notice. On the 30th the movement had 
been fairly commenced, when Burnside received a telegram from the Presi- 
dent informing him that he had good reason to order that there should be 
no general movement until he had been informed of it. Burnside suspend- 
ed the movement, and hastened to Washington to ascertain the reason for 
this order.? 

A week before, Franklin and Smith had addressed a letter to the Presi- 
dent, declaring that in their opinion the plan of the campaign already com- 
menced could not be successful. It was, they said, sixty-one miles to Rich- 
mond, and for the whole distance it would be necessary to keep the com- 
munications open, and these communications were liable to be broken at 
many points. If the railroad was rebuilt as the army advanced, the enemy 
would destroy it at important points. If wagon transportation was depend- 
ed upon, the trains must be so large that much of the strength of the army 
would be required to guard them, and the troops would be so separated by 
the trains blocking the road that the van and the rear could not be within 
supporting distance. The enemy would, moreover, be able to post himself 
defiantly in strong positions, whence probably the whole strength of the 
army would not be able to drive him; and even if he were driven away, 
the result would not be decisive. His losses in these strong positions would 
be slight, while ours would be enormous. To insure a successful campaign, 
it was in their judgment essential that all the troops in the East should be 
massed ; that they should approach as near as possible to Richmond without 
an engagement; and that the line of communication should be absolutely 
free from danger of interruption. These requisites could only be secured 
by a campaign on the James River, and they accordingly drew up the out- 
lines of such a campaign.° 

While the President was deliberating upon this letter, Generals Newton 
and Cochrane went up to Washington, and laid before him what they con- 
sidered the condition of the army. They told him that it was the general 
opinion of officers and men that it would be a dangerous and ruinous folly 
to attempt to cross the Rappahannock; that they knew they could not sue- 
ceed, and would therefore be deprived of a great portion of their vigor. 
The President thereupon gave the order prohibiting any movement of 
which he was not previously informed. Burnside urged that the movement 
should be made. The President refused his assent until he had consulted 
with his military advisers. The general returned to his camp, whence he 
wrote asking for distinct authority from Halleck to cross the river. He 
knew, he wrote, that there was hardly an officer holding any important 
command who would fayor the movement, but he was confident that it 
should be made, and he would take the responsibility of making it upon 
himself; but he felt that the general-in-chief should at least sanction it. 
Halleck replied in general terms, laying down sundry general rules which 
ought to govern the management of an army, and saying that while he had 
always favored a forward movement, he could not take the responsibility 
of giving any directions as to how or when it should be made. The pro- 
hibitory order appears to have been withdrawn, for Burnside resolved to 
make another move upon his own responsibility, and without making any 
reply to this letter of Halleck.® 

This movement was to be commenced by passing the Rappahannock 


1 Burnside, in Com. Rep., 716-718. * Sumner, Jéid., 660. 

* This letter is given entire in Swinton’s Army of the Potomac, 263-265. ‘The arguments in its 
favor were, that ‘‘on the James River our troops can be concentrated more rapidly than they can 
be at any other point; that they can be brought to points within twenty miles of Richmond with- 
out the risk of an engagement; that the communication by the James River can be kept, by the 
assistance of the navy, without the slightest danger of interruption.” ‘The principal features of 
the proposed plan were these : Concentrate 250,000 men; land 150,000 on the north, and 100,000 
on the south side of the James, as near as possible to Richmond. Let both bodies advance in the 
lightest marching order, pontoons being ready to make a connection at any time, It was not 
probable that the enemy would have sufficient force to withstand the shock of two such bodies. 
If he declined to fight on the river, the army on the south bank should seize the railroads running 
from ee southward, while the remainder should either attack or invest the Confederate 
capital. 

* Newton’s Testimony, in Com. Rep., 730-740; Cochrane's, Zbid., 740-746. They must also 
have implied, if they did not express the opinion which Newton had formed (Jbid., 731), ‘that 
the dissatisfaction of the troops arose from a want of confidence in General Burnside’s military 
capacity.” * Burnside, in Com. Rep., 718, 719. 


Jasxuary, 1863. ] 


at fords six miles above Fredericksburg, masked by a feint at crossing some 
miles below the town, the feint to be made in such force that it might be 
converted into the real attempt, if circumstances should warrant, for there 
were conflicting accounts of the positions of the enemy, This required that 
roads should be cut through forests in both directions, and corduroyed so as 
to be passable for artillery and trains; sites for batteries chosen and pre- 
pared, and other arrangements made. At last a trusty spy brought infor- 
mation which decided Burnside to make the real attempt above Fredericks- 
burg. 

It was now the 20th of January. After the friendly storm, under whose 
cover the Union army had safely recrossed the Rappahannock, there had 
ensued five weeks of serene weather. The roads were as good as the bad 
Virginia roads can be. Burnside gave the final order to move in a hopeful 
spirit. ‘The commanding general,” he said, “ announces to the Army of 
the Potomac that they are about to meet the enemy once more, The late 
brilliant actions in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas have weaken- 
ed the enemy on the Rappahannock, and the auspicious moment seems to 
have arrived to strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion, and to gain 
that decisive victory which is due to the country.” The movement had 
been commenced the day before. The infantry of the grand divisions of 
Franklin and Hooker having. marched up the river by parallel roads, 
screened from the observation of the enemy by the intervening heights, and 
encamped near the fords where the crossing was to be effected, while 
Couch’s corps moved down the river to make the proposed feint, and Sigel’s 
reserve corps, which had in the mean while been brought up, held the com- 
munications between the two wings. But the pleasant weather, upon the 
continuance of which every thing depended, had come to a close. Late in 
the afternoon a cold, fierce storm set in. The sleet, driven by a furious 
gale, penetrated the clothing, and cut the faces of the men as they staggered 
on in their weary march. In two hours every mud-hole became a little 
lake, and the clayey roads, unhardened by frost, were transformed into 
quagmires wherein the wagons sank beyond the axles, and the mules to 
their bellies. It seemed as though the bottom had dropped out. The 
storm raged all that night and the next day. There was but one man in 
the army who did not perceive that the movement must be a failure. That 
one man was Burnside. He still hoped against hope, and resolved to strug- 
gle against fate. So all day on the 21st the army staggered on in its march 
through the mud. Not a gun or a wagon could be moved except by doub- 
ling or trebling the teams, and often a hundred men and more pulling at a 
stout rope were required to drag a pontoon-wagon through the mire. By 
terrible exertions some were got forward, while the roads were strewed with 
a chaos of confusion—shipwrecked wagons, horses and mules dead and dy- 
ing, pontoons and guns immovable in the mud. Still, a formidable force of 
all arms was got together upon the river bank at the points where the 
crossing was to be essayed. But before the artillery and pontoons could be 
put in position, the Confederates had divined every thing, and had posted 
their forces so as to render the possibility of even crossing the river a mat- 
ter of doubt; while, had the passage. been effected, any farther advance was 
impossible. So thought the general officers of the army ; and the opinions 
of some of them were expressed in such a form, that Burnside perceived 
that either he or they must vacate their posts. He sought direction from 
Halleck, but vainly. Then he recalled the troops to their former positions, 
and the three days’ mud campaign came to an end." 

Burnside had for weeks been aware that his entire plan of operations was 
denounced by some of his leading generals. While he would not charge 
them with any willful disobedience of orders, he thought that they mani- 
fested a want of alacrity which seriously affected the result of the opera- 
tions. He now resolved to get rid of persons whom he regarded as of no 
use, and to make some strong examples to the army.” He drew up a gen- 
eral order dismissing from the seryice Hooker, the commander of a grand 
division, Brooks, Newton, and Cochrane, commanding army divisions, and 
relieving from duty Franklin, commander of a grand division, together with 
Smith, Sturgis, and Ferrero, commanding army divisions, and Colonel Tay- 
lor, the acting adjutant general of Sumner’s grand division.* This sweep- 
ing order was drawn up with the knowledge of but two men besides the 


1 “Before we could get the pontoons and artillery in position, the plan had been discovered by 
the enemy, which rendered the crossing very precarious, and the movement of artillery on the op- 
posite bank, even if they had been got over, would have been rendered almost impossible from 
the state of the roads and the whole face of the country, in consequence of the storm. But a very 
serious objection to attempting the crossing after this occurred was the almost universal feeling 
among the general officers that the crossing could not be made there. Some of them gave vent 
to these opinions in a very public manner, even in the presence of my own staff officers, who in- 
formed me of the fact. I telegraphed to General Halleck that I would be very glad to meet him 
at Acquia Creek; or, if he wished it, I would run up for an hour to Washington. He sent me 
word that I must be my own judge about coming up. I at once telegraphed back, ‘I shall not 
come up.’ I then determined to order the commands back to their original encampments. After 
doing that, I went to my adjutant general’s office, and issued an order which I termed General 
Order No. 8. That order dismissed some officers from service, subject to the approval of the 
President, and relieved others from duty with the Army of the Potomac.”—Burnside’s Testimony, 
in Com. Rep., 719. 2 Testimony in Com. Rep., 723. 

3 Genprat Orver No. 8, Jan. 23, 1863 (Extracts): ‘General Joseph E. Hooker having been 
guilty of unjust and unnecessary criticisms of the actions of his superior officers, and of the au- 
thorities, and having, by the general tone of his conversation, endeavored to create distrust in the 
minds of officers who have associated with him, and having, by omissions and otherwise, made 
reports and statements which were calculated to create incorrect impressions, and of habitually 
speaking in disparaging terms of other officers, is hereby dismissed the service of the United 
States as a man unfit to hold an important commission during a crisis like the present.” Gen- 
eral W. T. H. Brooks was dismissed ‘‘for complaining of the policy of the government, and for 
using language tending to demoralize his command.” Generals John Newton and John Coch- 
rane were also dismissed ‘‘for going to the President of the United States with criticisms upon 
the plans of their commanding officer.” These dismissals were made subject to the approval of 
the President. Then followed a list of officers who were ‘relieved from duty,” it ‘‘ being evident 
that they can be of no farther service in this army.” The names on this list were Generals Frank- 
lin, commanding a grand division; Smith, commanding an army corps; Sturgis, Ferrero, and 
Cochrane, commanding army divisions; and Lieutenant Colonel Taylor, adjutant general of 
Sumner’s Corps. Cochrane's name appears in both lists, as relieved absolutely by Burnside’s au- 
thority.and dismissed subject to the approval of the President. 


5 


BURNSIDE’S CAMPAIGN.—FREDERICKSBURG. 


417 


general, and was ordered to be issued. But one of these confidants, ‘a 
cool, sensible man, and a firm friend” of Burnside, intimated that while the 
order was just and should be issued, it transcended in some points the au- 
thority of the general. He could not dismiss an officer or hang a deserter 
without the express approval of the President; and, moreover, by publish- 
ing the order, he would force the President to take sides in the military dis- 
pute. If he sanctioned the order, his administration would incur the hos- 
tility of many influential men, friends of the dismissed officers; if he refused 
to sanction it after it was issued, he would appear to be the enemy of the 
commanding general. Still Burnside was firmly convinced he could not re- 
tain the command unless he issued the order, with the assurance that it 
should be sustained. He accordingly went to Washington with the order 
in one hand and his resignation in the other. He told the President, “If 
you will say to mie, ‘You may take the responsibility of issuing the or- 
der, and I will sustain it,’ I will take that responsibility: this is the only 
way in which I can retain the command of the Army of the Potomac; 
otherwise here is my resignation; accept it, and here is the end of the mat- 
ter as far as Iam concerned.” The President hesitated. He must consult 
his advisers. ‘If you consult any body,” replied Burnside, “ you will not 
sanction the order.” And so it proved. After deliberating for a day, the 
President decided to relieve Burnside from the command of the Army of 
the Potomac, and place Hooker in command, making also some important 
changes in other respects, principal among which were that Sumner and 
Franklin should be relieved from their commands. Burnside was satisfied 
with this decision. “If Hooker can gain a victory,” he said to the Presi- 
dent, “neither you nor he will be a happier man than I shall be.” 

Burnside then supposed that his resignation would be accepted; but the 
President judged otherwise. ‘‘ We need you,” he said, “ and can not accept 
your resignation.” The truth was, that while Burnside’s own opinion had 
proved true, that he was not fitted for the command of so large an army, he 
had yet shown so much capacity for a less onerous command, and had, 
above all, manifested such an entire absence of all selfish purposes, that the 
nation could not spare him. He still wished to resign; his private affairs 
required his attention; and, moreover, he said, if all general officers whom 
it was found necessary to relieve should resign, it would be better for the 
President, as it would relieve him from the applications of their friends, 
“True,” replied the President; “ but there is no reason for you to resign; 
you can have as much time as you please for your private business, but we 
can not accept your resignation.” Several commands were proposed to him, 
He could have the department of South Carolina, or the departments of 
South and North Carolina would be combined and given to him. He de: 
clined both, because he thought these departments were then in good hands, 
He would remain in the army if his services were absolutely required; but, 
if he staid, he wished to be employed. Then came up the question as to 
the form in which his retirement from the command of the Army of the 
Potomac should be announced. An order had been drawn up at the War 
Department stating simply that Burnside had been relieved at his own re- 
quest. To this he objected; he did not wish to appear as having volunta- 
rily given up his command without good reason. This order did not ex: 
press the real facts of the case, and he still wished to resign, The general: 
in-chief and the Secretary of War urged that by so doing he would injure 
himself and the cause. For himself, Burnside ‘ did not care a snap,” but he 
did not wish to injure the cause; the Department might issue just what or- 
der it chose; he would take thirty days’ leave of absence, and would then 
come back and go wherever ordered, even if it were to command his old 
army corps under Hooker. So, when the official order appeared,’ it an+ 
nounced that Burnside, ‘‘at his own request,” had been relieved from the 
command of the Army of the Potomac, and Hooker assigned to the com: 
mand; that Sumner, “at his own request,” had been relieved from duty in 
this army, and that Franklin was also relieved, but without the significant 
addition of “at his own request.” 

Sumner was soon after assigned to the command of the Department of 
Missouri; but while on his way to the West he died at Syracuse, in New 
York, on the 21st of March, leaving his name honorably identified with 
many of the severest struggles of the war. He entered the army in 1819, 
and had been in active service for forty-four years. He was twice brevet- 
ed for gallant and meritorious conduct in the Mexican battles; then he 
was placed in command of the Department of New Mexico, where he di- 
rected important military operations against the turbulent tribes of savages, 
The opening of the civil war found him a colonel of cavalry, but with an 
appointment of brigadier general to command upon the Pacific coast. From 
this, at his own request, he was recalled to take part in the operations of 
the Army of the Potomac, where his services were rewarded by promotion 
to the rank of major general of volunteers, and, later, of major general by 
brevet in the regular army. 

Burnside, his thirty days’ leave of absence having expired, was assigned 
to the command of the Department of the Ohio, his own old army corps, 
the 9th, going with him. Subsequently, as we shall have occasion to see, 
he was recalled to the Army of the Potomac, acting an important part in 
the closing campaign of the war. 

The formal transfer of the command of the Army of the Potomac from 
Burnside to Hooker was made on the 26th of January. Burnside, in his 
farewell order, said that the short time in which he had been in command 
“had not been fruitful in victory,” but the army had shown qualities which, 
under more favorable circumstances, would have accomplished great results,” 


1 Jan. 28, 1863. f , ; ; 
2 For the details of the transactions relating to the closing period of Burnside’s command, see 
Com. Rep., 67-60, and Lbid., 716-722. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ JANUARY, 1863. 


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IN THE MUD. 


420 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [Aprit, 1863. 


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PLAN of ATTACK 


ATTACK UPON FORT PULASKI. 


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NAVAL AND COAST OPERATIONS. 


421 


CAPTURE OF THE HARRIET LANE, 


CHAPTER XXV. 
NAVAL AND COAST OPERATIONS. 


The Blockade.—Capture of Fort Pulaski.—Capture of Galveston.—It is retaken by the Confed- 
erates.—Loss of the Harriet Lane and Westfield.—The Confederate Cruisers.—The Florida 
fitted out in England.—Runs the Blockade at Mobile,—Equipped and Escapes to Sea.—The 
Clarence, Tacony, and Archer.—Capture and Destruction of the Florida.—The Alabama built 
in England,—Escapes from Liverpool.—Takes on board Armament and Crew.—Semmes as- 
sumes Command.—His previous Career.—The Cruise of the Alabama in the North Atlantic,— 
Cruise in the Gulf of Mexico,—Captures the Ariel.—Destroys the Hatteras,—Cruise in the 
South Atlantic.—At the Cape of Good Hope.—Cruise in the Indian Ocean.—Returns to Eu- 
rope.—Enters the Harbor of Cherbourg.—Destroyed by the Kearsarge.—The Results of her 
Depredations.—Operations in North Carolina.—Burnside recalled to the Potomac,—Foster’s 
Expedition to Tarboro and Goldsboro. 


Wwe have already narrated the brilliant naval exploit which insured 
the capture of New Orleans. * The farther operations of the fleet upon 
the Mississippi and its tributaries will be described in their appropriate 
place, in connection with the military operations in the West. Vessels find 
their natural opponents in vessels, the cases in which they can be employed 
in the attack upon forts and towns being exceptional, The Confederacy 
being wholly destitute of a force upon the ocean, and its chief sea-ports 
being unassailable by a fleet, the operations of the Union fleet were mainly 
confined to a strict blockade of the coast, and to short expeditions up the 
rivers, These offensive operations were of necessity on a small scale, and 
though not unfrequently marked by great skill and boldness, had but little 
influence upon the general result of the campaign of 1862. One by one, 
however, the minor ports along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico were seized, 
leaving to the Confederates only Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, and 
Mobile, which had been rendered unassailable by a direct naval attack. 
These ports came to be of great importance to the Confederates, and were 
not captured until their armies in the field had given up, or were about to 
give up, the contest. 

The most important of these expeditions was that which resulted in the 
capture of Fort Pulaski, situated on a mud island at the mouth of the Sa- 
vannah River, and commanding the approach to the city of Savannah. 
After a series of laborious approaches, conducted at first by General T. W. 
Sherman, and afterward by Hunter, who succeeded him in the command 
of this department, Gilmore succeeded in placing batteries bearing upon 
the fort, but at a distance greater than a serious bombardment of a fortifica- 
tion had ever been attempted. There were in all eleven batteries, mount- 
ing thirty-six mortars and heavy guns, the nearest battery being 1620 
yards, almost a mile, from the fort. ‘The batteries being placed, the surren- 
der of Pulaski was demanded on the 10th of April. Olmstead, the Confed- 
erate commander, replied that he had been placed there to defend the fort, 
not to surrender it. Fire was then opened, and after a bombardment of 
eighteen hours the walls were thoroughly breached; and the fort, having 
been rendered untenable, was surrendered, with forty-seven guns, a large 
amount of ammunition and stores, and nearly four hundred prisoners. But 
Hunter had not sufficient force to warrant him in making any attempt upon 
the immediate defenses of the town. Savannah, therefore, remained in the 
possession of the Confederates until captured in December, 1864, by W. T. 
Sherman. But the possession of Fort Pulaski by the Federals barred all 
direct access to Savannah by sea, and the city became of no use to the Con- 
federates as a port by which supplies from abroad could reach them, 


Galveston, in Texas, was also a port of considerable importance to the 
Confederates, being the main entrepdt for the commerce of a great part of 
the state. In May a naval force appeared at the town and demanded its 
surrender, but for months no effective measures were taken to enforce the 
demand. At last, on the 8th of October, the town surrendered, with slight 
attempts at resistance, to a naval force of four steam vessels under Commo- 
dore Renshaw. Banks, who had succeeded Butler in command of this de- 
partment, ordered a regiment to hold Galveston; a third of it was sent, the 
remainder being on its way, when the Confederate General Magruder, who 
had just been appointed to the chief command in Texas, formed a bold plan 
for the recapture of Galveston, which seems to have been most negligently 


guarded, 
5 O 


The plan was carried into effect before dawn on New Year’s day, 1863. 
Galveston stood upon a long, narrow island in the bay, connected with the 
main land by a bridge two miles long, built upon piles. This bridge was 
not destroyed, and formed a ready means of approach. The town was oe- 
cupied by less than three hundred men, without artillery, the naval force 
being supposed to be sufficient to hold it. This consisted of eight vessels, 
of which only two, the Westfield and the Harriet Lane, were in serviceable 
condition, The former, of 1000 tons, had been one of Porter’s mortar fleet 
in the Mississippi; the latter, of 500 tons, had been built for the revenue 
service, of which it was the show vessel. The three infantry companies, 
numbering less than three hundred men, were encamped upon a wharf, a 
quarter of a mile from the market-place. The Westfield and the Harriet 
Lane were stationed in different. channels down the bay, the other vessels 
being opposite the town. Magruder had collected a land force of five or six 
regiments, and several vessels. T'wo of these, the Neptune and the Bayou 
City, were protected by cotton bales piled twenty feet high upon the low 
decks, so that from a distance they looked like common cotton transports: 
they were manned by two or three hundred sharp-shooters. Coming down 
the bay, they were perceived in the moonlight from the Harriet Lane, which 
steamed up to meet them. Meanwhile the land force of Magruder had 
swarmed across the long bridge, and in overwhelming numbers assailed the 
three Federal companies on the wharf; aided by the fire from the weak ves- 
sels, these held their ground for a while. As day was dawning, the Harriet 
Lane, steaming up the bay, encountered the Neptune and the Bayou City, 
the Confederate steamers striking the Federal vessel almost simultaneously 
on each side. The Neptune was disabled by the shock, and grounded in 
shoal water; the Bayou City, turning, ran again into the Harriet Lane and 
grappled with her. A sharp fire was then poured from both vessels into 
the Harriet Lane from riflemen thoroughly protected by the barricades of 
cotton bales; the men were driven from their guns, and the Lane was car- 
ried by boarding, her commander, Wainwright, being killed in the mélée. 
This fine vessel fell into the hands of the Confederates almost uninjured, all 
her crew being made prisoners. 

Meanwhile the Westfield had got under way, and was steaming up to the 
scene of conflict, when she grounded fast upon the bar, within full range of 


BATTLE GR. 
7836 


CHART OF GALVESTON BAY, 


429 HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ JANUARY, 18638. 


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batteries which the Confederates had established upon the shore. The oth- 
er Federal gun-boats vainly endeavored to drag her off. Renshaw, perceiy- 
ing that it was impossible to save his ship, resolved to destroy her, the crew 
to escape in boats to the transports lying hard by. A barrel of turpentine 
was unheaded, ready to be set ablaze as soon as the crew were free from the 
vessel. Nearly all had been taken to the other steamers near by, and Ren- 
shaw, who was the last to leave, was just stepping into his boat, in which 
were several persons, while another, loaded to the water’s edge, was putting 
off. By some accident the turpentine was prematurely fired; the flames 
spread instantly to the forward magazine, and the vessel blew up, destroy- 
ing the two boats and all on board. 

Meanwhile an action had been going on upon the shore. The three com- 
panies of infantry, aided by the fire of the gun-boats, repelled the attack of 
the Confederate regiments. But the boats were at length withdrawn to at- 
tempt to aid the Westfield. The infantry, wholly destitute of artillery, and 
now commanded by Confederate batteries, had no alternative but to surren- 
der at discretion. 

The immediate results of this daring enterprise were that, with the loss 
of 26 killed and 117 wounded, the Confederates captured the Harriet Lane, 
wholly uninjured, two coal-barges which were lying at the wharf, destroyed 
the Westfield, and secured nearly 400 prisoners. But the indirect results 
were still more important. The whole State of Texas came into their al- 
most undisturbed possession, and furnished many facilities for running the 
blockade. This was done principally by small schooners, which took out 
cotton and brought back munitions of war. The supplies thus acquired 
were of incalculable advantage to the Confederate government during the 
remainder of the war. 


The successful career of the Sumter had demonstrated to the Confederate 
government the injury which might be inflicted upon the commerce of the 
Union by even a few vessels of a more efficient class. The resignation of 
more than two hundred officers of the Federal navy gave the Confederates 
an abundance of skillful officers; but, having no facilities at home for con- 
structing vessels adapted for service upon the ocean, they were obliged to 
have recourse to foreign builders, The ship-yards of Great Britain were 
open to them. The first efficient cruiser which sailed under their flag was 
built at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, ostensibly for the Italian government.’ 
In spite of the remonstrance of the American minister, she was suffered by 
the British government to put to sea under the British flag, bearing the 
name of the Oreto. After a brief detention at Nassau she was released, 
and, proceeding to a little island in the Bahama group, received on board 
her armament, which had been brought to the place of rendezvous in a Brit- 
ish vessel, and in August, 1862, appeared off the harbor of Mobile, still car- 
rying British colors. Commodore Preble, who commanded the blockading 
fleet, hesitated to fire upon her, supposing that she must be what she pro- 
fessed, a British man-of-war. When he discovered his mistake, it was too 
late; she had got beyond effective range, and steamed up the bay to Mobile. 
Here she remained until January, 1863, and then, her name having been 
changed to the Florida, she was placed under the command of John N. Maf- 
fitt, once an officer in the American navy; she escaped the blockading fleet 
under cover of night. The first day of her cruise she made her first prize, 
which was pillaged and burned. In three months the Florida captured fif- 
teen merchantmen in the Gulf of Mexico, all of which were burned except 
two, which were armed, manned, and converted into Confederate privateers. 

One of these, the brig Clarence, was placed under the command of Lieu- 
tenant C. W. Read, not long before a midshipman in the Federal navy, who 
steered northward, and made several prizes, among which was the bark Ta- 
cony, a swifter vessel than his own, ‘Transferring his armament and crew 
to this, he passed up the coast as far as Massachusetts Bay, making a score 
of prizes. Learning that cruisers were on his track, he again shifted his guns 
and crew into his last prize, the Archer, burned the Tacony, and 8teered for 
Portland, Maine, where he learned that the steam revenue cutter Cushing 
was lying. Anchoring openly and unsuspected at the mouth of the harbor, 
when night fell on the 24th of June he sent two boats, fully armed, up to 
the city. They succeeded in capturing the Cushing and taking her out to 
sea. But two merchant steamers were hastily manned by volunteers, and 
overtook the Cushing. The captors abandoned the cutter, blew her up, and 
took to their boats and made for the Archer. But the pursuing steamers 
were too quick; they picked up the boats, overhauled the Archer, and 
brought her crew back to Portland as prisoners. 

Meanwhile the Florida, after cruising among the West India Islands un- 
til August, steamed across the Atlantic, and on the 4th of September en- 
tered the French harbor of Brest, where she was detained a few days by the 
French authorities. Released from detention, she recrossed the Atlantic, 
cruising along the South American coast for months, but making few prizes, 
for the American flag had by this time been almost driven from the ocean. 
At length, in October, 1864, the Florida entered the Brazilian harbor of Ba- 
hia. Here she was found by the Federal steamer Wachusett, Captain Col- 
lins. Relying upon the safeguard of a neutral harbor, Morris, who now 
commanded the Florida, was quite at ease. Half his crew were allowed to 
go on shore. Collins determined to cut matters short by seizing the Flor- 
ida; this was done with scarcely a show of resistance, and the Wachusett, 
with the prize, steamed homeward; but, coming into Hampton Roads, the 
Florida was run into by a United States vessel, probably designedly, and 
sunk. This capture was certainly made in violation of the neutral rights 
of Brazil. The Brazilian government put in a formal remonstrance; the 
le rage achat hahaa eclelbar diledinssbinnenatiiabatenraiantts cola ar aa 


* Our collector at Liverpool states that he has every reason to believe that the vessel is for the 
government.”—Earl Russell to Mr. Adams, Feb. 22, 1862. 


NAVAL AND COAST OPERATIONS. 


423 


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BAHIA, BRAZIL, 


justice of this was conceded so far as the special act was concerned. The 
American government disavowed the capture, suspended Collins from com- 
mand, and ordered the prisoners to be released, but at the same time took 
care to enter a counter complaint against the Brazilians for harboring Con- 
federate ‘ piratical ships.” The Brazilian government protested, apparently, 
as a mere matter of form, and was satisfied with the course of our govern- 
ment; and the overthrow of the Confederate cause, which took place while 
negotiations were pending, removed all occasion for pressing farther the 
complaint against Brazil. 


Of still greater importance to the Confederate cause was the Alabama, 
whose active career as a cruiser began some months earlier than that of the 
Florida. Among the great English shipbuilders was John Laird, a member 
of the British House of Commons. The war had just fairly commenced 
when he contracted with the Confederate government to build for it a 
steamer which should combine all the qualities of a formidable cruiser. 
She was to have sufficient strength, and be provided with an armament 
which would render her adequate to cope with any of the largest vessels in 
the American navy, while her speed should enable her to escape any su- 
perior enemy which she would be likely to encounter. 

While this steamer, then known simply as the “290,” lay upon the stocks, 
her destination was notorious; but the British officials would not, and the 
American minister could not, furnish evidence which the government judged 
sufficient to warrant its interference. At length, after she was launched and 
ready for sea, evidence was procured which eminent British counsel pro- 
nounced sufficient to require her detention.!| For a week no action was 
taken by the British government. The Queen’s Advocate had been seized 
with sudden illness, and could not attend to business, and other counsel had 
to be consulted. Their opinion was in favor of detention, and orders to that 
effect were sent by mail to Liverpool ;? but the Confederate agents in Lon- 
don learned of this, and notified their friends in Liverpool by telegraph. 
No time was to be lost in forestalling the arrival of the order, and on the 
morning of the 29th of July the “290” dropped slowly down the Mersey, 
under pretense of a simple trial trip.* ‘‘To give color to this pretense, to 
which her even then unfinished condition lent a primd facie sanction, a gay 
party was assembled on board.” There were women, friends and acquaint- 
ances of the builder, and their accompanying gallants. Luncheon and all 
the appliances of naval hospitality were provided. But in the midst of the 
feasting, at a signal from the “290,” a small steam-tug came alongside, and 
the astonished guests were requested to step on board. All that evening 
and the next day the bustle of preparation went on, and, two hours before 
dawn, the “290” started on her seaward voyage, bound for Nassau, in the 
Bahamas, as her crew supposed, but really for another port. She was away 
just in time, for the gold-laced custoni-house officials were then coming 
down the river with the tardy order for her detention, and, moreover, the 
American steam frigate Tuscarora was hurrying—only two days too late— 
to the mouth of the Mersey to intercept the Confederate cruiser, as yet 
wholly unarmed. 

The real destination of the ‘‘290” was the harbor of Porto Praya, in the 
Portuguese island of Terceira, where she was to meet another British vessel 
laden with the armament which was to form her equipment as a vessel of 
war. She had sailed under the command of Captain Bullock, who had su- 
perintended her construction; but when the farthermost British land was 
passed Bullock went ashore, and his place was taken by an Englishman, 


1 « Temple, July 23, 1862.—I am of opinion that the Collector of Customs would be justified in 
detaining the vessel. Indeed, I should think it his duty to detain her; and that if, after the appli- 
cation which has been made to him, supported by the evidence which has been laid before me, he 
allows the vessel to leave Liverpool, he will incur a heavy responsibility—a responsibility in which 
the Board of Customs, under whose directions he appears to be acting, must take their share. It 
appears to be difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 
which, if not enforced on this occasion, is little better than a dead letter. It well deserves consid- 
eration whether, if the vessel be allowed to escape, the Federal government would not have seri- 
ous grounds of complaint.” —R. P. Corimr, Q. C. 

2 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862-3, i., 163. 

36¢The Cruise of the Alabama, and the Sumter.” This work is made up mainly from the 
journals of Semmes, and was evidently drawn up under his supervision. This has been followed 
almost exclusively in the following account, all quotations, unless otherwise expressly credited, 
being taken from it, although it has not been thought necessary, in all cases, to cite the pages. 
The work will be cited simply as ‘* Semmes.” 


RAPHAEL SEMMES. 


“Captain J. Butcher, late of the Cunard service. Of the other temporary 
officers, three out of five were Englishmen.” The crew numbered about 
seventy men and boys, and were shipped for a feigned voyage, the Confed- 
erate captain “trusting to the English love of adventure to induce them to 
re-ship when the true destination of the vessel came to be declared.”! In 
nine days the “290” reached Porto Praya. Soon after arrived a British 
vessel, the Agrippina, with coal, ammunition, and guns, and, not long after, 
still another British vessel from Liverpool, having on board “a number of 
seamen, shipped, like those on board the “290,” for a feigned voyage, in the 
hope of inducing them to join when the ship was fairly in commission.’? 
In this vessel also came Raphael Semmes, who had been appointed to com- 
mand the “290” when, under a new name, she was to appear upon the ocean 
as a Confederate cruiser. 

Semmes, now about fifty years of age, was a native of the State of Mary- 
land. He had entered the American navy thirty years before. At the out- 
break of the war he had attained the rank of commander in the navy, was a 
member of the Light-house Board, and resided at Washington. He wrote 
to Stephens, of Georgia, indicating his willingness to fight for the South, but 
did not wish to thrust himself upon the new government “until his State 
had moved.” On the 14th of February, 1861, he received a telegraphic dis- 
patch from the Chairman of the Naval Committee at Montgomery inviting 
him to repair to that place. Then, and not before, he sent in his resignation 
from the United States navy, and telegraphed back to Montgomery that he 
was “a free man to serve his struggling country.” He had before this taken 
occasion to write to an Alabama Congressman, giving his views “of the sit- 
uation of the Confederates, as regards their marine, for defense and means 
of inflicting damage on their opponents.” Leaving his family at Washing- 
ton, Semmes repaired to Montgomery, where he was soon dispatched to the 
Northern States to make “large purchases, and contracts for machinery and 
munitions, or for the manufacture of arms and munitions of war.” The Con- 
federate Secretary of the Navy had learned that there were for sale, “at or 
near New York, two or more steamers of speed, light draught, and strength 
sufficient for at least one heavy gun.” In April Semmes was recalled to 
New Orleans, and placed in command of the Sumter,? whose career as a 
cruiser has already been narrated. 

On the 24th of August, the 290,” still under British colors, had received 
her armament, and was thus transformed into a man-of-war, and steamed out 
of the neutral port. When fairly a maritime league from land, and thus, 
according to international law, in the open sea, the common domain of all 
nations, Semmes, in full uniform, appeared on deck, and announced that the 
vessel was henceforth the Confederate States steam-ship Alabama. At the 
instant down came the British flag, and in its place appeared that of the 
Confederacy. The new commander made a speech to the men who had 
been entrapped on board under false pretenses, urging them to enlist with 
him, telling them that the main purpose of the cruise was to prey upon 
American commerce, which would give them abundance of prize money. 
The crew were a motley gang, all British, swept up “ from the groggeries of 
Liverpool,” in the belief that they were shipping in a sort of privateer, 
where they would have a jolly good time and a plenty of license. “The 
~"Y Semmes, i., 277. * Tbid., 1,298. “AL ad fig eS oeale | tated dy Dg BB ad 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ DECEMBER, 1862. 


modern sailor,” says Semmes, “ has greatly changed in character, He now 
strikes for pay like a sharper.” Semmes was glad to hire them upon their 
-own terms. “I was afraid,” he says, “that a large bounty in addition would 
| be demanded of me.”? 

On the 29th of August the Alabama was fairly in trim to begin her cruise. 
The battle of Groveton was at that hour being fought, and the result hung 
in even scales. The Alabama had now assumed her true character, She 
was a wooden screw steam sloop, bark-rigged, of 1040 tons burden, provided 
with two engines of great power, pierced for twelve guns on deck, with two 
heavy guns amidships; her whole cost for building and equipment was a 
quarter of a million of dollars? To man her fully required at least one 
hundred men; Semmes had only eighty, but he trusted that he could fill up 
the complement by volunteers from the prizes which he should make.° 

The Alabama now steered straight for the great highway of commerce 
between Europe and America. This was reached in a week, and on the 5th 
of September she made her first capture. On that day the Confederate 
army crossed the Potomac into Maryland. “This vessel,” notes Semmes in 
his journal, “‘ was of course taken possession of, her crew brought on board 
the Alabama and placed in irons, and a quantity of rigging and small-stores 
transferred to the captor. Next morning the prize was fired, the Alabama 
having taken from her thirty-six prisoners.”* The Alabama was now in 
the track of commerce, and within the next ten days captured half a score 
of vessels. The journal of Semmes describes the disposition made of some 
of them: 

September 7. Captured the Starlight, from Fayal to Boston, with a number 
of passengers, among others some ladies. ‘ Brought on board all the United 
States seamen, seven in number, including the captain, and confined them 
in irons.” September 9. Several additional prizes having been made, “ about 
9 A.M. fired the Starlight; at 11, fired the Ocean Rover; and at 4 P.M., 
fired the Alert.” September 14. ‘‘ Captured a whaler, the Benjamin Tucker, 
from New Bedford, eight months out, with about 840 barrels of oil; crew 
thirty. Brought every body on board, received some soap and tobacco, 
and fired the ship.” September 16. Captured another whaler; stood off to 
Flores; when within four or five miles, sent all the prisoners, sixty-eight 
in number, ashore in boats, and then, ‘“‘ having taken the prize some eight or 
ten miles distant from land, hove her to, called all hands to quarters, and 
made a target of her. The practice was pretty fair for green hands. At 
dark fired the prize.” After this burst of good fortune there was a lull of 
a fortnight. The Alabama was crowded with prisoners taken within the 
last few days. “These,” says Semmes, “ were hard times for the prisoners, 
crowded together on deck, with no shelter but an extemporized tarpaulin 
tent between them and the pelting of the pitiless storm, which drenched the- 
decks alternately with salt water and fresh.”* 

October passed, and at its close the Alabama, having in the mean time 
made twenty-seven captures, was off the American coast, hardly two hund- 
red miles from New York. Semmes had hoped to lie off the harbor, and 
make some prizes at its very mouth; but his fuel was now running short, 
and he was obliged to run southeastward to the island where coal was to 
await him. On the 18th of November the Alabama made the French isl- 
and of Martinique. Here she fell into sore peril, for the American steamer 
San Jacinto, of superior force, appeared off the harbor, and instituted a close 
blockade. But the Alabama managed to elude her antagonist under cover 
of darkness, and gained the coal rendezvous at the island of Blanquilla. 

In the latter days of November the Alabama had got on board coal suf- 
ficient for nearly three weeks’ steaming, and was ready for a fresh cruise. 
She made for the West India Islands, hoping to be able to intercept one of 
the treasure-ships conveying gold from the Isthmus to New York. A mil- 
lion of dollars in gold was a prize worth waiting for. On Sunday, Decem- 
ber 7, a prize came within sight, though not the one which had been hoped 
for. A huge side-wheel steamer hove in view, pressing southward. It 
could be only a California steamer, bound southward, not northward; to- 
ward the Isthmus with passengers, not from it with gold. The Alabama 
shot from her lurking-place, and made way to cross the track of the stran- 
ger, who bore the Union flag. The Alabama, now carrying the same, was 
evidently taken for an American vessel. But as the steamers came within 
gun-shot, the stars and stripes fell from the Alabama, and the Confederate 
flag took their place, while a blank shot demanded a surrender. The warn- 
ing was not heeded; the chase held on her way with full press of steam. 
But a shell from the Alabama, striking the foremast, showed that she was 
within the power of her enemy, and, abandoning all effort to escape, she 
rounded to and surrendered. The prize proved to be the Ariel, a Califor- 
nia steamer bound from New York to the Isthmus, having on board 500 
passengers, besides 140 Federal marines, on their way to join the Pacific 
squadron. 

The Alabama was embarrassed by the magnitude of her prize. There 
was much which was of use: three boxes of specie, a 24-pound rifled gun, 
a few rifles and swords, and a thousand rounds of ammunition. The Ariel 
also would make a bonfire as brilliant as any of the twoscore with which 
Semmes had already illuminated the ocean. But this could not be lighted 
until the hundreds of prisoners were disposed of. The narrow deck of the 
Alabama could not give even standing-room for half of them. Semmes 
kept his prize by him for a couple of days, hoping to fall in with a home- 
ward-bound California steamer, to which he would transfer his crowd of 
prisoners, and then burn the Ariel; but none appearing, he determined to 
take her toward Kingston, Jamaica, land the prisoners in boats, and then 
burn the ship. But, learning that the yellow fever was raging at Kingston, 
and unwilling to put a crowd of men, women, and children ashore in a 

1 Semmes, i., 297. * Ibid, i., 266.  * Lbid.,i., 298.  * Ibid., i., 306. * Ibid., i., 305, 320. 


——— 


JANUARY, 1863. ] 


plague-stricken port, he had no alter- 
native but to release the Ariel upon 
bond, and “forego the pleasure of mak- 
ing a bonfire of the splendid steamer 
that had fallen into his hands.” 

The Alabama was still cruising 
among the West India Islands when 
intelligence came that Banks was 
about to dispatch a great naval and 
military expedition from New Orleans 
to the coast of Texas, Galveston being 
its immediate destination. Semmes 
was aware that this expedition ‘ would 
be accompanied by one or more arm- 
ed vessels, but the principal portion 
would be composed of troop - ships 
crowded with the enemy’s soldiers; 
and should the Alabama but prove 
victorious in the fight, these transports 
would be of more practical importance than all the grain and oil ever carried 
in a merchantman’s hold.” At noon on the 11th of January the Alabama 
was off Galveston, ignorant that the place had been recaptured by the Con- 
federates, and the proposed Banks expedition delayed. Several vessels were 
seen lying off the bar. One of these, the gun-boat Hatteras, catching a 
glimpse of the Alabama on the distant horizon, stood out to reconnoitre. 
The Alabama edged slowly seaward, in order to draw this vessel away from 
her consorts, so that in case of a conflict the noise of the guns would not 
reach them. ‘The rate at which the Hatteras had approached showed that 
she was in speed no match for the Alabama, which could thus escape if she 
perceived that she was overmatched in strength. Just after dark the Hatter- 
as came within hailing distance, and from her deck came the inquiry, “ What 
ship is that?” “Her majesty’s ship Petrel. What ship is that?” was the 
reply from the Alabama. ‘I will send a boat aboard,” was answered by 
Lieutenant Blake, the commander of the Hatteras, who gave orders accord- 
ingly, and the boat was lowered and put off. Up to this moment the com- 
mander of the Hatteras must have supposed that the Alabama was what 
she proclaimed herself, a British vessel, for he would have scarcely sent a 
boat on board what he believed to be an armed enemy. Hardly had the 
boat left the side of the Hatteras when a new hail, ‘‘ We are the Confederate 
steamer Alabama,” was heard, accompanied by the whizzing of a shell over 
the deck, followed by a full broadside. The Hatteras returned the fire, and 
endeavored to close, hoping to carry the enemy by boarding. But the 
greater speed of the Alabama enabled her to thwart the attempt, while her 
superior armament placed her opponent at her mercy. ‘The only chance for 
the Hatteras was that a shot might strike some vulnerable point of the Ala- 
bama. In a few minutes a shell from the Alabama entered the hold of the 
Hatteras amidships; almost at the same instant another passed through the 
sick-bay, and exploded, both setting the vessel on fire, while another de- 
stroyed the steam cylinder, disabling the engine, and rendering the Hatteras 
wholly unmanageable. On fire in two places, utterly disabled, a mere 
wreck upon the water, there was nothing for Blake to do but to fire a lee 
gun in token of surrender, and to ask for assistance for his crew. The ac- 
tion had lasted only thirteen minutes, and the Hatteras was rapidly sinking. 
The boats from both vessels were employed in conveying the crew of the 
vanquished to the deck of the victor. Two minutes after the last man had 
left the Hatteras she went down, bow first, with her pennant at the mast- 
head, carrying with her every thing but the living men. The Alabama suf- 
fered some injury, but not sufficient to cripple her, and had two men slight- 
ly wounded. On the Hatteras two were killed and five wounded; the 
boat’s crew which had put off just before the action rowed back to the 
shore, only twenty miles distant; all the others, more than a hundred, were 
made prisoners, and carried to Kingston, where they were put ashore. 

For two months the Alabama cruised among the West India Islands, and 
then, about the middle of March,? went southward along the coast, reaching 
Bahia, in Brazil, by the middle of May, making many prizes all the while. 
Here she found the Georgia, another Anglo-Confederate cruiser; took in 
coal, and, after being repeatedly warned by the Brazilian authorities that 
her stay was not desired, steamed away across the South Atlantic for the 
coast of Africa, making port near Cape Town on the 5th of August. She 
hovered in these waters for more than a month. Coming into the harbor 
of Simon’s Town on the 16th of December, she found evil tidings: Vicks- 
burg and Port Hudson had fallen; Lee, foiled at Gettysburg, had recrossed 
the Potomac into Virginia. “Our poor people,” he writes, ‘seem to be ter- 
ribly pressed by the Northern hordes; but we shall fight it out to the end, 
and the end will be what an all-wise Providence decrees.” But, what was 
still worse for the Alabama, the Union steamer Vanderbilt, of superior force, 
which had been sent to look for the Alabama, was in the neighborhood. 
She had left the very harbor where the Alabama was, only five days before, 
and might return at any moment. The Confederate cruiser must go to an- 
other cruising ground. The Malay Archipelago was chosen, and, after a 
fortnight’s run through heavy gales, the voyage of 3000 miles was accom- 
plished early in November. But the American war-steamer Wyoming was 
in these waters, and the Alabama must be wary in encountering an adver- 
sary of superior force. The cruise among the intricate channels of the In- 
dian Archipelago lasted three months. Few prizes were taken, for the 
American flag had almost disappeared from these waters. On the 13th of 
January® the Alabama set her head homeward, toward Great Britain, by 

2 1863. * 1864. 
OL 


HOMER O. BLAKE, 


1 Semmes, ii., 42. 


NAVAL AND COAST OPERATIONS. 


425 


way of the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape was reached, after a rough voy- 
age, on the 11th of March. Here Semmes got into a controversy with the 
governor for a breach of neutrality in bringing a prize into that port. The 
case was decided against him, and, entering a protest against the “ unfriend- 
ly disposition of a government from which, if it represents truly the in- 
stincts of Englishmen, the Confederates had a right to expect at least sym- 
pathy and kindness in the place of rigor and harshness,”! he turned the head 
of the Alabama toward Europe on the 25th of March. For a month not a 
single vessel was encountered. On the 22d of April “the guano-laden ship 
Rockingham was boarded, taken possession of, employed as a target, and 
then set fire to.” Vive days after, the Tycoon shared the same fate. This 
was the last prize taken by the Alabama. Nineteen other vessels were 
overhauled before the cruiser, a fortnight after, entered the French harbor 
of Cherbourg, but not one of them sailed under the American flag. 

The Alabama entered Cherbourg on the 11th of June,? and began to 
make some repairs, of which she stood in need after her long cruise. Three 
days after, the American steam-sloop Kearsarge, Captain Winslow, which had 
been cruising in the British Channel, looking out for several vessels appar- 
ently designed for the Confederate service, appeared off Cherbourg. The 
vessels were as nearly as possible equal in size and armament. Semmes, 
who wished to signalize himself by some exploit other than the burning of 
helpless merchantmen, requested Winslow to remain off the port for a day 
or two, when he would come out beyond neutral waters and give battle. 
Winslow, nowise loth to fight, complied with the request, and lay off the 
port. On the 19th the Alabama came out, escorted to the limit of the neu- 
tral waters by the French iron-clad Couronne. Following close after, for- 
tunately as it happened for the Confederates, was an English steam yacht, 
the Deerhound, whose owner, Lancaster, wished to treat his family to the 
sight of a naval duel. When the neutral marine league was fairly passed, 
the Couronne turned back, leaving the expectant combatants to themselves. 
The Kearsarge edged slowly off as the Alabama advanced, wishing to make 
sure that the action should take place so far off shore that there should be 
no question about the line of national jurisdiction. The distance of seven 
miles from land having been gained, the Kearsarge turned, and steered 
straight for the enemy. The Alabama opened fire at the distance of a mile, 
repeating her broadsides three times. The shot passed harmlessly through 
the rigging of the Kearsarge, which kept head on toward the Alabama. At 
nine hundred yards the Kearsarge sheered round and delivered her broad- 
side. This broadside told fearfully. Then, fearing that the Alabama would 
make for the shore, and take shelter in French waters, Winslow put his ves- 
sel to full speed, designing to run under the stern of the Alabama and de- 
liver a raking fire. 'T'o counteract this, the Alabama also sheered, present- 
ing her broadside instead of her stern. Both vessels being under full steam, 
the Alabama, in order to keep her broadside toward her enemy, and at the 
same time to avoid coming into close action, was forced to describe a series 
of circles around the Kearsarge, whose object was to come into close action. 
The Kearsarge, whose object was to gain a raking position, followed the 
course of the Alabama, and the combined result was that the two vessels 


1 Semmes, ii., 435. 2 1864. 


SSs 


SSS 


S= 


JOUN A. WINSLOW, 


426 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 


THE CIVIL WAR. [ JUNE, 1864, 


DESTRUCTION OF THE ALABAMA. 


described a series of circles around each other; but the Kearsarge, having a 
slight advantage in speed, was able to diminish the orbit. The action lasted 
an hour. From the first the superiority of the aim of the Kearsarge had 
been apparent. At the seventh revolution around the shifting common 
axis, the Alabama perceived that victory was hopeless, and she headed for 
the shore, five miles distant. Ifshe could accomplish but two of these, she 
would be within French waters.1_ But the attempt at retreat came too late. 


* It has been asserted that both commanders wished to fight the action at short range. The 
compiler of the Confederate account says (Semmes, ii., 290): ‘* Captain Semmes had great confi- 
dence in the power of his Blakeley [7-inch] rifled gun. He wished to get within easy range of 
his enemy, that he might try this weapon effectively; but any attempt on his part to come to 
closer quarters was construed by the Kearsarge as a design to bring the engagement between the 
ships to a hand-to-hand conflict between the men. Having the speed, she chose her distance, and 
made all thoughts of boarding hopeless. It was part of the plan of Captain Semmes to board, if 
possible, at some period of the day, supposing that he could not quickly decide the question with 
artillery. It was evidently Captain Winslow’s determination to avoid the old-fashioned form of 
a naval encounter, and to fight altogether in the new style; his superior steam power gave him 
the option.”—Captain Winslow, on the other hand, says: ‘‘It was soon apparent that Captain 
Semmes did not seek close action. I became then fearful lest, after some fighting, that he would 
again make for the shore. To defeat this, I determined to keep full speed on, and with a port 
helm to run under the stern of the Alabama, and rake, if he did not prevent it by sheering and 
keeping his broadside to us. We adopted this mode as a preventive, and, as a consequence, the 
Alabama was forced, with a full head of steam, into a circular track during the engagement. The 


The Alabama was disabled, and the Kearsarge, steaming ahead, took a rak- 
ing position across her bows. The white flag of surrender was raised; a 
boat from the Alabama came alongside, bearing an officer, who said that the 
Alabama had surrendered, and was fast sinking. The boats of the Kear- 
sarge were lowered to save the drowning enemy. The British Deerhound 
also approached, and was requested by Winslow to aid in the rescue of 
those who had now become his prisoners. The Alabama was going down; 
the officers and crew took to the water. Forty of them, among whom was 
the captain, were picked up by the Deerhound and carried to England; a 
dozen were saved by French pilot-boats and taken to Cherbourg ; seventy 


effect of this mancuvre was such that, at the last of the action, when the Alabama would have 
made off, she was near five miles from the shore; and had the action continued from the first in 
parallel lines, with her head in-shore, the line of jurisdiction would no doubt have been reached. 
. . « + Thad endeavored to close in with the Alabama, but it was not until just before the close of 
the action that we were in a position to use grape; this was avoided, however, by her surrender. 
. . . « Nearly every shot told fearfully on the Alabama, and on the seventh rotation on the circu- 
lar track she winded, setting fore-trysail and two jibs, with head in-shore.”—Nothing can be more 
clear than that neither commander expected to decide the fight by the ‘‘ old-fashioned form” of 
boarding. Such was the character of each vessel, and the armament of the other, that long be- 
fore they could have come side by side, one or both must have been disabled. Each knew the 
armament of the other, and each considered his own to be superior. 


Decemser, 1862.] 


NAVAL AND COAST OPERATIONS. 


427 


ocean. But Semmes wished to signalize himself by 
something more than the capture of defenseless mer- 
chantmen, and knowing that the ships were “ equal- 
ly matched,’ he challenged the Kearsarge to the 
contest. It was supposed that Semmes would soon 


be again at sea in command of a still more power- 


ful vessel than the one which he had lost. This was 


iron-clad, and was almost completed by the builders 
of the Alabama; but the British government had 
now perceived tlic danger into which they were rush- 
ing by theirinterpretation of the neutrality laws, and 
took possession of the ship. Semmes, after a while, 
made his way to the Confederacy, and received the 
nominal rank of brigadier general in the army, and 
as such was, a year after, included in the surrender 


of Johnson’s army. 


The brilliant suecess which attended the early op- 
erations of Burnside at the commencement of tlie 


A NiGHT ENCAMPMENT, 


were rescued by the Kearsarge. Of the crew of the Alabama seven were 
killed in the fight; nineteen, most of whom were wounded, went down with 
the vessel. On board the Kearsarge there were three wounded, one mor- 
tally. 

The life of the Alabama had been two years lacking nine weeks, counting 
from Sunday, August 24, 1862, when she first hoisted the Confederate flag, 
down to Sunday, June 19, 1864, when she was sunk, leaving not a wrack be- 
hind. No one ship that ever floated ever inflicted such injury upon an en- 
emy. In all, she had captured sixty-five vessels, burning all except the few 
required to save the lives of her prisoners. She had destroyed vessels and 
cargoes valued at ten millions of dollars, and, what was of more injury to 
the enemy, had well-nigh driven the American commercial flag from the 
ocean. She was to all intents a British vessel, built at a British dock, 
manned by a British crew, and sailing almost always under the British flag. 
Her keel was never wet in Confederate waters, and no man from her deck 
ever caught a glimpse of the shores claimed by the Confederates ; and she 
rarely hoisted the Confederate flag, except when, having decoyed a prize by 
the show of false colors, she raised her own in the act of making a prize. 
Her long impunity from capture is not a matter for wonder. The whole 
wide ocean was her hiding-place. A hundred vessels might be in search 
of her, and it would be a matter of chance if one would encounter her. If 
heard from to-day at any point, to-morrow she would be hundreds of miles 
away, in what direction no man not on board of her could know. ‘“ Her 
stay in any neutral harbor was necessarily as short as the perching of a 
hawk on a bough. Like the hawk’s in upper air, the Alabama’s safety, as 
well as her business, was on the high seas.”? At the very last, it was a mere 
matter of accident that the Kearsarge was at hand when the Alabama ap- 
peared at Cherbourg. No one supposed that she was then on this side of 
the globe. The last that had been heard of her she was in the Indian 
Ocean. Even at Cherbourg she might have declined to enter into combat 
with the Kearsarge. Safe while she remained in the neutral harbor, she 
might have waited her time, as she had done at Martinique, when watched 
by the San Jacinto, and again, fitted for sea, have crept out into the wide 


» Semmes, ii., 280. 


the Department of North Carolina. 


year has been already recorded.? ‘The successive 
captures of Roanoke Island, Newbern, Elizabeth 
City, Fort Macon, and Beaufort, gave the Union 
forces command of the greater part of the coast of 
North Carolina, and of the Sound by which it is 
bordered. Wilmington, and the intricate approaches 
which lead to it, remained to the Confederates, and afforded facilities for 
running the blockade. It was supposed that these successes would be fol- 
lowed up by a march into the heart of the state, which would seize the lines 
of railroad connecting the far South with Richmond. But Burnside’s force 
of 15,000 was insufficient for such an enterprise, and the exigencies of the 
campaign in Virginia left the Federal government no troops by which he 
could be re-enforced. The most that Burnside could do was to hold the 
points on and near the coasts which he had seized. When McClellan re- 
treated from the Chickahominy to the James, Burnside was ordered to bring 
to Fortress Monroe all the troops which he could collect,? leaving Foster 
with just enough to garrison Newbern, Beaufort, and a few other points. 
The Confederates also brought all their available force from North Caro- 
lina to Virginia; so that, during the summer and early autumn, there was 
little fighting in North Carolina. 

When Lee’s invasion of Maryland had failed, and the Union and Confed- 
erate armies lay confronting each other on the Rappahannock, considerable 
re-enforcements were dispatched to Foster in North Carolina, so that he was 
able to assume the offensive. Early in November he pushed an expedition 
inland toward Tarboro, where he had learned that there were a few regi- 
ments of the enemy; but, finding that they had been largely re-enforced, he 
retreated. In December he planned a still more important enterprise, the 
main object being to reach Goldsboro, and destroy the railroads centering 
at that point. ‘The Confederates meanwhile had strengthened their force in 
In November they had but 9000 men, 
of whom 6000 were reported as present for duty. By December these num- 
bers were fully doubled, and Gustavus W. Smith was placed in command. 
After the wounding of Johnston at Fair Oaks, Smith had been placed in 
command of the army before Richmond. He had held it hardly for a day 
when he was struck down by an attack of paralysis, and Lee was appointed 
in his place. Foster left Newbern with his entire movable force, about 


10,000 strong, and encountered no serious opposition until he reached 
Kingston, half way between Newbern and Goldsboro. Here a sharp fight 
occurred,® the Confederates retreating. Foster pressed on toward Goldsboro, 


3 July 4, 1862. 


1 Tbid., i, 278. ? Ante, pp. 242-249, ¢Dec.11. * Dee. 14. 


BATTLE OF KINGSTON, DECEMBER 14 a 


428 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ DECEMBER, 1862. 


anne 


hoping to strike the railroad. On the 16th he reached Whitehall, where a 
brisk skirmish ensued; the Confederates were driven back, and two gun- 
boats which were there building were destroyed. Foster then pushed on 


toward Goldsboro, following the course of the Neuse, 
and sending detachments in various directions to de- 
stroy the railroad bridges. On the 17th another skirm- 
ish took place at a point near Goldsboro. In the mean 
while the Confederates had gradually concentrated a 
superior force at Goldsboro, and Foster found it un- 
wise to attempt to reach this place, the point at which 
he had aimed. He therefore commenced a rapid re- 
treat to Newbern, where his force arrived on the 24th, 
having been absent ten days, during which time it had 
marched nearly two hundred miles. Foster lost 90 
killed and 478 wounded; the Confederates lost 71 
killed, 268 wounded, besides 476 prisoners, most of 
whom were captured at Kingston, and immediately pa- 
roled. The expedition really accomplished nothing. 
The slight injury done to the railroad was soon repair- 
ed, and the communication between Richmond and the 
far South was hardly interrupted. With this attempt 
closed the active operations for 1862 in North Carolina. 
But in February of the ensuing year the Federal force 
was considerably strengthened, and Lee, perceiving that 
military operations on the Rappahannock would be sus- 
pended until spring, ventured to detach Longstreet, 
with a considerable part of his corps, from the army in 
Virginia, and send him to North Carolina. In March 


the Confederate force in this department nominally numbered 73,000 men, 


AOTION AT WHITRHALL, DECEMBER 16, 


(Ne 


WHITEHA 


LL 


During the year various movements looking toward a siege of Charleston 
were attempted. ‘The most important of these was an attempt on the 16th 
of June to take possession of James Island. The Federals were repulsed, 


fMTOLIVE 


TRENTON 


ROUTE FROM NEWBERN TO GOLDSBORO. 


with a loss of 700. But the siege of Charleston forms an episode so com 


of whom 53,000 were reported as “‘ present,” and 45,000 “ present for duty.” | plete in itself as to require a separate chapter. 


SKIRMISH NEAR GOLDSBORO, DEOEMBER 17, 


1862.) THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


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430 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF ‘THE CIVIL WAR. 


SW 


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JOHN RODGERS. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


The River.—Gun-boat and Mortar Fleet.—Farragut’s Squadron.—A Succession of Victories.— 
Vicksburg becomes a Military Post.—Masked Batteries along the River Shore.—Shelling of 
Grand Gulf.—General Williams arrives before Vicksburg.—Farragut runs the Blockade.— 
Junction of the Fleets.—Bombardment of Vicksburg.—Escape of the Ram Arkansas.—Battle 
of Baton Rouge, and Destruction of the Arkansas.—Resumption of Operations against Vicks- 
burg.—General Grant’s Plan of the Winter Campaign.—An embarrassing Surrender.—Sher- 
man’s Defeat at Chickasaw Bayou.—McClernand in Command.—Capture of Arkansas Post.— 
General Grant’s Army at Young’s Point.—A Series of Naval Exploits.—The ‘‘ pocket-full of 
Plans.”—General Williams’s Canal.—The Lake Providence Route.—The Yazoo Pass Expedi- 
tion.—The ‘‘ Deer-Creek Raid.” —On to New Carthage.—The Transports run the Bleckade.— 
Grierson’s Raid. 


yi d bax possession of the Mississippi,” said General Sherman, in his speech 
at St. Louis just after the close of the war, “is the possession of 
America.”! That this great river is not to the American what the Nile was 
to the Egyptian is owing to the greatness of America herself, who proudly 
refuses to be dependent upon even so important an ally; though, next to 
the two great oceans which skirt her continent, the river is the most impor- 
tant fact of her physical existence, and now (that is, in anno Domini 1866) 
has been proved to be the bond, sealed in blood, of her indissoluble union. 
Naturally, both in appearance and in fact, the river unites the North with 
the South, and, though seeming to divide between the Atlantic and the Pa- 
cific slopes, she in reality unites these also. The Algonquin Indians aptly 
named her Missi Sepe, “‘ the Great River ;” for, if the Missouri is to be con- 
sidered—as it would have been but for a natural blunder on the part of the 
early American geographers—the parent, and not merely the tributary 
stream, the Mississippi is the longest river in the world. Even if we accept 
the more contracted limits which the geographers have given her, and date 
her origin from Itasca Lake, she drains a basin of more than a million of 
square miles—a basin which by possibility provides for a population of 
nearly four hundred millions, or almost one half of the present population 
of the entire globe. Even Aaron Burr, in his most splendid calculations re- 
specting the destiny of this mighty garden—this granary of the world, un- 
der-estimated its gigantic possibilities. In the basin of the Mississippi the 
America of the future includes within its limits, as an ¢mperium in imperio, 
a region, the population of which will outnumber the almost innumerable 
multitudes which have gathered about the Nile and the Ganges. For the 
present, however, the Englishman may well compare with the Mississippi 
his Thames, and the German his Rhine. ‘Two centuries and a half go but 
a little way in the development of the resources of a nation, and far less 
than that period can be said to have been occupied in the real history of 
the Mississippi Valley. 
The Mississippi is the most tortuous of rivers, and this circumstance, by 
the impediment which it offers to the current, doubtless favors navigation. 
Frequently the distance which has to be traversed is twelve, and sometimes 


? When, at the beginning of this century, Monroe and Pinckney were negotiating with Napo- 
Ison I.—then First Consul of France—in regard to the purchase of Louisiana, Napoleon, anxious 
to transfer the province to the United States, lest it should fall into British possession, remarked 
ee nation held the Valley of the Mississippi would eventually be the most powerful on 
earth, 


(1862. 


even thirty times greater than it would be in a direct line. This circum- 
stance also renders the river more capable of defensive fortification. Taken 
with its tributaries, the river affords nearly 17,000 miles of water which is 
navigable by steam. Its largest tributaries are the Missouri, Ohio, White, 
Arkansas, and Red Rivers. The Missouri is 8000 miles in length; it is a 
rapid and turbid stream, and asserts its lordship over the Mississippi by im- 
parting to the latter a good measure of these characteristics. It enters the 
Mississippi a few miles above St. Louis. The Ohio, the largest eastern trib- 
utary of the Mississippi, enters the latter stream at Cairo, having previously 
received the waters of the Alleghany, the Kentucky, the Cumberland, and 
the Tennessee. From Pittsburg, where the Alleghany and Monongahela 
unite, to the mouth of the Ohio, is 948 miles; the river, with its tributaries, 
has 5000 miles of navigable waters. Within the limits of Arkansas, and 
not far apart, are the mouths of the White and Arkansas Rivers. The lat- 
ter, much the more important tributary, is about 2000 miles long, and 
drains a basin of 178,000 square miles. ‘The Red River enters the Missis- 
sippi from the west, about 200 miles above New Orleans. The greater part 
of its course is through fertile prairies of a reddish soil, which gives its col- 
or to the waters, and a name to the river. But for “The Raft” which ob- 
structs its course, this river would be navigable for 400 miles from its 
mouth. 

All of the western tributaries of the Mississippi drain the slopes of the 
Rocky Mountains, while its great eastern tributary, the Ohio, with ds trib- 
utaries, drains the western slopes of the Appalachian range. Every one of 
these tributary and sub-tributary streams is swollen in the spring from the 
melting snows of the mountains. From the first of March, therefore, until 
the last of May—or for about ninety days—there is not simply a flood on the 
Mississippi, but literally an accumulation of floods. On the Missouri there 
is an average rise of fifteen feet, and this, added to the swollen Mississippi, 
makes a flood twenty-five feet in height. A second flood is heaped above 
this from the Ohio, below whose mouth the rise of the Mississippi is fifty 
feet. Above Natchez the flood begins to decline. At Baton Rouge it sel- 
dom exceeds thirty feet, and at New Orleans seldom twelve. At every 
flood the river overflows its banks for a distance of five hundred miles from 
its mouth, chiefly on the western side, inundating the country for the space 
of from ten to thirty miles. To guard against this, levees have been con- 
structed, which confine the river within its original limits. Sometimes 
these levees are broken down by the violence of the current, and the conse- 
quent destruction of property is immense. ‘To the yearly overflow of the 
Mississippi are to be attributed the large number of bayous in its vicinity. 
These vary in their extent, some of them scarcely exceeding a small river 
in size, while others spread out into lagoons and lakes. 


' “Tt is estimated that about 16,000,000 acres of the most fertile and productive lands of the 
states of Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, are subject to overflow. To protect 
these lands from the annual devastation by the waters has been the object of incessant toil and 
immense outlays of capital by the inhabitants of the Valley of the Mississippi. 

“So early as 1840, Congress made an appropriation for the construction of a chart of the “ Hy- 
drographical Basin of the Mississippi,” which was executed by J. N. Nicollet, in the employ of the 
United States Topographical Bureau. 

“In 1850, a corps of engineers was organized under Captain, now General A. A. Humphreys, 
which made a thorough survey of the Delta with special reference to the discovery of some system 
of works by which the country could be protected from overflow. These observations were made 
during and subsequent to the great flood of 1851. 

‘“«The constant increase of the volume of the flood revealed by each successive rise is ascribed by 
Captain Humphreys, in his Report, to the superior drainage produced by the cultivation of the 
country on the upper tributaries of the Mississippi, whereby the waters are thrown more rapidly into 
the main channel; the leveeing of the river and its tributaries in the states above Louisiana, so 
as to prevent the escape of the waters into the swamps and lowlands, whence it would be gradu- 
ally drained to the river; the construction of cut-offs; the shortening of the channel, and more 
rapidly conveying the water to points below; and the lengthening of the Delta, thus extending 
the level mouth of the river, so that the current being retarded, the water is held back in the 
channel above. 

“The remedies suggested are: Higher and stronger levees ; prevention, by act of Congress, of 
the construction of additional cut-offs; formation of new outlets to the Lakes Borgne and Pont- 
chartrain; opening of the closed bayous; enlargement of the Atchafalaya and Bayou Plaque- 
mine, and the creation of artificial reservoirs in the swamps, to relieve the channel of the river in 
extreme cases. 

‘* The early settlers, who selected the more elevated and fertile lands on the banks of the river, 
found little difficulty in protecting themselves from the floods. ‘The whole country was then open 
to the waters, and a slight embankment, several inches high, would turn off the water, which was 
drained to the lowlands farther from the river. Other settlers, however, followed the pioneers 3 
new plantations were established ; and, by independent individual action, the slight embankments 
became linked together for many miles along both sides of the river. The waters, by reason of 
this confinement, rose higher every succeeding year, the embankments were enlarged, strength- 
ened, and extended, until a line of levees, from fifteen to thirty feet wide at the base, and varying 
in height from five to twenty feet, stretched, with little interruption, from the lands on the coast, 
below New Orleans, along the channel of the river, to the boundaries of Tennessee and Missouri. 

«The system, owing to its origin, was purely a selfish one. Each settler provided for his indi- 
vidual protection. If by a cut-off he could drain the water from his own place and throw it on 
the lands below, or by closing a bayou he could reclaim additional acres, the thing was done with- 
out reference to the effect it might have on the country lower down the stream. Much damage 
was thus done by shortening the channel of the river and by closing some of its natural outlets 
to the sea. 

“The legislation of the states along the Mississippi has been little better than the individual 
action. The enactments depended more upon the comparative strength of the parties to be bene- 
fited and injured than upon any well-established plan for the control of the waters. Under au- 
thority of law, the channel of the river was shortened by the construction of cuts across the nar- 
row necks formed by the great bends so frequent in the course of the stream. Bayous, which led 
from the main channel of the river to the gulf, forming independent outlets or mouths, were closed, 
and the water forced into one channel, which was unable to carry it to the sea. 

‘Before the war, therefore, the Father of Waters had become unmanageable in the hands of 
those who sought to control his floods. During the war, when labor that had been forced to the 
task day and night, and which at times was able to grapple successfully with the elements, was 
withdrawn, the waters swept away the levees at Morganzia, West Baton Rouge, at Chinn’s and at 
Robertson’s plantation, and at other points both above and below the mouth of the Red River, and 
inundated the country west of the Mississippi from Morganzia to Berwick’s Bay. 

‘* An attempt was made during last winter to rebuild these broken embankments. Under the 
combined efforts of the state authorities of Louisiana and the War Department at Washington, a 
large number of laborers were employed, and the work had been so far repaired that it was be- 
lieved to be sufficiently strong to resist the pressure of the flood. Many planters and men from 
the North, believing that these levees would be rebuilt, engaged in the cultivation of the fertile 
lands in the parishes of Point Coupee, West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Lafourche, Terrebonne, and 
parts of others that were overflowed last year. Recent reports from Louisiana bring the sad in- 
telligence that all these newly-constructed levees have been swept away, and that the water is rap- 
idly filling up the swamps and spreading over the whole country, driving the homeless inhabitants 
before it. 

“‘Tt is a grave question for the consideration of the country whether Congress should not un- 
dertake the protection of the whole Delta of the Mississippi against overflow. ‘The present sys- 


ea 


{ MISSISSIPPI. 


WAR ON THI 


1 
4 


THE 


L862, 


CRE 


VASSE ON THE LOWER 


SI 


SSIPPI. 


432 


The commercial development of the Mississippi Valley, although very 
rapid, has scarcely advanced beyond its first stage. It has been thus far a 
purely agricultural growth. The fertility of the valley is infinite, and along 
the banks of the river and its aflluents large plantations have suddenly 
sprung up, and enjoyed an almost incredible prosperity. Oftentimes a sin- 
gle cotton or sugar crop has brought its planter a fortune. Necessity has 
given rise to towns, sparsely populated, and whose sole importance consists 
in their convenience as dépéts for the shipment of cotton or sugar. The 
necessity of securing the sites of these towns against the violence of peren- 
nial floods Jed to their situation upon the bluffs which rise here and there 
along the river banks. In the development of these towns—for they could 
scarcely be ealled cities—manufactures and the arts could have but little 
scope. In some cases, indeed, an easy communication by railroad with the 
Atlantic sea-board gave them some of the characteristics of our Hastern cit- 
ies. he principal towns situated upon the banks of the Mississippi are St. 
Louis, Cairo, Columbus, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, and, 
near the mouth of the river, New Orleans, which alone can be said to com- 
pare in commercial importance with the great cities of the Hast. 

All of these were in our civil war points of great military importance. 
Their very situation, in nearly all cases, was such as to give them many fa- 
cilities for defense against a naval attack. The city of New Orleans was, 
however, not in itself favorably located in this respect; it was not built upon 
bluffs like Memphis and Vicksburg, and had to be defended against inun- 
dation by artificial levees. But the approach to the city from the Gulf was 
well guarded by Forts Jackson and St. Philip. With the exception of these 
two forts, there were no military defenses worth considering on the Missis- 
sippi at the beginning of the war, and if the nation had possessed any con- 
siderable naval strength, the entire river from Cairo to New Orleans might 
have been secured at the outset. But, while a navy was being provided, 
there were constructed at favorable points fortifications which for some time 
secured the greater portion of the river to the Confederacy. The two points 
which were the last to surrender to the national arms were Vicksburg and 
Port Hudson. The campaigns—naval and military—which had for their 
object the reduction of these two strong-holds form the main subject of this 
and the succeeding chapter. But, before entering directly upon these cam- 
paigns, we shall briefly review the previous naval history of the war on the 
Mississippl. 

The importance of a navy on our Western rivers was early appreciated. 
A month after the capture of Fort Sumter, Commander John Rodgers was 
summoned to Washington, and to him was assigned the duty of creating the 
Western navy. In the first stages of the undertaking, the War Department, 
under Secretary Cameron, assumed the expense and supervision; and it was 
not until the autumn of 1861 that the matter was transferred to the charge 
of the Navy Department, where it properly belonged. 

Rodgers, an officer fitly chosen to organize the armed flotilla of the West, 
was son of the distinguished Commodore John Rodgers, one of the fathers 
of the American Navy. A native of Maryland, he had entered the naval 
service of the United States in 1828, at an early age. He had seen much 
service as midshipman and lieutenant; had been for two years engaged in 
boat service on the coast of Florida, in the war with the Seminoles and in 
the Coast Survey Expedition; in 1852 had been appointed second in com- 
mand of the North Pacific and Behring Straits Exploring Expedition, and, 
succeeding to the chief command of that expedition on account of the severe 
illness of Captain Ringgold, had taken his vessel, the Vincennes, farther into 
the Arctic region than a ship-of-war had ever before penetrated ; and when 
the rebellion broke out he had reported for active service, and had been sent 
to Norfolk to attempt the rescue of the vessels there, but, arriving too late 
to accomplish this, had been assigned to the difficult and dangerous duty of 
blowing up the dry-dock. It was from Norfolk that Rodgers was, on May 
16, 1861, summoned to Washington to receive orders respecting his mission 
to the West. Entering immediately upon this mission, he went to work 
heartily. He purchased steamers, which, under his supervision, were fitted, 
armed, and armored as gun-boats. But it was a slow and difficult under- 
taking, demanding much skill, and more than ordinary perseverance. The 
question of the comparative power of even iron-clad gun-boats as against 
forts was still one about which a great deal might be said on both sides. 
Kven as we look back now and consider what the war has taught us in re- 
gard to the solution of this vexed problem, we hesitate to pronounce defi- 
nitely, satisfying ourselves with the somewhat vague conclusion that the re- 
sult depends as much upon one member of the equation as the other. In 
the instances of successful reduction of forts by gun-boats, the case might 
have been reversed if the enemy had constructed better fortifications. Cer- 
tain it is that Foote was severely repulsed at Donelson, though he had been 
so victorious at Henry; and that nearly all the captures of forts during the 
war were the immediate consequence of assaults with an overwhelming mil- 
itary force, the ships accomplishing little beyond the silencing of the ene- 
my’s guns. 

Commander Rodgers never took any of his vessels into action. 


He be- 


tem, or rather want of system, seems to be a failure; and, unless some such combination of works 
as is suggested by General Humphreys be adopted, planting on the fertile river lands must ever be 
a precarious undertaking, with the weight of the chances largely against success. The distin- 
guished engineer who conducted the survey referred to estimated the total cost of works to pro- 
tect the country from the Ohio to the Gulf at $26,000,000. The country thus reclaimed and pro- 
tected would easily bear a tax of an amount sufficient to pay the interest on this sum, to keep the 
works in repair, and, finally, to liquidate the debt. This, like all other physical problems, must 
be capable of determination. The water brought down the Mississippi is not infinite; its quan- 
tity, its velocity, its pressure, are measurable; the height and strength of levees, and the capacity 
of outlet required to confine and discharge the annual floods brought down, are therefore de- 
terminable measurements. To solve the problem, it is only necessary that a competent superin- 
tendent, clothed with ample authority over every portion of the territory to be protected, be 
charged with the task, so that the whole work may be carried on and completed in accordance 
with some well-established system.”—N, Y, Tribune, May 26th, 1866. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[1862. 


came the victim of covetous contractors, and, at the suggestion of General 
Fremont, who afterward regretted the circumstance, was relieved by A. H. 
Foote, September 6, 1861. The new naval commander, on his arrival in the 
West, found three wooden vessels in commission, besides which there were, 
in process of construction, nine iron-clad gun-boats and thirty-eight mortar- 
boats. There was not a single navy yard or dépdt on any of the rivers. 
Much embarrassment was occasioned by the paucity of funds and the want 
of ordnance. Even after the boats were completed it was found difficult to 
man them. These obstacles were surmounted by Flag-officer’ Foote, “‘ whose 
perseverance and courage,” says Secretary Welles, ‘were scarcely surpassed 
by the heroic qualities displayed in subsequent well-fought actions on the 
decks of the gun-boats he had under so many discouragements prepared.” 

In the month of February Foote was able to bring against Fort Henry 
seven gun-boats—the Hssex, St. Louis, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Tyler, Lex- 
ington, and Conestoga, of which the last three were wooden. In that fight 
the Cincinnati and Kssex were disabled, and could not be brought against 
Fort Donelson a week later. In the naval action at Donelson the Tyler 
also was absent on the Tennessee, but the two iron-clads were replaced by 
the Louisville and Pittsburg. Foote declared that if the battle could have 
been postponed one week, he could also have brought eight of his mortar- 
boats into action. Besides the nine gun-boats involved in the attacks on 
Henry and Donelson, three others—the Benton, Mound City, and Cairo— 
were ready for action in a few days. At Island No. 10, in March, sixteen 
inortar-boats were engaged. From a letter written about this time by Gen- 
eral Strong to Foote, it appears that the Confederates then had “thirteen 
gun-boats independent of the five below New Madrid, and the Manassas, or 
ram, at Memphis.” These vessels were, however, far inferior to Foote’s gun- 
boats, as was shown shortly afterward; yet they excited considerable appre- 
hension, for Farragut’s fleet had not then entered the river from below. 
From this time additions to the gun-boat fleet of the Western navy were 
slowly made. By the close of 1862, the Tuscumbia, the Baron De Kalb, and 
the Osage had been added, and there were in process of construction the Ne- 
osho, Indianola, Choctaw, and Chillicothe. The Ozark was completed in 
1863. Including these, the gun-boat fleet consisted of twenty vessels, with 
an armament of about 170 guns, and a tonnage of nearly 10,000 tons. Nine 
or ten more gun-boats were added before the close of the war.? Of the gun- 
boats added to the Western fleet during the year after the fight at Donelson, 
the Tuscumbia was among the largest.? The Mound City was blown up in 
July, 1862, on the White River, and subsequently the Cairo met a similar 
fate on the Yazoo. 

Next to the vessels known as gun-boats, Hllet’s steam-ram fleet held the 
most important place in the Mississippi squadron. Charles Ellet bore the 
same relation to steam rams as Hricsson to the monitors, He was a native 
of Pennsylvania. As a civil engineer he had gained a reputation which was 
well earned. His treatise on “The Laws of Trade in Reference to Works 
of Internal Improvement,” published in Philadelphia in 1837, was an ex- 
haustive work on the subject, and attracted considerable attention. A few 
years afterward he was chosen by the War Department to survey the Lower 
Mississippi. It was an important object of his life to carry out a scheme 
which he had conceived for improving the navigation of the Western riy- 
ers. He was so impressed with this project that, in honor of it, he named 
his son Charles Rivers Ellet. Itis not more remarkable that De Soto found 


1 This title remained in existence until the operation of an act of Congress of July 16, 1862. 
By this act the officers of the navy were distributed into nine grades, taking rank according to the 
date of commission in each grade, as follows: 

GRADES IN THE NAVY. 


OORRESPONDING GRADES IN THE ARMY. 


1. Rear Admirals. 1. Major Generals. 

2. Commodores. 2. Brigadier Generals. 
3. Captains. 3. Colonels. 

4. Commanders. 4. Lieutenant Colonels. 
5. Lieutenant Commanders. 5. Majors. 

6. Lieutenants. 6. Captains. ’ 

7. Masters. 7. First Lieutenants. 

8. Ensigns. 8. Second Lieutenants. 
9. Midshipmen. 


In regard to the change thus introduced, Secretary Welles, in his Report for 1862, says: ‘‘The 
act of July 16, 1862, ‘to Establish and Equalize the Grade of Line Officers of the United States 
Navy,’ does justice in conferring ranks and grades that had until that time been withheld from 
as meritorious and gallant a class of officers as ever devoted their days and periled their lives for 
their country. Though the justice to which they were entitled has been long delayed, it was grace- 
fully and generously rendered by the present Congress, and has been and is appreciated by the 
brave men who are its recipients, and by all attached to the service, as a just recognition of the 
worth and ability of the officers of the American Navy. . . The commanders of our squad- 
rons now hold rank with those of other naval powers on the ocean, on distant service, and wher- 
ever they carry our flag, or appear as the representatives of their country.”—Page 40. 

Flag-ofticers Goldsborough, Dupont, Farragut, and Foote were nominated to the Senate for the 
grade of rear-admiral on the day subsequent to the approval of the act. Other officers—among 
whom were captains Stewart, Read, Gregory, Stringham, and Paulding—were the same day nom- 
inated for rear-admirals on the retired list. 

Subsequently, jn 1864, the rank of vice-admiral was created by Congress, to correspond with the 
revived grade of lieutenant general in the army. ‘The bill creating this rank, originating in the 
Senate, passed the House December 20, and was approved on the 21st by the President, who the 
same day nominated Farragut to the new office. After the close of the war Congress created the 
rank of general in the army, and the corresponding rank of admiral in the navy, to which ranks 
U.S. Grant and David G. Farragut were respectively assigned. 

* There were building in May, 1864, the following iron-clad vessels for the Mississippi squad- 
ron: The Catawba, 2 guns, 970 tons; the Chickasaw, 2 guns, 970 tons; the Etlah, 2 guns, 614 
tons; the Kickapoo, 4 guns, 970 tons; the Klamath, 2 guns, 614 tons; the Koka, 2 guns, 614 
tons; the Milwaukee, 4 guns, 970 tons; and the Oneota, 2 guns, 1084 tons. 

* The Tuscumbia had an armament of five guns—thrce eleven-inch Dahlgrens forward, and two 
100-Ib. rifled guns in battery aft. Her sides were plated with three-inch, and her deck with one- 
inch wrought iron; the plates over the batteries, or gun-rooms, were six inches thick forward, and 
four aft. Her timbers were very strong, her build stanch, and her outfit complete. A bulwark 
of iron, loop-holed for musketry, was placed around her guards. She had also an apparatus for 
throwing a stream of water 200 feet. ° 

4 “Mr. Ellet found that the use of dikes, or levees, along the banks caused the water to rise 
higher between them, because the river was previously wont to fill the swamps adjacent. Either 
fresh outlets must be formed for the tremendous accumulation of water somewhere above the pres- 
ent Delta, or the levees must be raised indefinitely, at an enormous cost, and with a continual dan- 
ger of breaking away. His remedy proposed for the navigation of the Ohio seemed to be the most 
natural, the most secure, and the cheapest, as well as the most beneficial to apply to the Missis- 
sippi. He advocated the building of dams on the Ohio or other tributaries, to improve their nav- 
igation and secure the lower valley from inundation, and urged Congress to adopt the work for the 
general benefit of the country.”—Harper’s Magazine, vol. xxxii., p. 297. 


wy 


* was able to keep on her course. 


1862.] 


his grave in the waters of the Mississippi, which he discovered, than that 
both the Ellets, father and son, perished in the attempt to secure, by their 
warlike invention of rams, that very navigation which the father had sought 
to improve by peaceful measures for so many years.’ 

After the seizure of the Norfolk Navy Yard, and when uneasiness had 
been aroused by the report that the Confederates were converting frigates 
and steamers into iron-clad rams, Ellet appreciated the threatened danger, 
and in a printed memorial to Congress, dated Georgetown, February 6, 1862, 
a month, before the appearance of the Merrimac, he gave the government a 
warning as to the consequences which might ensue upon the appearance of 
these Confederate rams? The government listened to this final appeal, 
though it was not until the appearance of the Merrimac, and the events 
which followed had fully vindicated Ellet’s judgment, that the latter was 
summoned to the aid of Secretary Stanton. Foote was at this time very 
anxious on account of Confederate rams on the Mississippi, and he knew he 
had no vessels which could meet these rams on equal terms. Here was an 
opportunity to test Hllet’s favorite project. He was sent West by Secretary 
Stanton with authority to purchase and convert into rams such vessels as 
he should deem suited to his purposes. With a colonel’s commission, he set 
out on the 26th of March. At Pittsburg he purchased five powerful tow- 
boats, the Lioness, Samson, Mingo, 
Fulton, and Homer. The hulls were 
strengthened, the bows filled with sol- 
id timber, the boilers protected by a 
double tier of oak twenty-four inch- 
es thick, and the pilot-house plated 
against musketry. At Cincinnati he 
purchased four side-wheel steamers 
of great power, as being more readily 
handled in the strong current of the 
Mississippi—the Queen of the West, 
Monarch, Switzerland, and Lancaster. 
But for Colonel Ellet’s extraordinary 
personal influence he would never 
have been able to obtain men for his 
rams, although he had permission to 
recruit from the army. The project 
was deemed not only a visionary, but 
a perilous one. His brother, Alfred 
W. Ellet, then a captain in the Fifty- 
ninth [hnois, brought his own com- 
pany, with another from the Sixty-third Illinois, and met the boats at Cairo. 
For firemen Ellet was mainly indebted to negroes. . 


CITARLES ELLET. 


ee ee Ee a ee a eee eee 

* In order that the reader may fully comprehend Mr. Ellet’s connection with steam rams pre- 
vious to the war, we transcribe a few paragraphs from the article in Harper’s Magazine, already re- 
ferred to: 

“Tt was in the winter of 1854-5, at Lausanne, in Switzerland, that home of wandering savans, 
during the siege of Sebastopol, when the Russians spoke of sinking their splendid fleet, that Mr. 
Ellet first revolved in his mind the plan of protecting and strengthening war yessels, so that they 
might be used as rams; that thus, instead of sinking their fleet, the Russians might sink that of 
the allies, and raise the blockade of the harbor. In December, probably, he wrote to the Rus- 
sian government, giving a detailed statement of his plan, which was thankfully received, but, in 
consequence of the death of the emperor soon after, was overlooked and never acted upon. In the 
following April (26th) he addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, through Mr. John Y. Mason, 
our minister at Paris, with the same propositions. These, with a reply and rejoinder from our 
Navy Department, were afterward published (Richmond, 1855) in pamphlet form, and circulated 
widely both in the South and in Kurope. We were at that time slightly menaced with war with 
England on the Right of Search question. 

‘‘In his prefatory note, dated Richmond, December 1, 1855, Mr. Ellet says : 

‘«¢ People are accustomed to regard the art of naval warfare as the art of manceuyring cannon, 
and throwing shot and shell. I wish them to reflect upon the power of a moving steam-boat 
driven against the enemy who has no means of resistance but his batteries, and to decide which 
is the more certain warfare. I wish, therefore, to compare the number of fighting steamers which 
may be sent to any port in the United States from the shores of Europe with the number of river 
steamers, coasting steamers, steam-tugs, and even ferry-boats, which might be found ready to meet 
them here.’ 

‘*This remarkable pamphlet, upon which must be based his claims to the paternity of the steam 
ram, is so forcible and explicit, that it should be given entire did space allow. Like all he ever 
wrote, it is clear, earnest, well reasoned, and nervous in style. He says: 

‘¢*My plan is simply to convert the steamer into a battering-ram, and to enable her to fight, not 
with her guns, but with her momentum. In short,I propose to strengthen the steamer through- 
out in the most substantial manner, so that she may run head on into the enemy, or burst in his 
ribs, or drive a hole into his hull below the water-line. A hole only two feet square, four feet un- 
der water, will sink an ordinary frigate in sixteen minutes.’ 

‘*He then minutely details the altering or building of ships for his purpose. And then he adds: 

***T have read accounts of five or six accidental collisions at sea in the last six months—some- 
times by steamers running into sailing vessels, and sometimes by sailing vessels running into steam- 
ers—and in eyery case the vessel struck in the waist was sunk, and the vessel which ran into her 
For harbor defense, however much we may continue to build 
and arm forts and batteries, I think we should not neglect also to build floating batteries—rams— 
great steamers, as near shot and shell proof as they can be made, with a strength of hull, speed, 
and power that will enable them to crush in the side of a man-of-war by simple collision. 

“*To my understanding, the efficacy of the plan which I recommend is self-evident. And I 
hold myself ready to carry it out in all its details whenever the day arrives that the United States is 
about to become engaged in a naval contest.’ 

“To this letter the following remarkable answer was returned: 

‘¢* Navy Department, Washington, D. C., March 21, 1855. 

“¢«Str,—The receipt of your letter of the 25th ult. is acknowledged, and the Department ten- 
ders you its thanks for the views expressed therein. The suggestion to convert steamers into bat- 
tering-rams, and, by the momentum, make them a means of sinking an enemy’s ships, was pro- 
posed as long ago as 1832, and has been renewed many times since by various officers of the navy. 
No practical test has been undertaken; but with the necessary speed, strength, and weight, a large 
steamer on the plan proposed by you would introduce an entire change in naval warfare. 

‘**Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
““*CuarLes W. We tcu, Acting Secretary of the Navy.’ 


“In reply to this, Mr. Ellet, on the 16th of August, sent another letter to the Navy Department, 
through Mr. Buchanan, then our minister in London, in which letter he still more strenuously 
urges the adoption of his plan. The Secretary of the Navy, J. C. Dobbin, in a very courteous re- 
ply, dismissed the subject, stating that the Department had no power, but by special vote of Con- 
gress, ‘to undertake the construction of proper vessels and machinery for experimenting.’ 

“In the letter which elicited this last reply Mr. Ellet discusses the objections which are likely to 
be raised against his plan, such as that his own vessel might be sunk or hopelessly damaged in en- 
gine or vital parts by the collision or by hostile shot. With our late remarkable experience we 
can see that these objections fall to the ground. But from the data before him he reasoned cor- 
rectly that the danger from collision would be immensely against the vessel struck; and in the 
danger from shot, he entered into a nice calculation of the probabilities of a vessel being struck in 
a vital part, between the points of extreme range and that of close contact, by which he showed 
that the chances were reduced to an inappreciable fraction. 


, 5R 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


433 


We turn now from the Mississippi 
squadron, which before the end of 
1862 numbered about 80 vessels — 
gun-boats, rams, mortar- boats, and 
side- wheel steamers—to Farragut’s 
fleet, which, after the fall of New Or- 
leans, occupied the Lower Mississippi. 
This fleet consisted of two parts: ves- 
sels of the West Gulf squadron, and 
Admiral D. D. Porter’s mortar flotil- 
la? At the close of 1861 the entire 
Gulf squadron numbered 21 vessels, 
with 282 guns and 1000 men. This 
squadron was divided into an Eastern 
and Western, February 21,1862. The 
former was under the command of 
Flag-officer McKean, who was relieved 
June 4, 1862, by acting Rear-admiral 
Lardner, who was shortly succeeded by Commodore Theodorus Bailey. The 
limits of this eastern squadron comprised the southern and western portions 
of the Florida coast, commencing at Cape Canaveral and extending to Pen- 
sacola. Westward from and including Pensacola, the West Gulf squadron 
extended to the Rio Grande. This latter was a very important command, 
for two reasons: first, on account of the operations against New Orleans, 
which had been contemplated ever since the early autumn of 1861; and, sec- 
ondly, on account of the importance of the blockade in this quarter, within 
the limits of which were included the ocean outlets of the Mississippi Valley. 
David G. Farragut, then captain, afterward admiral, vice-admiral, and finally 
Admiral of the United States Navy, was wisely chosen to command this de- 


CHARLES RIVERS ELLET. 


‘When we consider how the allied fleet bombarded the fortress of Sweaborg, defended by about 
800 guns, for the space of forty-five hours, without suffering the loss of a single man by the ene- 
my’s shot, ‘in consequence of the continual movement of the ships,’ as the Russian general al- 
leged, and as we also recall some very remarkable engagements of onr own in the late war, we 
may appreciate the prevision of our advocate. ‘The bombardment of Port Royal and the experi- 
ence of blockade-runners confirm the result of his calculations. 

‘* Among the cases of accidental collisions cited are several remarkable ones, all tending to the 
support of his theory. The well-known sinking of the Arctic by the Vesta, with great. loss of life; 
the Wellington, of 131 guns, damaged by a sailing ship; the Imperatrice, steamer, sunk almost 
immediately by the schooner Commerce ; the Victoria, ship, sunk in two minutes by a small Sar- 
dinian steamer ; the brigantine Henry, run into by a diminutive steamer and lost immediately. 

**In 1842, the Hudson River steamer Empire, coming into New York with a new pilot on a 
misty morning, ran fairly into a new wharf with the full power of the engine, forcing the bow of 
the boat through the timber facing of logs eightcen inches square, then through a solid stone fill- 
ing eight and a half feet thick, and then through earth and rubbish seventeen feet farther, making 
a chasm of twelve feet wide at the logs, twenty-seven feet long, and seventeen feet deep. The 
only injury sustained by the boat was the breaking of one of her oblique braces and a slight leak 
at the stem. 

‘‘Now, if such is the effect of a frail river steamer upon an object of this sort, what must be ex- 
pected of a vessel built and armed for the very purpose of a ram? There is another example, 
memorable for the tragical, mysterious manner in which it occurred. It may be recollected that, 
a few years ago, an American vessel, with an English captain, was hired, it is supposed, to run 
down a Russian ship of war in the Baltic. He strengthened his bows with solid timber, and fol- 
lowed the war vessel out of St. Petersburg, and in the gray of dawn next morning, when near the 
Categat, while his crew were asleep or below decks, he took the helm himself and ran into the 
Russian ship with the power of sails merely, and instantaneously sunk her with her crew of three 
hundred souls. 

*“«*The practical conclusion,’ says Mr. Ellet, ‘to be drawn from these facts is apparent. If ves- 
sels built for ordinary commercial purposes, and propelled either by steam or sail, invariably sink 
the vessel they strike with their bow when running with any considerable velocity, while them- 
selves receiving but little injury from the collision, it follows, of necessity and @ fortiori, that a 
steamer expressly designed for such conflict, well fortified at the bow, strongly built throughout, 
divided longitudinally and centrally by a solid partition reaching from kelson to deck and from 
stem to stern, and transversely by other partitions, separating the hull into six or eight water-tight 
compartments, and horizontally by one or more partitions or floors, of which one shall be below 
the water-line when light—I say it follows of necessity that such a vessel, skillfully framed and 
properly fastened, may be driven at high speed against any ship of ordinary construction in the 
certainty that the ship struck will go down and the battering ship float.’ 

‘* All this, which is familiar knowledge to us in 1865, was foreseen and reasoned out in 1855. 
At that time Mr. Ellet was living in Richmond. His views, as set forth by his pamphlet, addresses 
to Congress, and by conversation and newspaper communications, were all well known. Here, 
indeed, is the germ of the idea wrought out but partially by the rebels after their seizure of the 
navy yard at Norfolk. To the suggestion that the enemy could strengthen his ships, and meet 
them ram with ram, it is only necessary to add that this is a fundamental condition of all civil- 
ized warfare, and will occur under every species of construction, armament, or defense.” 

2 We make the following extract from this memorial; 

“Steam Rams.—lIt is not generally known that the rebels now have five steam rams nearly 
ready for use. Of these, two are on the Lower Mississippi, two are at Mobile, and one is at Nor- 
folk. The last of the five is doubtless the most formidable, being the steam frigate Merrimac, 
which has been so strengthened that, in the opinion of the rebels, it may be used asaram. But 
we have not yet a single vessel at sea, nor, so far as I know, in course of construction, able to cope 
with a well-built ram. If the Merrimac is permitted to escape from the Elizabeth River, she will 
be almost certain to commit great depredation on our armed or unarmed vessels in Hampton 
Roads, and may even be expected to pass out under the guns of Fortress Monroe and prey upon 
our commerce in Chesapeake Bay. Indeed, if the alterations have been skillfully made, and she 
succeed in getting to sea, she will not only be a terrible scourge to our commerce, but may prove 
also to be a most dangerous visitor to our blockading squadron off the harbors of our Southern 
coasts. 

‘*T have attempted to call the attention of the Navy Department and of the country so often to 
this subject during the last seven years that I almost hesitate to allude to it again, and would not 
do so here but that I think the danger from these tremendous engines is very imminent, but not at 
all appreciated.” 

5 Farragnt’s fleet was constituted thus : 


Steam-sloops. Steam-stloop. Mortar Fleet. 
Hartiords: ss sscce: 24 guns. BiclOlaseycscvdees vene 4 guns. H. Beals. 
Richmond.......... 26.5 °° Sailing-sloop. J. Griffith. 
Pensacola......+-.s b4 <6 Portsmouth....... trie MS Racer. 

Brooklyn tvoceseas, Cel Mortar Fleet. S. Bruen. 
Mississippi ......... 1162 Norfolk Packet. H. Jones. 
Colorado::, 2.5;..+- DAS fees Arletta. Dan. Smith. 

Gin-boats. Sophronia. Vessels accompanying Mortars. 
TV OQUOISs000<0-0000 oes Para. Harrict Lane...... 4 guns. 
ONEIDA ey aaccs pr saek he C. P. Williams. Madmiciostee sacs eg se 
VATUNL sossicrerececs Pee O. H. Lee. Wrestfields vccissccc 6G vt 
CAVOS A sscaceveresss Gia s W. Bacon. Cliftorispireseenie css eh 
Winduaentwenrae an att T. A. Ward. Unetevnciecetsce iy by 
Katahdin........... i Toes’ A. Dugel. QOwaseo..Avea cess bat 
Ttaska ny ccdceta sheer 4 M. Vassar. OctOraras:cdecs0- tin 
Kn O\cosses seneecaxs fy ays C. Mungham. Sea Foam.......... iy ee 
Wissahickon....... 4 % M. J. Carlton. A. Houghton...... Bs ukk 
Pinolassccsscnecsss 7 he S. C. Jones. Coast Survey Vessel. 
Kennebec........... 4.558 Orvetta. Sachem............. 5S 


The Octorara did not arrive until after the capture of New Orleans. Each of the mortar-boats 
mounted a bomb and two guns. Some of the vessels accompanying the mortars were only armed 
tugs. 


434 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [1862, 


partment. After July 11 Pensacola became the 
great naval dépét for the West Gulf squadron. 

Farragut sailed from Hampton Roads to take the 
command on February 2, 1862, and, arriving at Ship 
Island on the 20th, began to organize his fleet. Two 
months were consumed in these preparations, the 
greatest difficulty being encountered in landing the 
vessels of heavy draught. After every effort had 
been made, the Colorado and the Wabash could not 
be got over the bar. The entire fleet sent against 
New Orleans, including the vessels withdrawn from 
the blockade, consisted of 48 vessels, with about 800 
guns and 20 bombs. Porter’s mortar flotilla had 
been organized at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the 
winter of 1861-2, and performed a very important 
part in the opening of the Mississippi. In Farra- 
| AAA Hi com 3 Hh NK | gut’s entire fleet there was not a single iron-clad 
ih Hy, eT a, Hi ANIL vessel. 
| | SSAct Til pease ARAN | The most brilliant naval period of the war — if 
the brilliancy of naval operations depend upon their 
success in actual engagement with the enemy’s ships 
and forts—is comprised within the brief space of 
four months, beginning February 6, and ending 
June 6, 1862. Yet this was far from being the pe 
riod of our greatest naval strength. Very much 
stronger expeditions were fitted out afterward, but 
they failed of success, except in one or two in- 
stances.’ 

Let us review the brief, but eventful and satisfac- 
tory record of these four months. The capture of 
Fort Henry, February 6, was the first of a series of 
victories on the Western rivers that aroused the 
nation from a situation, if not of doubt, at least of a 
negative sort of confidence, to one of positive hope 
and courage. The capture of Donelson ten days 
later, though it could scarcely be called a naval vic- 
tory, still derived a large measure of its importance 
from its bearings upon the progress of naval opera- 
tions. It gave us command of the Cumberland, as 
the victory at Fort Henry had given us command 
of the Tennessee. It was followed, within the space 
of a fortnight, by the evacuation of Columbus and 
Nashville. The Confederates held New Madrid un- 
til March 14, when their communications had been 
cut off by General Pope. In the capture of Island 
No.10, April 7, the army under Pope, and the naval 
squadron under Foote, had an equal share. Here 
there was no battle, but there were captured nearly 
7000 prisoners and a large amount of war material, 
including 100 siege-guns. The crossing of Pope’s 
force to the rear of the enemy, on the west side of 
the Mississippi, by the aid of the gun-boats, had se- 
cured the victory without the loss of a single man. 

Before the close of April, Farragut, with his fleet, 
had steamed past Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and, 
arriving before New Orleans, held the city under his 
guns. Lovell’s fleet had been disposed of in a short 
but sharp conflict during the passage by the forts. 
This was purely a naval victory. New Orleans was 
conquered by Farragut, and the forts surrendered to 
Admiral Porter, commanding the mortar fleet. But- 
| ler’s army, numbering about 14,000 men, became an 
Nh eel iy 7A | army of occupation. ‘T'he capture of New Orleans 
j i Au : sli iH} \\\ 1 It would be unfair to infer that because our navy was not al- 

d = : i ways successful in these gigantic expeditions, that it ceased, after 
the period we have indicated, to be an important element in the 
war. Our blockading squadrons were from the first indispensable 
to success. If the monitors accomplished little in actual service, 
they were none the less a security against foreign intervention. 
The extent of our iron-clad fleet made it useless for the Confeder- 
ates to organize a fleet of any sort. Though the Confederates could 
construct forts which baftled our fleets, yet the latter, co-operating 


with the army, were of the greatest service, of which service one of 
the most memorable instances was the capture of Fort Fisher. And 


ADMIRAL PORTER'S MORTAR FLEET. 


the instances are not a few in which our armies were sayed from 
disaster by the presence of gun-boats. ‘Two or three of the inferior 
gun-boats of the Mississippi squadron, in several important Western 
battles, were of greater value than an entire military division could 
have been. At Belmont, the Tyler and Lexington saved Grant’s 
army from defeat. At Pittsburg Landing, the same gun-boats, if 
they did not save the first day’s battle, at least, by the moral effect 
of their presence, rendered the defeat far less disastrous than it 
might otherwise have been. On February 4, 1863, the Lexington, 
assisted by the A. S. Robb and other boats, repulsed 4500 Confeder- 
ates at Dover, Tennessee. At Helena, five months later, the Tyler 
enabled an inferior national force to hold the position against an 
attack which, under other circumstances, might possibly have suc- 
ceeded. In the same month (July), at Bluflington Island, Indiana, 
John Morgan’s force was terribly cut up by the Alleghany, Naum- 
keag, and three other boats. Although the navy, acting alone, 
was unable to capture Vicksburg, it not only rendered some of the 
most brilliant feats of General Grant’s campaign against that post 
possible, but also, after the victory, secured the permanent possession 
of the river far more effectively than a reserve force of one hundred 
thousand men could have done. It was due to our great naval 
strength alone that, after the termination of the Vicksburg cam- 
paign, the Confederates were compelled to adopt the line of defense | 
running eastward and southward from Chattanooga, keeping aloof 
from the great Western rivers. 


ey 


aD 
Ih 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


TSE 


BZ 
A, 
——_ 


BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE BASIN OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 


436 


CHARLES H. DAVIS. 


was, thus far, the most substantial triumph of the war. It was to the South 
a greater disaster, comparatively, than the loss of New York City would 
have been to the North. 

In the mean time, Foote was engaged in an expedition against Fort Pil- 
low, which he had undertaken directly after the surrender of Island No. 10. 
But Pope’s army abandoned him April 17th, to join the army moving upon 
Corinth, and left him helpless. Early in May, this gallant naval officer, 
still suffering from his wound, was, at his own request, relieved, and the 
command of the Mississippi squadron was assigned to Captain C. H. Davis. 
A little more than a year after his resignation of this command Admiral 
Foote died, while making preparations to depart for Charleston, to relieve 
Admiral Dupont. The day after Davis assumed the command—May 10— 
the Confederate fleet at Memphis came up the river and engaged the squad- 
ron, but withdrew, defeated, after an hour’s fight, having, however, succeeded 
in badly crippling the Cincinnati and the Mound City. The evacuation of 
Corinth gave us Fort Pillow without a battle, June 4, and the next day the 
city of Memphis was surrendered. 

But before the surrender of Memphis there was a spirited conflict with 
Montgomery’s fleet. Davis left Fort Pillow, June 5, with a fleet of nine 
boats—five gun-boats, two tugs, and two of Colonel Ellet’s rams, the Queen 
of the West and the Monarch. Montgomery, with his eight boats, had 
threatened to ‘send Lincoln’s gun-boats to the bottom,” and the inhabitants 
of Memphis gathered upon the hill-side to witness this expected catastrophe. 
The fight which followed has already been described in a previous chapter. 
It was here that Ellet redeemed all the promises which he had made for his 
rams. The two rams alone could have sunk the entire fleet.1 Colonel 


1 “While the engagement,” writes Captain Davis, ‘‘was going on in this manner, two ves- 
sels of the ram-fleet, under command of Colonel Ellet, steamed rapidly by us, and ran boldly 
into the enemy’s line. Several conflicts had taken place between the rams before the flotilla (of 
gun-boats), led by the Benton, moying at a slower rate, could arrive at the closest quarters. In 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1862, 


Ellet in person commanded the Queen of the West, which was his flag-ship. 
His brother, Alfred Ellet, commanded the Monarch. During the progress 
of the fight, Colonel Ellet, stepping out upon the forward part of the deck 
to observe the effect of a blow which he had given the Lovell, and which 
was sinking the latter, received a bullet in his knee. The wound proved to 
be a dangerous one, and amputation became necessary; but the colonel re- 
sisted stoutly, declaring that “the life should go first.” T'wo weeks after 
the battle he was conveyed to Cairo on one of his rams—the Switzerland— 
and died on reaching the wharf on the morning of June 21. He left his 
brother Alfred in command of the ram fleet. 

After the capture of Memphis, four of the gun-boats, with an Indiana 
regiment under Colonel Fitch, were dispatched to the White River to open 
communication with General Curtis, who had advanced to Batesville. Some 
batteries were carried at St. Charles, but the main object of the expedition 
was not accomplished, and General Curtis, in order to find a base of opera- 
tions, was obliged to transfer his army from Batesville to Helena, on the 
Mississippi. 

Meanwhile Farragut’s fleet had been advancing up the river. The Iro- 
quois, under Commander Palmer, arrived off Baton Rouge May 7. The au- 
thorities, ordered to surrender, indulged in the same mock-heroic nonsense 
which the mayor and council of New Orleans had been indulging in the 
week before. They were determined that the city of Baton Rouge should 
not “be surrendered voluntarily to any power on earth.” There was no 
military foree, the mayor added, in the city, and its possession by the Feder- 
als “must be without the consent and against the wish of the peaceable in- 
habitants.” He declined to hoist the national flag because it was “ offensive 
to the sensibilities of the people.” Palmer, ‘determined to submit to no 
such nonsense,” took possession of the arsenal, barracks, and other public 
property of the United States. No resistance was offered. In a note to 
Mayor Bryan, on the 9th, Palmer informed him that he had taken posses- 
sion of the arsenal, and hoisted over it the United States flag, and added: 
‘“ War is a sad calamity, and often inflicts severer wounds than those upon 
the sensibilities. I therefore trust I may be spared from resorting to any 
of its dire extremities; but I warn you, Mr. Mayor, that this flag must re- 
main unmolested, though I have no force on shore to protect it. The rash 
act of some individual may cause your city to pay a bitter penalty.” Far- 
ragut, having come up on May 10, continued the mayor in office, and encour- 
aged the employment which the latter had already made of the foreign 
corps as a police guard for the maintenance of good order. Baton Rouge 
was the first place of importance above New Orleans, from which it was dis- 
tant about 140 miles. It was situated on a plateau 40 or 50 feet above high 
water, on the east bank of the river; was the capital of Louisiana, and had 
a population, in 1860, of 5498. 

Fifteen miles above Baton Rouge is Natchez, in Mississippi. This place 
Palmer, with the Iroquois and other gun-boats, reached on the 12th. He 
addressed a note to the mayor, which the citizens at the landing refused to 
receive. Palmer then seized a ferry-boat which was loading with coal, put 
aboard of it a force of seamen, a few marines, and two howitzers, and sent 
the expedition across the river, with orders to seé that the mayor received 
the note. But there was no occasion to land this force, as two members of 
the Common Council were already in waiting with the mayor’s apology. 
Mayor Hunter submitted to the necessities of the situation, if not with re- 
markable grace, at least without any heroic bluster. But Natchez was of 


the mean time, however, the firing from the gun-boats was continuous, and exceedingly well di- 
rected. The General Beauregard and the Little Rebel were struck in the boilers and blown up. 

‘‘The ram, Queen of the West, which Colonel Ellet commanded in person, encountered with 
full power the rebel steamer General Lovell, and sunk her, but in so doing sustained pretty seri- 
ous damage. Up to this time the rebel fleet had maintained its position, and used its guns with 
great spirit. These disasters compelled the remaining vessels to resort to their superiority in 
speed as the only means of safety. A running fight took place, which lasted nearly an hour, and 
carried us ten miles below the city. The attack made by the two rams under Colonel Ellet, which 
took place before the flotilla closed in with the enemy, was bold and successful.” 


willl 


NATOHEZ UPON THE HILL, 


’ 


May, 1862.] 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


437 


NATCHEZ UNDER TUE HILL. 


little military importance, and had never been occupied by any military 
force; it was therefore abandoned. 

Thus far no resistance had been encountered by the fleet since the cap- 
ture of New Orleans. It was therefore somewhat of a surprise, doubtless, 
to S. P. Lee, commanding the advanced naval division of Farragut’s squad- 
ron, when, on May 18, in reply to his demand for the surrender of Vicks- 
burg, he received the defiant response, ‘“ Mississippians don’t know, and re- 
fuse to learn, how to surrender to an enemy. If Commodore Farragut or 
General Butler can teach them, let them come and try!” Such, indeed, was 
the answer returned to the demand by James L. Antry, military governor 
and colonel commanding the post. M. L. Smith, a brigadier general in com- 
mand of the military defenses of Vicksburg, replied, on his own account, 
that he had been ordered to hold the defenses, and that it was his intention 
to do so as long as it was in his power. L. Lindsay, mayor of the city, add- 
ed his refusal to that of the military authorities. ‘As far as the municipal 
authorities are concerned,” he said, “ we have erected no defenses, and none 
are within the corporative limits of the city.” Phillips, on the 21st, gave 
Mayor Lindsay notice to remove the women and children of Vicksburg be- 
yond the reach of his guns, as any attack upon the defenses must injure or 
destroy the town. This notice was given by Phillips for the purpose of 
placing it at his own option whether he should fire or not immediately upon 
the expiration of the truce. 
ever, did not make an attack. 

Above and below Vicksburg the river was now entirely in the possession 
of the national forces, A co-operating military force only half as large as 
that which secured the victories at New Madrid and Island No. 10 could at 
this time have compelled the surrender of Vicksburg, and opened the Mis- 
sissippi from Cairo to New Orleans. But the whole available military force 
in the West was then being collected together against Beauregard’s army at 
Corinth. Even Curtis’s force in Arkansas had been so, far reduced for this 
purpose that it was unable to assume the offensive. From General Butler’s 
department no troops could be spared, since, after garrisoning Forts Jackson 
and St. Philip, Ship Island and Baton Rouge, there was left a force barely 
sufficient to defend New Orleans against such an attack as might be ex- 
pected. : 

But for Vicksburg—an obstacle which was not overcome for nearly four- 
teen months—the river, we have said, was completely possessed. But armed 
vessels and transports, passing up and down, were frequently annoyed by 
attacks from guerrillas and concealed batteries. Porter, on his way up 
the river with the mortars, was thus attacked at Ellis’s Bluffs on June 3. 


o | 


And thus the matter rested. Phillips, how- 


Whenever these attacks were made in the vicinity of towns, it was found 
necessary to retaliate by holding the inhabitants responsible; and if they 
were repeated, the villages or towns, as the case might be, were in some in- 
stances destroyed. Natchez, Grand Gulf, and Donaldsonville, in the course 
of the year, suffered severely from punishments inflicted upon them in this 
way. The most serious collision of this nature took place early in June, at 
Grand Gulf. The Confederates were just then beginning to fortify that 
place, and Commander Palmer, fearing that the passage down the river 
might be obstructed, sent down the Wissahickon and Itaska, under Com- 
mander De Camp, to reduce the newly-erected batteries. These vessels ar- 
rived off Grand Gulf on the morning of June 9, when they were attacked 
from the shore with rifled and other cannon. After an action of two hours, 
in which the gun-boats were quite roughly handled, one of them being 
hulled seventeen and the other twenty-five times, the batteries were silenced. 
On the vessels one man was killed and five wounded. Palmer then de- 
cided to bring down the rest of the squadron from below Vicksburg. His 
position was one of some difficulty. The batteries above him were manned 
by a force of 500 artillerists. Their position upon the hill seemed to protect 
them against serious injury, and the gun-boats had much to fear from their 
plunging fire. He did not dare to leave a few vessels only at Vicksburg. 
He expected that at any moment the iron-clad ram Arkansas might come 
down from the Yazoo. Fort Pillow, too, had just been evacuated; and, not 
aware of the destruction of the Confederate fleet at Memphis, he feared that 
the vessels of that fleet might, in conjunction with the Arkansas, attempt a 
raid against his little squadron. The fortifications of Vicksburg were daily 
being strengthened by the arrival of new guns and ammunition. His gun- 
boats were “‘all of them in a most crippled condition ;” the sick-list had 
largely increased ; the time of the men on the Colorado had expired; he 
was almost out of both coal and provisions, and had little oil left for his en- 
gines. ‘ Unless supplies come up,” he writes, June 10, “we can not stay 
here a week longer.” 

Palmer sent the Katahdin and Itaska down as far as to the mouth of 
Red River to discover if there were any more of those formidable obstacles 
in the shape of batteries in process of erection, and on the afternoon of the 
10th dropped down and shelled the Grand Gulf batteries for an hour. This 
effected nothing, and he determined, in case of the repetition of an attack 
from the shore, to burn the town. The attack was repeated, and the town 
was burned.? 


1 Captain Craven, of the Brooklyn, passing up the river a week afterward, reports that he was 
molested nowhere on his route from Baton Rouge to Vicksburg. Speaking of Grand Gulf, he 
says: “The town there was in ruins, having been first riddled by shot and then destroyed by fire. 
On a small hill just to the right of the town was a small earthwork, which had been but recently 
thrown up, and was capable of receiying three or four field-pieces. This work, as well as the 

town, was entirely deserted.” 

Grand Gulf had been fired upon previously, on which occasion Lieutenant Commander FE. T. 
Nichols, of the Winona, had notified the Mayor of Rodney, a few miles below, that a similar pun- 
ishment would be visited upon that place in the event of the batteries in that vicinity firing upon 
the national vessels. This notification led to the following correspondence : 


[No. 1.] 
** Jackson, Mississippi, June 12, 1862. 

‘¢Srr,—I have the honor to inclose a copy of a letter received by the Mayor of Rodney, notify- 
ing him, in substance, that if the vessels of the United States Navy are fired upon by our troops 
from or near the town, vengeance will be taken upon the women and children, or, as the writer is 
pleased to term it, ‘ punishment for the offense will be visited upon the town;’ and this, too, that 
‘we are not here to war upon unarmed and peaceable citizens.’ 

‘¢ Where two nations are at war, it has been customary, among civilized people, ‘ to punish the 
offense’ of an attack by the armed forces of one upon those of the other by a combat with the at- 
tacking party. If such attack be made from a town, the assaulting party is not entitled to, and, 
so far as our troops are concerned, does not claim, any immunity by reason of the presence of 
women and children. What we do claim, however, and insist upon, is, that when your vessels or 
transports are fired upon by our troops, they shall not hasten to the nearest collection of unarmed 
and peaceable women and children, and wreak their vengeance upon them, as was done lately at 
Grand Gulf by United States vessels in retaliation for an attack with which the town had nothing 
more to do than had the city of St. Louis. 

‘«My batteries are located at such points upon the river as are deemed best suited for the de- 
sired purposes, and without reference to or connection with the people of the town. Should the 
site happen to fall within a village, you, of course, are at liberty to return the fire. Should it be 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [JUNE, 1862.° 


—~ 
i) 
fon) 


Vicksburg, which, as regards heroic and obstinate resistance to the na- 
tional arms, held almost equal rank with Richmond and Charleston, lies in 
the State of Mississippi, on the east bank of the river, 400 miles above New 
Orleans, and about the same distance from Cairo. Its commercial import- 
ance is due to its location in the midst of the great cotton-growing coun- 
try along the Yazoo. It is connected with Jackson, the state capital, by 
railroad; and from De Soto, on the opposite bank, a railroad, running 
to Monroe, drains the land commerce of Northern Louisiana. It is the 
most important, and, at the same time, the most defensible military position 
on the Mississippi. At the time of the capture of New Orleans, this fact 
was little appreciated on either side.1 The population of Vicksburg, before 
the war, was, in round numbers, 5000. The town, situated on the shelving 
declivity of high hills, with its dwellings scattered in groups on the ter- 
races, presents a very picturesque appearance. 

On the 20th of June, a month after the first appearance of Farragut’s 
fleet off Vicksburg, Brigadier General Thomas Williams left Baton Rouge 
with a large portion of the garrison which had been there posted, and in 
four days’ time reached a position on the peninsula opposite Vicksburg. He 
had only four regiments and eight field-guns. The force defending Vicks- 
burg at this time consisted of about 10,000 men.? General Williams imme- 
diately set about constructing a canal across the narrow neck of the penin- 
sula, on the Louisiana side, which, if successful, would throw Vicksburg and 
its defenses six miles inland. Of this we shall have more to say hereafter 
in connection with the projects for getting a position to the rear of the city. 
Porter’s mortar fleet of sixteen vessels had in the mean while moved up the 
river to Vicksburg. It was now proposed that a junction should be effect- 
ed between Farragut’s fleet and that under Davis’s command, as preliminary 
to as formidable an attempt against the city as it was possible for this com- 
bined naval force to make. 

In two or three instances already the national vessels had run the gaunt- 
let of Confederate batteries on the Mississippi. The Carondelet on the 
4th, and the Pittsburg on the 6th of April, had run past the enemy’s fortifi- 
cations on Island No. 10. In the latter part of the same month, Farragut, 
with nearly his entire fleet, passed Forts Jackson and St. Philip. He did 
not, therefore, reckon it an enterprise of very great magnitude or peril to 
run the Vicksburg blockade. It is not likely that he anticipated any very 
important results from this operation. He knew well enough that batteries 
could be passed with much greater ease than they could be taken. But he 
had been ordered by the Navy Department and the President to do some- 
thing against Vicksburg, and was disposed to strike the heaviest blow pos- 
sible with the force he had in hand; and on the night of the 27th of June 
he had every thing in readiness for the undertaking. The order was given 
for a movement the next morning. Porter, who had got his mortar fleet 
and his gun-boats in an advantageous position, and who had been for the 
past two days employed in ascertaining the range of the enemy’s works, 
was to open fire upon the latter at four o’clock A.M. THe was to perform a 
part similar to that which had been assigned him at New Orleans—that is, 
he was to stand still and engage the enemy’s batteries, while Farragut 
should pass them with his fleet. This fleet of Farragut’s consisted of the 


OF VICKSBUBG FROM THE RIVER. 


VIEW 


in the vicinity of one, however, the usages of civilized warfare do not justify its destruction, unless 
demanded by the necessities of attack or defense. 

“T can not bring myself to believe that the barbarous and cowardly policy indicated in the in- 
closed letter will meet with the approval of any officer of rank or standing in the United States 
Navy. I have, therefore, thought proper to transmit it to you under a flag of truce, with the con- 
fident expectation that you will direct those under your command to confine their offensive oper- 
ations as far as possible to our troops, and forbid the wanton destruction of defenseless towns, filled 
with unoffending non-combatants, unless required by imperious military necessity. 

“The practice of slaying women and children as an act of retaliation has happily fallen into 
disuse in this country with the disappearance of the Indian tribes, and I trust it will not be re- 
vived by the officers of the United States Navy, but that the demolition and pillage of the unof- 
fending little village of Grand Gulf may be permitted to stand alone and without parallel upon 


record. M. Lovet, Major General Commanding. 
** Commanding Officer Unitéd States Navy, Mississippi River, near Baton Rouge.” 


[No. 2.] 
“ Baton Rouge, June 17, 1862. 

‘¢Srr,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 12th instant, together 
with its inclosure, in which you are pleased to say that vengeance will be visited upon the women 
and children of Rodney if our vessels are fired upon from the town. Although I find no such lan- 
guage contained in the letter of Lieutenant Commanding Nichols, or even any from which such 
inference might be drawn, still I shall meet your general remark on your own terms. You say 
you locate your batteries ‘at such points on the river as are deemed best suited,’ ete., without ref- 
erence to the people of the town, and claim no immunity for your troops. Now, therefore, the vi- 
olation is with you. You choose your own time and place for an attack upon our defenseless 
people, and should therefore see that the innocent and defenseless of your own people are out of 
the way before you make the attack; for rest assured that the fire will be returned, and we will not 
hold ourselves answerable for the death of the innocent. If we have ever fired upon your ‘ wom- 
en and children,’ it was done here at Baton Rouge, when an attempt was made to kill one of our 
officers, landing in a small boat manned by four boys. They were, when in the act of landing, 
mostly wounded by the fire of some thirty or forty horsemen, who chivalrously galloped out of the 
town, leaving the women and children to bear the brunt of our vengeance. At Grand Gulf, also, 
our transports were fired upon in passing, which caused the place to be shelled, with what effect I 
know not; but I do know that the fate of a town is at all times in the hands of the military com- 
mandant, who may at pleasure draw the enemy’s fire upon it, and the community is made to suf. 
fer for the act of its military. 

“The only instance I have known where the language of your letter could possibly apply took 
place at New Orleans, on the day when we passed up in front of the city, while it was still in your 
possession, by your soldiers firing on the crowd. I trust, however, that the time is past when 
women and children will be subjected by their military men to the horrors of war; it is enough 
for them to be subjected to the incidental inconveniences, privations, and sufferings. 

‘*Tf any such things have occurred as the slaying of women and children, or innocent people, I 
feel well assured that it was caused by the act of your military, and much against the will of our 
officers ; for, as Lieutenant Commanding Nichols informs the mayor, we war not against defense- 
less persons, but against those in open rebellion against our country, and desire to limit our pun- 
ishment to them, though it may not be always in our power to do so. 

‘* Very respectfully, your obedient servant, D. G. Farragut. 
‘* Major General MANSFIELD LOVELL." 

1 So little notion was there of any farther struggle for the possession of Vicksburg, that we 
find, in an intercepted letter from Mr. Davis’s niece, dated May 7, 1862, and addressed to her 
mother in Mississippi, the following passage: ‘‘ Uncle Jeff. thinks you are safe at home, as 
there will be no resistance at Vicksburg, and the Yankees will hardly occupy it, and, even if they 
did, the army would gain nothing by marching into the country, and a few soldiers would be 
afraid to go so far into the interior.” 

2 This was Captain Craven’s estimate (Rep. Sec. Navy, Accompanying Documents, p. 309). This 
estimate tallies with that given by A. S. Abrams, one of the Vicksburg garrison. (See Abrams’s 
Siege of Vicksburg, pp. 6 and 7.) 


ia \ | 
th 


i 


a 


June, 1862.] 


three steam-sloops Brooklyn, Hartford, and 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 439 


Richmond, and the gun-boats Iroquois, Onei- 


da, Wissahickon, Sciota, Winona, Pinola, and 


Kennebec. The fleet was to form a double 
line of sailing, so that the gun-boats, advane- 
ing in the order named, should form a second 
line, and fire between the ships. The Hart- 
ford, as occasion offered, was to fire her bow 
guns on the forts at the upper end of the 
town, while the broadside batteries of all the 
ships were to be particularly directed to the 
guns in the forts below and on the heights. 
“When close enough,” ordered Farragut, 
“sive them grape.” Upon reaching the bend 
of the river, which was just above Vicks- 
burg, the Wissahickon, Sciota, Winona, and 
Pinola were in any case to continue their 
course, but the other gun-boats were to drop 
down the river again if the enemy’s batteries 
were not thoroughly silenced. 

The signal to weigh anchor was given at 
2 A.M. on the 28th. At four o'clock, as had 
been ordered, Porter opened fire from the 
mortars, and almost at the same moment 
the Confederates fired their first gun, which 


was returned by the leading vessels of the 
fleet as they came up. On Farragut’s star- 


board quarter, Porter brought up the Oc- 


torara, Westfield, Clifton, Jackson, Harriet 


Lane, and Owasco, and united in the attack. 


By the united efforts of the fleet and the mor- 
tar flotilla the Confederate guns were soon 
silenced, sometimes not replying for several minutes, and then again with 
but a single gun. The Hartford, in its attack upon the summit batteries, 
succeeded better than had been expected. The passage up the river was 
slow, the flag-ship having but eight pounds of steam, and even stopping 
once in order that the vessels in its stern might close up. The Brooklyn, 
Kennebec, and Katahdin failed to follow the flag-ship past the batteries, and 
turned back. The commanders of these vessels gave various explanations 
of this failure, but they do not seem to have been satisfactory to the com- 
mander of the fleet. The vessels which succeeded in passing received some 
injury, not of a serious character, from the upper batteries, after the latter 
had been passed, and suffered a loss in men of fifteen killed and thirty 
wounded. On the vessels which failed to pass there were no casualties, 
General Williams, on the Louisiana side, had a battery in operation during 
the action, thus affording a slight support to the flect. 

The whole significance of this bold affair is summed up in a few words by 
Admiral Farragut, namely, “that the forts can be passed; and we have 
done it, and can do it again as often as may be required of us.” And that 
was all. We can do no more, he added, than silence the batteries for a 
time, as long as the enemy has a large force behind the hills to prevent our 
landing and holding the place. He said that it was impossible to take 
Vicksburg without an army of from 12,000 to 15,000 men. Admiral Por- 
ter, in his official report of the action on the 28th, says: “It is to be regret- 
ted that a combined attack of army and navy had not been made, by which 
something more substantial might have been accomplished. Such an at- 
tack, I think, would have resulted in the capture of the city. Ships and 
mortar vessels can keep full possession of the river and places near the wa- 
ter’s edge, but they can not crawl up hills 3800 feet high, and it is that part 
of Vicksburg which must be taken by the army. If it was intended mere- 
ly to pass the batteries at Vicksburg, and make a junction with the fleet of 
Flag-officer Davis, the navy did it most gallantly and fearlessly. It was as 


"In regard to the conduct of his own men in the bombardment, Admiral Porter says: ‘They 
know no weariness, and they really seem to take a delight in mortar-firing, which is painful even 
to those accustomed to it. It requires more than ordinary zeal to stand the ordeal. Though I 


may have been at times exacting and fault-finding with them for not conforming to the rules of 
the service (which requires the education of a lifetime to learn), yet I can not withhold my ap- 
plause when I see these men working with such earnest and untiring devotion to their duties while 
under fire.” —Rep. Sec. Navy, 1862, Acc. Doc., p. 410. 


PORTER'S MORTAR FLEET IN TRIM, 


handsome a thing as has been done during the war, for the batteries to be 
passed extended full three miles, with a three-knot current against ships 
that could not make eight knots under the most favorable circumstances.” 

By six o’clock the batteries were passed, and Farragut met Lieutenant 
Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet, of the ram fleet, who had made his way down 
the river bank during the night, and who now offered to forward commu- 
nications to Flag-officer Davis, and to General Halleck, then at Memphis. 
After effecting a junction with Davis, Farragut applied to Halleck for a mil- 
itary force to co-operate in an immediate attack on Vicksburg. Halleck’s 
reply on the 8d of July was an utter disappointment. 

In the mean while Vicksburg was subjected to a bombardment from the 
mortar-boats above and below. When Farragut passed the batteries there 
were but few guns mounted.!' During the progress of the bombardment 
which followed, General Karl Van Dorn? was sent to Vicksburg, and placed 
in command over Brigadier General M. L. Smith. Soon afterward the gar- 
rison was re-enforced by Breckinridge’s brigade from Beauregard’s army. 
Van Dorn’s appointment to this post, for which he certainly had no pecul- 
iar fitness, was received by the Mississippians with enthusiastic pleasure. 
The hope of successful resistance at this point was every day growing 
brighter. It was with no little pride that the citizens of Vicksburg con- 
trasted their own position, and the fate of their city thus far, with what they 
naturally regarded the too facile surrender of other posts on the river. In 
this pride the ladies of the heroic city had their full share. On the morn- 
ing of June 28, when Farragut’s fleet was on its way past the city, and shells 
were falling like hail in the streets, crowds of these enthusiastic ladies might 
have been seen on the Court-house, the “Sky Parlor,” and other prominent 
places in the city, gazing upon “ the magnificent scene.’ 

While Vicksburg was being bombarded by mortars, Farragut and Davis 


* Abrams says only seven.—Siege Vicks., p.6. This estimate is probably considerably below 
the mark. 

* “This doughty Confederate cavalier, of Rosecrans’s class at West Point, has greatly aston- 
ished his old associates. West Point men of his time remember him as a small, handsome, mod- 
est youth, literally at the foot of his class. In Mexico he was on the staff of General P. F. Smith, 
and was very popular, for to his other qualities he added dashing bravery. His conspicuous 
course in the rebel interests at the breaking out of the war deceived them into thinking him a 
general. A good soldier he certainly was—brave, dashing, a splendid horseman, but he Jacked 
head, and was always taking his men into cuds de sacs. He died by the hand of a man who be. 
lieved he had seduced his wife.”—Coppee’s Grant and his Campaigns, p. 133. 

3 Abrams’s Siege Vicks., p. 7. 


PASSAGE OF TUE VICKSBURG BATTERIES BY FARKAGUT 8 FLERY. 


440 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


organized an expedition to ascend the Yazoo River. General Williams of- 
fered to send up a few sharp-shooters from his army to co-operate with the 
gun-boats Tyler, Carondelet, and the ram Queen of the West, which formed 
the naval part of the expedition. The object of the movement was to pro- 
cure correct information concerning the obstructions and defenses of the riv- 
er. It was known that eighty miles from the mouth there was a raft ob- 
structing the passage with a battery near it below, and above, the new Con- 
federate ram Arkansas, ‘‘a vessel represented to be well protected by iron, 
and very formidable in her battery.” To find and capture this ram was the 
most important part of the expedition. The gun-boats, early on the morn- 
ing of July 15, had scarcely passed the mouth of the Yazoo when they en- 
countered the Arkansas coming down. ‘This vessel, in her construction, re- 
sembled the Louisiana and Mississippi, destroyed at New Orleans. She was 
built at Memphis, and at the time of the capture of this place she succeeded 
in escaping up the Yazoo, while a consort of hers, built in the same man- 
ner, was destroyed. She was a sea-going steamer of 1200 tons. Her cut- 
water was a sharp, cast-iron, solid beak. She was thoroughly covered with 
T rail iron, with heavy bulwarks of thick timber, with cotton-pressed case- 
mating, impervious to shot. Her port-holes were small, with heavy iron 
shutters; all her machinery was below the water-line, and she had a bat- 
tery of ten guns. She was commanded by Isaac N. Brown, and had a 
picked crew. The gun-boats met the ram about six miles above the mouth 
of the Yazoo. They were commanded, the Carondelet by Captain H. Walke, 
the Tyler by Captain Gwin, and the ram Queen of the West by Colonel 
Alfred Ellet. When the ram was discovered, the gun-boats were proceed- 
ing at intervals of a mile apart, the Queen of the West ahead, the Tyler 
next, and the Carondelet behind. The result of a conflict with the Arkan- 
sas was, to say the least, uncertain, and all the national vessels reversed 
their course, and retreated down the river, keeping up a running fight with 


[JuLY, 1862. 


MORTAR LOATS FIRING ON VICKSLURG AT NIGHT, 


the Tyler was seen to proceed from the mouth of the Yazoo, with the Ar- 
kansas closely following. It was to Admiral Farragut a moment of sur- 
prise and of mortification. Had the event been anticipated, the fate of the 
Arkansas could have been decided in thirty minutes. As it was, the ves- 
sels of the fleet were lying with low fires, but none of them had steam, or 
could get it up in time for so instant an emergency, and the ram escaped 
without serious injury, though she received a broadside fire from all the na- 
tional vessels. The Benton, it is true, got under way and pursued the ram 
for some distance, but at her snail’s pace the pursuit seemed only less ludi- 
crous than the situation which would have followed if she had been so un- 

fortunate as to overtake and come 


into close quarters with her adver- 


sary. 


Thus far the result of the ram’s ap- 


pearance had not been seriously dis- 


astrous. Indeed, though this was not 


known at the time to her opponents, 


she was incapable of inflicting a very 


severe blow. Her smoke-stack had 


been shivered in pieces early in the 


action, and for want of steam she could 


not be used as a ram with any effect. 
The Carondelet had run ashore, her 


wheel-ropes being shot away, and 


would probably have fallen a prey 


to the Arkansas if the latter had had 


leisure for improving her opportuni- 


ty. The Tyler was partially injured. 


DAVIS'S FLEET ON ITS WAY TO JOLN FARRAGUT'S. 


the ram for about an hour. The firing was distinctly heard by both the 
squadrons in the Mississippi, and it was supposed that the gun-boats were 
engaging batteries. But the true cause of the firing became apparent when 


1 Naval Scenes on the Western Waters, p. 59. 


About thirty men on the Federal side 

were killed, wounded, or missing, and 

many of these casualties occurred among Williams’s sharp-shooters, who 

were especially exposed. The loss on the Arkansas was ten killed and 
fifteen wounded, 

Partly to support the few vessels of his fleet on the Lower Mississippi, 


TUE ARKANSAS BUNNING THROUGH THE UNION FLEET OFF VICKSBURG. 


. 
’ 


_ mounted in the batteries. The canal, which had been finished for about ten 


But, although the canal failed to answer the purpose for which it had been 


'liams left, however, it was no longer safe for the ordnance, commissary, hos- 


_and partly to make another attempt against the Arkansas, Admiral Farra- 
gut determined, on the night of the 15th, to repass the Vicksburg batteries. 
He was supported by Davis’s squadron and the mortar flotilla; but the 
ram, lodged under the guns of Vicksburg, was so well concealed by her sit- 
uation that she escaped the destruction intended for her. 

On the 22d another attack was made upon the ram, which now lay be- 
tween two forts at the upper bend of the river. Farragut’s fleet was four 
miles below, and it was understood that he would reccive the ram if she 
should attempt to escape down the river. The attack was made by the 
Queen of the West, commanded by Colonel Ellet, and the Kssex, under 
Commander W. D. Porter; but it proved a failure. The Queen of the West 
and the Hssex passed down under cover of a fire opened upon the upper 
batteries by the Benton, Cincinnati, and Louisville. The Essex boldly at- 
tacked the ram, but the bow-line of the latter being let go, the current drift- 
ed her stern on, and the gun-boat, missing the Arkansas, ran ashore. There 
was less than a rod’s distance between the two vessels, and in these close 
quarters the three nine-inch guns of the Essex told with serious effect upon 
the ram. The Queen of the West also ran at the ram, but was so severely 
damaged by the fire from the shore that she with difficulty escaped. “ This 
attempt on the part of Colonel Ellet,” says Farragut, “ was a daring act, and 
one from which both Flag-officer Davis and myself tried to deter him.” The 
Sumter, which had come down with the other vessels, on account of some 
misunderstanding did not join in the attack. The Essex remained aground 
for ten minutes, under a heavy fire, and then, getting afloat, ran down to 
Farragut’s fleet through a storm of shot and shell, but without receiving a 
single blow after she left the upper forts. From the latter and from the 
ram she was penetrated with three projectiles, one of which went through 
her casemates, and, exploding inside, killed one man and wounded three of 
her crew. The Queen of the West steamed back, exposed to the fire from 
the shore and struggling against the current of the river, to Davis’s squad- 
ron, She had on board two officers, four soldiers, and three negro firemen, 
not one of whom were injured. 

Farragut had on the 20th received an order to descend the river to New 
Orleans. Owing to the fall in the river, this was becoming an impera- 
tive necessity. Waiting only a day or two after the engagement with the 
ram, and until General Williams had completed his arrangements for de- 
parture with his small force, he proceeded to obey this order. It was ar- 
ranged that the Essex and Sumter, under Commander W. D. Porter, should 
take charge of the lower part of the river. Left in this situation, the fleet 
on the Mississippi, so far from being competent to make any offensive move- 
ment, was likely to have difliculty in holding its ground against the enemy, 
who now had, besides the Arkansas, two gun-boats on the Red River and 
two on the Yazoo. “I presume,” says Farragut, writing from New Orleans, 
July 29, “ Flag-officer Davis will destroy those in the Yazoo; and my gun- 
boats chased the Music and Webb up the Red River, but drew too much 
water to go far.” 

The situation before Vicksburg, therefore, at the beginning of August, was 
discouraging. There was no longer any co-operating army. Flae-officer 
Davis’s fleet was reduced in power, both by the absence of a large number 

of gun-boats—undergoing repairs or engaged in special duty—and by sick- 
ness among the men.!. The garrison of Vicksburg had been largely in- 
creased, nearly doubled, and a large number of additional guns had been 


days, had proved a failure. The bulkhead was knocked away on the 22d 
of July, but the Mississippi, which had so often been known to change its 
channel in a single night on the slightest occasion, refused by a singular ca- 
price to take the course which General Williams had opened for it, and 
Vicksburg, instead of becoming an inland city, had joyful occasion for self: 
congratulation and for laughter at the foiled project of “the Yankees.” 


constructed, it was of great service so long as Williams remained. It had 
been made a means of defense “ by constructing a continued breastwork and 
rifle-pit on the lower border, and an angle on the upper border to enfilade 
the canal where it was crossed by the levee. This levee, distinguished as 
the new levee, formed in itself a convenient breastwork.”2 When Wil- 


pital, and mail boats to lie at the bank. It was also impossible to maintain 
communication with the vessels below Vicksburg across the neck, and the 
latter could no longer be used to co-operate in a bombardment from below. 
The Sumter and Essex must now depend upon Baton Rouge and New Or- 
leans for their supplies. Davis found, moreover, that he would be compel- 
led to exhaust a large measure of his force in maintaining his own connec- 
tion with Cairo. He determined, therefore, to abandon his position before 
Vicksburg, and withdraw to the mouth of the Yazoo River. From this 
point there was a lull of five months in the operations against Vicksburg. 


The Confederate line of defense in the West at this time ran from Vicks: 


? Davis writes, July 23, just before Williams’s departure, thus: ‘‘My force is also reduced by 
the absence of eight gun-boats, three of which are guarding important points on the river, and five 
of which are undergoing repairs. I have said that I am in want of 500 men to insure the efficien- 
cy of the flotilla. In this calculation I make allowance for the return to duty of many of the sick ; 
but G00 men would not be too many to send to me. The most sickly part of the season is ap- 

aching, and the Department would be surprised to see how the most healthy men wilt and 
k down under the ceaseless and exhausting heat of this pernicious climate. Men who are ap- 
parently in health at the close of the day’s work, sink away and die suddenly at night under the 
combined effects of heat and malarial poison. ‘The enemy, however, suffers a great deal more 
than we do. He counts seventeen or twenty thousand men on his rolls, but can hardly muster 
five thousand in his ranks. To sickness are added, in his case, the want of hospital accommoda- 
tions, the want of medicines, and the want of suitable food. I learn that General Williams is 
about to move down the river. Should it prove so, it will be very unfortunate in its results. This 
is one of the points at which the co-operation of the army is most essential.” 
Rep. Sec. Navy, 1862, Acc, Doc., p. 617. 
5'T. 


Avaust, 1862. ] THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


“VNVISINOT ‘“ADNOU NOLVA 


44] 


442 


burg southward parallel with the river, and from the same point deflected 
northward to the northern boundary of the State of Mississippi, and thence 
turned eastward, following the Virginia and East Tennessee Railroad. Mor- 
gan and Forrest had just been raiding through Kentucky and Tennessee, 
preparatory to Bragg’s invasion. General Grant, on the northern border of 
Mississippi, was confronted by large Confederate armies under Price, Lovell, 
and Van Dorn. As soon as General Williams left Vicksburg, Breckinridge 
withdrew his division in order to attack Baton Rouge, and, in co-operation 
with the ram Arkansas, to secure the Lower Mississippi. If the expedition 
could have been undertaken a few days sooner, it would have been a suc- 
cess so far as Baton Rouge was concerned. Breckinridge doubtless knew 
that a large proportion of Williams’s troops were suffering from sickness. 
He could not have reckoned too strongly upon this element in his favor, for 
when Williams left Vicksburg he had scarcely well soldiers enough to take 
care of the sick ones. 

Breckinridge’s force received marching orders on the 26th of July. It 
was transported by railroad as far as Tangipahoa, in St. Helena Parish, 
Louisiana, which became the base of operations. Between forty and fifty 
miles from this place, at Camp Moore, on the Comite River, there was a 
body of Louisiana troops being fitted for active duty in the field. ‘There 
were only one or two regiments here, with a battery, and a few cavalry, the 
whole under the command of General Ruggles. This became one of the two 
columns acting against Baton Rouge, and remained under Ruggles’s imme- 
diate command, while the column from Vicksburg was assigned to General 
Charles Clarke. The latter consisted of two Brigades, of four regiments, or 
parts of regiments, each. ‘The troops of this column were all veterans. The 
design was to attack Baton Rouge from the rear, while the Arkansas, with 
the help of the Webb and Music from the Red River, engaged the Federal 
gun-boats. Several days were occupied in waiting 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ AUGUST, 1862. 


of Magnolia Cemetery the Sixth Michigan continued the line across a coun- 
try road and another known as the Clay Cut Road, supporting two guns in 
the country road. ‘The Seventh Vermont was stationed in the rear of the 
two latter regiments, on the right of the Catholic cemetery. The extreme 
right was held by the Thirtieth Massachusetts, a short distance in: the rear 
of the Capitol, and supporting Nims’s Battery. Considering that the attack 
was expected on the Greenwell Springs Road, this disposition of force was 
an admirable one, the only fault consisting in the unfortunate position of 
the encampments of the Fourteenth Maine and Twenty-first Indiana, which 
were in front of those regiments, and liable to capture in case of their re- 
treat, an event which really did occur." 

The Confederates at daylight drove back the Federal pickets. General 
Breckinridge in person led the right wing, his young son, Cabell, acting as 
aid-de-camp. ‘The full force of the first determined attack fell upon the In- 
diana, Maine, and Michigan regiments. The resistance was obstinate. ‘The 
Federal flanks were called in to support the centre; but the enemy succeed- 
ed, after a sharp conflict, in driving in the regiments in the advanced front 
and capturing their encampments. The Seventh Vermont failed to give ef- 
ficient support at the critical moment, and Colonel Roberts, its commander, 
was killed while vainly attempting to urge forward his men. ‘ He was 
worthy,” said General Butler, ‘‘of a better disciplined regiment and a better 
fate.” The Indiana regiment lost all its field-officers before retreating. 
General Williams had just given the order for the line to fall back, when, 
seeing the condition of this regiment, he advanced to its front, and told the 
Indianians that, in the absence of their officers, he would lead them himself. 
Scarcely had the responding cheers died away when he fell, mortally wound- 
ed. The batteries had done good execution. The soldiers, though many 
of them had never seen a battle before, disputed bravely every advance of 


until the ram should have recovered from the wounds 
inflicted upon her in her recent conflicts with the 


Mississippi squadron. At length Van Dorn tele- 
graphed to Breckinridge that the ram was ready, 


and would be due at Baton Rouge on the morning 


of August 5th, which time, therefore, was fixed for 


the attack. 


General Williams had not returned to Baton Rouge 
a moment too soon. He was well aware of the ene- 


my’s design, and industriously provided for the com- 
ing battle. On the river were the Essex, Cayuga, 
Sumter, Kineo, and Katahdin. On the land Wil- 
liams had nearly 2500 men available for action. 
These were encamped in the rear of the city, and it 
was determined to meet the enemy just on the skirts 
of the town, and there dispute his nearer approach. 
The march to Comite River from Tangipahoa, a 
distance of about fifty miles, was at this season very 
exhausting to the Confederates under Breckinridge. 
The heat was intense, and the men fell rapidly out 
of the ranks from sickness or fatigue. Almost ev- 


ery farm-house on the roadside was converted into 
a hospital. There was a brief halt at Camp Moore, 
and on the 4th, a little before midnight, the two columns were pushing on 
over a smooth sandy road that led through well-cultivated plantations to Ba- 
ton Rouge. About dawn, when these columns were within three miles of the 
city, there occurred a strange misadventure. They were passing by a piece 
of woods when they were fired upon by a company of partisan rangers, who 
mistook them for Federal troops. Before the mistake was rectified several 
casualties had occurred, and the line had been thrown into confusion. Gen- 
eral Helm, commanding one of the brigades, was disabled by the fall of his 
horse into a ditch, and was withdrawn from the field. It was here that Cap- 
tain Alexander A. Todd, a brother-in-law of President Lincoln and an offi- 
cer on General Helm’s staff, met his end. He was instantly killed by a shot 
from the woods. Order was soon restored, and the columns marched on, 
Clarke’s to the right and Rugeles’s to the left. They first appeared in the 
open fields bordering on the’ Greenwell Springs Road, toward the upper 
part of the city and southeast of the Arsenal. Tere they attempted without 
success to draw out the national forces. Failing in this, they veered to the 
southward a little farther, and it was in the position thus taken that the bat- 
tle of Baton Rouge was fought. 

The streets of the city ran out to the verge of the Federal encampments. 
The battle-field was flat in surface, extending in the form of an are about the 
city from the Arsenal grounds to those of the Capitol. Bayou Gross ran 
north and east of the Arsenal grounds. Within the latter were two guns, 
sweeping the field to the left of the Fourth Wisconsin and Ninth Connecti- 
cut, on the opposite or right bank of the bayou. In the rear of the centre 
of the Ninth were two guns, and on the other side of a knoll in the Govern- 
ment Cemetery two more. Farther to the right was the Fourteenth Maine, 
on the left of the Greenwell Springs Road and in rear of the Bayou Sara 
Road, which crosses at right angles the two main approaches to the city. 
In the road itself were four guns, afterward increased to six. On the right 
of the Greenwell Springs Road was the Twenty-first Indiana (which was un- 
der cover of a wood), with the Magnolia Cemetery in its front. To the right 


1 A Confederate, alluding to this event, says: ‘Captain Todd was a young gentleman of fine 
accomplishments, great personal daring, exceeding amiability, and the warmest home affections. 
But the evening before he wrote to his mother, and just before the accident he was conversing with 
Lieutenant L. EK. Payne, ordnance officer of the brigade, communicating the messages he wished 
conveyed home in case of his fall. . . . Brave boy! he met his end serenely, and his body was 
interred by gentle and loving hands.” 


DEATH OF GENERAL THOMAS WILLIAMS, 


the enemy. It had come at length to a hand-to-hand conflict, the result 
of which seemed to be in favor of the Confederates. As the national forces 
withdrew from the vicinity of Magnolia Cemetery, where had been the dead- 
liest conflict, the gun-boats in the river opened on both of the enemy’s 
flanks, their fire over the city being directed by a system of signals from 
the Capitol, instituted by Lieutenant Ransom. 

In the mean time Breckinridge was listening anxiously in the intervals 
of conflict for the guns of the Arkansas; but he heard them not. About 
six miles from the city the ram had stopped in her progress down the river, 
unable to proceed on account of her inefficient engine machinery. She had 
left Brown, her former commander, sick at Vicksburg, and was now com- 
manded by Lieutenant Stevens. Her crew numbered 180 men, well chosen ; 
she had ten heavy guns (six 8-inch and four 50-pounders), but could not be 
brought into action. 

Disappointed at the non-appearance of this indispensable ally, and seeing 


1 See Weitzel’s Report in Reb. Rec., vol. v., p. 801, Doc. Fletcher, an English historian of the 
war, says: ‘The position does not appear to have been well selected, as in front of the centre of 
the line, between the two roads, was a large cemetery, overgrown with high grass, and affording 
both cover for an advancing enemy, and, when oceupied, a strong offensive position.” This is 
probably true so far as the position was related to the shape which the attack finally took. 

2 The following General Order (No. 56) was issued by General Butler after the battle: 

“The commanding general announces to the Army of the Gulf the sad event of the death of 
Brigadier General Thomas Williams, commanding Second Brigade, in camp at Baton Rouge. 

“<The victorious achievement—the repulse of the division of Major General Breckinridge by the 
troops led by General Williams, and the destruction of the mail-clad Arkansas by Captain Porter, 
of the Navy—is made sorrowful by the fall of our brave, gallant, and successful fellow-soldier. 

“General Williams graduated at West Point in 1837; at once joined the Fourth Artillery in 
Florida, where he served with distinction; was thrice breveted for gallant and meritorious services 
in Mexico as a member of General Scott’s staff. His life was that of a soldier devoted to his coun- 
try’s service. His country mourns in sympathy with his wife and children, now that country’s care 
and precious charge. 

“We, his comrades in arms, who had learned to love him, weep the true friend, the gallant gen- 
tleman, the brave soldier, the accomplished officer, and the devoted Christian. : All this and more 
went out when Williams died. By a singular felicity, the manner of his death illustrated each of 
these generous qualities. 

“The chivalric American gentleman, he gave up the vantage of the cover of the houses of the 
city, forming his lines in the open field, lest the women and children of his enemies should be hurt 
in the fight. 

“ A good general, he made his dispositions and prepared for battle at break of day, when he met 
his foe. 

‘A brave soldier, he received the death-shot leading his men. 

“ A patriot hero, he was fightfng the battle, and died as went up the cheer of victory. 

“A Christian, he sleeps in the hope of the blessed Redeemer. 

“His virtues we can not exceed; his example we may emulate; and, mourning his death, we 
pray, ‘ May our last end be like his.’” 


a 


Jury, 1862.] 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


443 


been called insane, He always gave him the most re- 
sponsible position under his command. In recom- 
mending his promotion to the rank of brigadier gen- 
eral in the regular army in 1863, he says: “ At the 
battle of Shiloh, on the first day, he held, with raw 
troops, the key-point of the landing. It is no dispar- 
agement to any other officer to say that I do not be- 
lieve there was another division commander on the 
field who had the skill and experience to have done 
it. To his individual efforts I am indebted for the 
success of that battle.” 

When Halleck was called to Washington in July, 
1862, to assume the duties of general-in-chief, the De- 
partment of the Mississippi was assigned to the hero 
of Fort Donelson.'. There was at that time a lull in 
military operations, and Grant had leisure to give at- 
tention to the general administration of affairs in this 
department. One of the very first things which he did 


was to send Sherman, with his own and Hurlbut’s di- 


visions, to occupy Memphis as its military commander. 


Sherman assumed command of the district, supersed- 


DESTRUCTION OF THE ARKANSAS. 


the impossibility of attempting to fight the national infantry, artillery, and 
gun-boats at the same time, Breckinridge ordered the captured camps to be 
burned as a preliminary to withdrawal from the field. His forces found 
some shelter from the shells of the fleet in the woods which skirted the bat- 
tle-field all around. It was not noon yet when the battle was over, and the 
field was left in possession of the national forces, under Colonel Cahill, who 
had succeeded to the command after the death of General Williams. 

The enemy had suffered severe loss, especially in officers, among whom 
General Clarke was left in our hands mortally wounded. His dead, to the 
number of seventy, were left upon the field, so hasty had been his retreat. 
The battle-field gave striking evidence of the nature of the conflict. In 
front of the Indiana and Michigan regiments some of the enemy were found 
who had been killed with rails, which the Union soldiers, having lost their 
arms, had used as weapons. ‘In one spot,” says an eye-witness, “ behind a 
beautiful tomb, with effigies of infant children kneeling, twelve dead rebels 
were found in one heap.” 

The forces engaged in the battle, though variously estimated, were prob- 
ably not very far from equal.! The loss on the national side was 90 killed 
and 250 wounded. 

The morning after the battle, the Essex, accompanied by the Cayuga and 
Sumter, advanced up the river to where the Arkansas was lying, abandoned 
by her companions, the Webb and Music. There was no serious conflict. 
Commander W. D. Porter engaged the ram for a short time, when the latter 
was fired, deserted, and then blown up. Very soon the vessels of the na- 
tional fleet saw floating past them the shattered fragments of their most for- 
midable antagonist on the Mississippi. In informing the Naval Secretary 
of this event, Admiral Farragut said: “It is one of the happiest moments 
of my life that I am able to inform the Department of the destruction of the 
ram Arkansas, not because I held the iron-clad in such terror, but because 
the community did.” 

A few days after the battle (August 16) Baton Rouge was evacuated by 
the national troops, and the place was afterward held by the naval force. 


Sherman had been confirmed major general of volunteers on the Ist of 
May, 1862. In urging this appointment, Halleck, writing from the West 
shortly after the battle of Shiloh, said: “It is the unanimous opinion here 
that Brigadier General W. T. Sherman saved the fortunes 
of the day on the 6th, and contributed largely to the glo- 
rious victory of the 7th.” At the time when Halleck 
wrote thus, Grant was under a cloud; his military quali- 
ties were scarcely appreciated; he was thrust somewhat 
into the background, and subjected to much mortification, 
enjoying little of that confidence which he afterward won 
from the government. But in this unfortunate period of 
his career his rightful claims were supported heartily and 
in full by General Sherman.? Afterward when, at the 
very close of the war, the latter was for one single act bit- 
terly and unjustly calumniated, he received from General 
Grant a full return of sympathy and support. Grant had 
always believed in Sherman, even when the latter had 

' Whatever odds there may have been were certainly in favor of the Con- 
federates. The wide discrepancy in the estimates given is somewhat sin- 
gular. Pollard says Breckinridge had less than 3000 men, and Williams 
nearly 6000. Abbott, on the other hand, makes Williams’s force less than 
2500, and Breckinridge’s 8000. The only authority for this latter estimate 
of the enemy’s numbers is a soldier’s letter published in the Rebellion Record 
(vol. v., p. 807, Doc.). This letter is throughout wholly unreliable. In a 
later statement Abbott estimates the enemy’s force at 5000. Cahill makes 
Williams’s force 2500, and that of the enemy ten regiments, or 5000 men. 
Weitzel estimates Breckinridge’s force at 6000. Fletcher makes the num- 
bers on both sides about 4000. It is possible that the enemy may have 
numbered between 3000 and 4000; Williams certainly had not 3000 men. 

? A staff-officer of General Grant thus writes of this period: ‘La Fon- 
taine truthfully says, ‘Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit & la gloire.’ De- 
traction was busy with her poisonous tongue. Grant was more bitterly as- 
sailed now than at any previous time, as a ‘butcher,’ as ‘incompetent,’ and 


as being a ‘drunkard.’ Some one was disparaging Grant in Sherman’s 
presence, when the latter broke out with, ‘It won’t do, sir, it won’t do; 


ing General Hovey, on the 21st of July, stationing his 
own division in Fort Pickering, Hurlbut’s on the river 
below, and sending the other troops to Helena. He retained the mayor 
and other civil officers of the city in their offices, and confined the action 
of provost-marshal guards to persons in the military service, and to build- 
ings and grounds used by the army. All citizens were required to yield 
obedience to the United States government or leave the district; if they 
staid, and gave aid to the enemy, they were to be treated as spies. He did 
not exact from all a formal oath of allegiance. He required no military 
passports for inland travel, but he restricted it to the five main roads lead- 
ing from the city, and there was a minute inspection of all persons and prop- 
erty going in or out. The principal matter requiring stringent regulations 
was that of trade. The exportation of salt and of all war material was pro- 
hibited. All cotton bought beyond the lines and brought in had to be pur- 
chased on contracts for payment at the close of the war, because, if paid for 
in coin or in treasury noes, these were almost always sure to find their way 
into the coffers of the Confederate treasury. 

As the army penetrated the southern districts along the Mississippi, the 
temptation to indulge in cotton speculation became a great obstruction to 
military discipline. But, notwithstanding this, it was found expedient to al- 
low a partial trade in cotton, though every effort was made by General Grant 
to prevent this commerce from demoralizing his subordinate officers. It was 
manifestly the policy of the government to drain the South of its cotton. 
This important staple was an invaluable aid to the enemy; it was a part of 
his war material, since his foreign loans were based entirely upon a cotton 
basis. It seemed wise, therefore, to make it for the interest of Southern cot- 
ton-holders to retain the staple, instead of burning it or allowing it to pass 
into the hands of the Confederate government. This temptation was afford- 
ed by allowing a partial trade.? 


' It was on October 16, 1862, that General Grant was made commander of the Department of 
the Tennessee, this department being made to include Cairo, Forts Henry and Donelson, North- 
ern Mississippi, and portions of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee Iiver. 

2 The connection of the cotton question with the Confederate conduct of the war is so import- 
ant that some of its details may be interesting to the reader. 

The first auction sale of confiscated cotton from Port Royal took place in New York on the 10th 
of June, 1862. At this sale seventy-nine bales were sold, at an average of sixty cents per pound. 
From this time on to the close of the war such sales were quite frequent. Before a single bale of 
cotton had been confiscated, however, the Confederates had contemplated the possibility of such 
conquests on the part of the United States government as would bring into its possession a portion 
of their accumulated stores. As early as February 26, 1862, a meeting of cotton and tobacco 
planters was held at Richmond to consider the expediency of the purchase by the Confederacy, or 
of a voluntary destruction of the entire tobacco and cotton crop. The Richmond Examiner de- 
scribes the audience as ‘‘ one of the largest, wealthiest, and most intellectual meetings” ever as- 


—<——————————— 


Grant is a great general! He stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood 
by him when he was drunk, and now, sir, we stand by cach other.’” 


COTTON HOARDS LN BOUTHERN SWAMI.» 


S™, 


444 


Toward the close of October Sherman was summoned to meet Grant at 
Columbus for military consultation. The Department of the Mississippi had 


sembled in that city. The speeches made and the resolutions adopted were certainly character- 
istic. General T. J. Green, of North Carolina, having called the meeting to order, the Hon. C. K. 
Marshall arose to read the resolutions. ‘‘ We have it in our power,” he said, by way of preface, 
“to do what will have a serious influence not only within the city of Richmond, but may amelio- 
rate the condition of the race of mankind at large.” 

The following is a copy of the resolutions: 

““ Whereas, the government of the United States have made an unprovoked, flagrant, and wick- 
ed war on the government and people of the Confederate States, and have conducted that war on 
principles hitherto unknown among civilized nations; and, whereas, we feel that our only safety 
against so ruthless and unrelenting a foe is to be found in the courage, patriotism, and self-sacri- 
ficing spirit of our people; and, whereas, no sacrifice, however enormous, is too great if it only 
brings us freedom from our oppressors; and, whereas, the tyrants and despots of the North have 
openly proclaimed their purpose to desolate our homes and appropriate our property to their own 
use, and haye, in various instances, carried the infamous threat into practical execution by plun- 
dering our people of cotton, tobacco, rice, and other property ; and, whereas, fire, when applied by 
heroic hands, is more formidable than the sword, therefore it is by this meeting 

‘¢ Resolved, That as a means of national safety, dictated alike by military necessity and true pa- 
triotism, we deem it the imperative duty of this government to adopt measures for the purchase of 
the entire crops of cotton and tobacco now on hand, with the purpose of at once preventing the 
appropriation of them by the invaders of our soil and country, and making a fair and equitable 
compensation for the same to their owners, by such arrangements as shall enable the government 
to meet the debt incurred thereby without involving the public treasury in any serious liability on 
account of the said purchase. Certificate of government liability to be given for the entire prop- 
erty. 

“ Resolved, That, as the owners of these great staples, the government would hold in its hands 
the power of remoying so great temptation from the path of the Federal army, now making its 
raids into our country, and robbing our citizens under the avowed pledges of supplying, by force, 
the markets of the world with these valuable articles of demand, which must necessarily be done, 
if those pledges are redeemed, by the total bankruptcy of our planting interests on the one hand, 
and the utter subjugation and enslavement of the people of the South on the other. 

“* Resolved, That, possessed of these products, it would become the solemn duty of the goyern- 
ment to take immediate action through commissioners appgjnted for that purpose, or otherwise to 
take an account of such portions of said crops as are at exposed places, first furnishing the own- 
ers thereof with certificates of the amount and value of their crops as evidences of debt by the gov- 
ernment therefor, and consign the property to the devouring flames. 

“* Resolved, ‘That in case the owners of said staples decline to accept the terms offered by the 
government, a tax of cents per pound should be assessed and collected from such crops, and 
if finally lost or sacrificed, as a measure of public safety thereafter, such owners should not be al- 
lowed any compensation for the same. 

“ Resolved, That where other articles of produce or stock are exposed to the raids of the enemy, 
they should be removed if practicable, and if not practicable, an inventory of them should be taken, 
with an estimate of their value, by military authority, or a government agent, or, in the absence of 
either, by competent citizens, and certified to by them, and said property forthwith destroyed, and 
the parties thus deprived of their property should be indemnified by the government.” 

Mr. Marshall then made a speech on the resolutions. He alluded, in terms so extravagant as 
to appear ludicrous, to the expedients to which the Confederates had bee:: driven by the blockade. 
‘“Men,” he said, ‘‘ have seized pikes and lances, for want of proper arms, to defend their wives, 
and daughters, and mothers.” He thought the Richmond government did not fully appreciate the 
exigency of the times. If it had purchased the first cotton crop, the Southern navy might then 
have boasted of thirty such vessels as the Merrimac. The last crop was now actually rotting un- 
baled. ‘They had been taught to believe that France and England wanted cotton so badly that 
they would come and get it. Why didn’t they come? [Ic had begun to doubt whether there 
were such countries as France and England. ‘‘ The enemy found cotton at Ship Island; some, it 
is true, they found in flames, but not enough of it. At Florence they went up and took an incon- 
siderable quantity. No one seemed to think of setting fire to it. At Nashville they will perhaps 
get fifty thousand bales, and the owners, to save their property, will have to swear allegiance to 
that miserable tyrant, Abe Lincoln. And presently they will descend the Mississippi with per- 
haps fifty gun-boats, and compel the negroes to load tuem with cotton, and send it to Europe, and 
say, We have opened a cotton port—there is the evidence. I want us to do something manly— 
something grand. I want the Confederate government to buy all the cotton, and, if need be, de- 
stroy it. If one of those pillars which support this temple were cotton, and the other tobacco, and 
Iingland, France, Russia, and the United States «¢ America, and ourselves depended on them for 
existence, and it were necessary, I would, Samson-like, drag them down, and (et one universal ruin 
overwhelm civilization. Suppose, as these resolutions propose, the government buys the cotton and 
tobacco crops, it is not to be expected that it will soon be able to pay for them, Hardships will be 
the consequence. Great numbers must suffer. A tax will have to be imposed. I will suppose 
that half of the cotton and tobacco crop has been burned. My cotton has been burned, and I have 
received seven cents a pound from the government, while my neighbor’s, whose crop has not been 
burned, has been enhanced double in value. His small crop of cotton would be a fortune, yet who 
among us would hesitate to apply the torch to it sooner than it should fall into the hands of the 
enemy? But suppose the government were to buy the whole crop, and determine to burn it (as I 
want them to do), that the world may see that this little republic, as they may choose to consider 
us, can strike a blow that will send consternation through the world, while they are talking about 
conquering the republic and hanging the President. I want the government to come forward 
and say, Here is the money for four million bales of cotton, and give it to her commissioners, and 
say, Burn it. I want the government to go in search of the cotton, instead of leaving it to be cap- 
tured by her [that is, the enemy’s] iron-clad steamers. The government have two million of bales 
as a financial measure, There are some gentlemen present who raise as much as four thousand 
bales of cotton, and who say they will themselves burn it, indemnity or not, rather than the Yan- 
kees shall get possession of it. A lady of my acquaintance has said she will not only burn her 
crop, but her house itself, and take to the forest, rather than see the enemy possess it. We shall 
ruiu our own interest by letting this crop lie here, and putting another crop upon it. Cotton, instead 
of being ten cents, will not command more than three cents. Suppose the blockade were opened 
now, we could not get it to market by August. ‘The boats which used to transport our cotton are 
engaged in making war upon us, and some of them have got well peppered at Fort Donelson. 
They are to-day planting cotton in Texas, and next week they will begin to plant farther north. 
I needn’t enlarge on this to planters. It is evident to them there will be two crops on the market 
before next January. Some will say we will foree England to go to India for cotton. I will say 
to her, Go! England has spent three hundred and fifty million pounds, and gotten Louisiana 
planters to go to those distant countries, and has been obliged to give it up as a forlorn hope. But 
suppose England finds other cotton-fields, I’d like to know if we can’t find other spinners for our 
crops, and be forever independent of her. To the west of us are two little countries, China and 
Japan, In China they desire to put all their lands in tea, but they fear to discontinue the raising 
of cotton. If they could get cotton elsewhere, they would put all the Jand in tea, Well, then, the 
best spinners and weavers in China can be hired for nine cents a day, and we can get them to spin 
and weave our cotton long before England ean find other cotton-fields. China and Japan are 
not so distant from us as we were from England when Whitney put the first cotton-gin in opera- 
tion in Savannah. I hope Congress will take up and pass these resolutions. I have great hope 
from this meeting. So much have these resolutions to recommend them to the people of the 
Southern Confederacy, that, were I addressing them to-night, I believe I could get an overwhelm- 
ing vote for government buying the entire crops of cotton and tobacco, and consigning them to the 
flames.” 

Governor Moore, of Kentucky, then addressed the mecting, advocating the resolutions. 

On motion of Edmund Ruftin, who fired the first gun of the war, and who blew his brains out 
after the defeat of the Confederacy, the resolutions were put to vote, and unanimously adopted, 
Henry 8. Foote, the Tennessee senator in the Confederate Congress, was then called to the stand, 
and strongly approved of the resolutions. 

About the same time, a bill was reported in the Confederate Senate to indemnify planters for 
property destroyed to prevent its capture. ‘The bill, as passed, made no such provision, but made 
it the duty of all military commanders to destroy all cotton, tobacco, or other property that might 
be useful to the enemy, if the same could not be safely removed, whenever said property was, in 
their judgment, liable to capture. It was estimated that the amount of cotton and tobacco which 
would thus be destroyed would be about one twentieth of the entire crop. On the 3d of March a 
resolution was passed in the House advising planters to raise provisions and cattle in place of cot- 
ton and tobacco. This came before the Senate March 12, and Mr, Brown, of Mississippi, pro- 
posed a substitute, in the form of a bill to curtail the cotton crop for 1862, the amount being lim- 
ited to three bales for each planter, and an additional bale per head for each hand employed in its 
culture, and inflicting a penalty of forty dollars for every bale raised above this quota, He thought 
the House measure would affect injuriously the patriotic planters, while it enriched the disloyal. 

Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, thought the number of “ patriotic planters” was very small. Wig- 
fall, of ‘Texas, was not so sure about the expediency of neglecting to raise cotton. Mr. Barnwell, 
of South Carolina, thought that on the cultivation of cotton, and the increase of supplies of that 
staple for the market, depended not only the sources of wealth, but the importance, consequence, 
and weight of the Confcderacy with foreign nations. ‘* We must,” he said, ‘raise it, hold it, and 
fight for it.” Besides, he thought the power assumed by Mr. Brown's substitute the grossest as- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[OCTOBER, 1862. 


been broken up, and General Grant was at the head of the Department of 
the Tennessee. About this time Rosecrans assumed command of the De- 
partment of the Cumberland. Corinth and Perryville had been fought, and 
both battles—that of Corinth especially—had resulted in important national 
victories. The objective point in the campaign now contemplated by Gen- 
eral Grant was Vicksburg. 
During the interval of some - ur hsors 

months in which Vicksburg had 2 

been left undisturbed, the enemy 
had strengthened its fortifications. 
Several additional batteries had 
been erected above the town, and 
a strong line of defenses had been 
thrown up from Chickasaw Bayou % 
to Haines’s Bluff on the Yazoo 
River. The bluff itself had been 
fortified, and opposed an insuper- ~ “9 ¢ 


S$ Duffingtenj@s 


* 
pamcaressrareeme 


able obstacle to the ascent of the ANE PH Nomen GR Berle 
. 4 at ene 's ar = 
national fleet farther up the river. r ‘a Wally spyvem. be one 
Port Hudson, in the mean time, < ji /;, jy alones: 
had become a strong-hold second c A af prrkige ai 4 
: cae : 0 Sp 
only to Vicksburg in importance, Dele 3 oo), PA 
* = ¢ 2 5 
and between these two points the "Sa. DY 2 Acrenada i 
. . . . = . LJ 
Mississippi (as also the Red Riv- FE g eG rota 
er) was in full possession of the ‘4 p BEES SG Wests i 
Confederates, who had thus an ) sy perman § 
° eae wwe ero ‘ 4 J = 
opportunity of availing them- ~ YD bbc cent 
: Rae Ope ee \ 2 Canton ! 
selves, to an almost unlimited ex- ? 25 f i 
tent, of the abundant supplies to yf, EE eee 2p H 
be obtained from Louisiana and 6 rel BPs ; 
8 i 
Texas. After Van Dorn’s defeat a Soy Varata ‘ 
at Corinth, he had ‘been super-~ y.cneuds vei Gt ee 
seded by John C. Pemberton, a .” A pepo: ' 
; J 1s ; aes 408 Taagn Qtia, ‘ 
favorite of President Davis, who, a : 
. - Sy Bay te! =| he 
that he might outrank Van Dorn qj Amite(> — Mobilei offg 


9 A lonch Moule 


and Lovell, had been made a lieu- rt 
AO a= 


tenant general. This officer has 
been very severely criticised by 
Southern writers on the ground 
of his general incompetency for 
the position assigned him, and, in 
particular, for his apathy during 
this important period, when the 
opportunities for provisioning 
Vicksburg and increasing its efficiency as a defensive point appear to have 
been neglected. He made his head-quarters, it is said, at this time rather at 
Jackson than at Vicksburg, only paying an occasional visit to Vicksburg. 
He thought, probably, and with good reason, that his presence was impera- 
tively demanded to the rear and westward of Vicksburg, to guard against 


ITF, 


— ———— 
LO _L EF 


i 
°F) 


MAP OF THE MISSISSIPPI CENTRAL RAILROAD. 


sumption of authority he had ever witnessed. Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, objected on the ground 
that the measure taxed the patriotism of the planters, and was an interference with state rights. 
Like Barnwell, he thought that reducing the supply would so advance the price that other sources 
of cotton would be sought. Mr. Brown urged that the main object of the United States in de- 
scending the river was to get cotton, and that there should be as little of it to be found as possible. 
The idea that cotton could be raised in India was ‘played out.” He was in favor of burning all 
the cotton they had, and raising no more until the world was disposed to do them justice. Semmes, 
of Louisiana, said he had long since abandoned the idea that cotton was king. England would not 
interfere for it. ‘* Rather than make war with the United States, she would convert her govern- 
ment into an cleemosynary for the maintenance of her hordes of starving operatives.” He should 
vote for the resolution, to warn the people of a lengthy war, and that they must raise provisions. 
The resolution, being put to vote, was lost. 

On the 6th of May, in answer to an inquiry made by a Southern firm whether cotton purchased 
on foreign account would be exempted from the order enjoining the destruction of all cotton about 
to fall into the enemy’s hands, J. P. Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, replied that if 
purchases of that sort were made, it must be at the risk of the purchasers. 

The Charleston Courier of May 14 published a circular which it claimed to be ‘the deliberate 
expression of the wealthiest and most influential class of the citizens of New Orleans.” For man- 
ifest reasons No signatures were attached. After a chivalric prelude, the circular goes on to urge 
the destruction of every bale of cotton liable to capture on the Western rivers, and the refusal to 
ship or sell a bale until the independence of the Confederacy was recognized. ‘‘Let the conquest 
of the United States,” it said, ‘be a barren one. If we are true to ourselves there will be no trade, 
and the countless millions of foreign products will be without a purchaser. How long will they 
remain idle spectators of such a scene,” ete. For copying this cireular, the New Orleans Bee was 
on the 16th suppressed by General Butler. ‘The same day, for publishing an article of similar pur- 
port, the general took possession of the New Orleans Delia. 

The planters, for the most part, justified Mr. Orr’s doubt of their patriotism. They were very 
reluctant to burn their cotton, and in most cases where the destruction was accomplished it was 
by Confederate guerrillas. Such, for instance, was the case near Memphis, where, toward the last 
of June, a large body of Confederate cavalry visited a number of plantations on the line of the 
Memphis and Charleston Railroad, burning great quantities of cotton, and arresting all persons 
found purchasing that staple. But, in spite of every effort made by the Confederate government, 
large quantities of cotton were seized by the United States at every step of the army’s progress 
southward, A portion of the cotton found belonged to the Confederate government, and a portion 
to private citizens, who had in many instances secreted it against the very occasion of possible 
capture. 

Mr. Pollard, the Southern historian, thinks it was a great mistake that the Confederate govern- 
ment did not, in 1861, purchase the entire cotton crop, and make it the basis of its credit, He 
estimates that there were at this time 3,500,000 bales of cotton in the South, which might have 
been secured at the rate of seven cents a pound. He enters into an indignant protest against the 
illicit trade in cotton indulged in by the planters: ‘The country had taken a solemn resolution 
to burn the cotton in advance of the enemy; but the conflagration of this staple soon became a 
rare event; instead of being committed to the flames it was spirited to Yankee markets. Nor 
were these operations always disguised. Some commercial houses in the Confederacy counted 
their gains by millions of dollars since the war, through the favor of the government in allowing 
them to export cotton at pleasure. . . . The cotton and sugar planters of the extreme South, who 
prior to the war were loudest for secession, were at the same time known to buy every article of 
their consumption in Yankee markets, and to cherish an ambition of shining in the society of 
Northern hotels. It is not surprising that many of these affected patriots have found congenial 
occupation in this war in planting in copartnership with the enemy, or in smuggling cotton into 
his lines. The North is said to have obtained in the progress of this war [Pollard is writing this 
in 1863], from the Southwest and Charleston, enough cotton at present prices to uphold its whole 
system of currency—a damning testimony to the avarice of the planter. Yet it is nothing more 
than a convincing proof, in general, that property, though very pretentious of patriotism, when 
identified with selfishness, is one of the most weak and cowardly things in revolutions, and the first 
to succumb under the horrors of war.”—Pollard's Second Year of the War, p. 289. 


December, 1862. ] 


the operations of General Grant, which were threatened in that quarter. It 
has been said that Pemberton was in favor of evacuating all points held 
by the Confederates on the water, and had even recommended the abandon- 
ment of Charleston and the destruction of its works.! He certainly did not 
act upon this theory in the Vicksburg campaign. 

The first thing to be accomplished by General Grant was the expulsion 
of the enemy from the line of the Tallahatchie. Then, while Rosecrans oc- 
cupied Bragg, Grant, with Sherman’s help, proposed to take Vicksburg. The 
details of the campaign were admirably planned, and, so far as the principal 
movements were concerned, successfully carried out up to just the last point, 
when the whole scheme miscarried, not by reason of a great defeat, but by 
the disgraceful and unnecessary surrender of Holly Springs. 

In the first stage of the campaign, as arranged by Grant and Sherman, 
three columns were to move—one, under Grant, from Jackson, in Tennessee ; 
a second, under Sherman, from Memphis; and a third, consisting mainly of 
a cavalry force, under C. C. Washburne, from Helena—against Pemberton’s 
army on the Tallahatchie, numbering 40,000 men.2_ The success of this 
first part of the campaign is thus concisely summed up by Sherman: “Grant 
moved direct on Pemberton, while I moved from Memphis, and a smaller 
force under General Washburne struck directly for Grenada; and the first 
thing Pemberton knew, the dépdt of his supplies was almost in the grasp of 
a small cavalry force, and he fell back in confusion, and gave us the Talla- 
hatchie without a battle.” 

From the vantage-ground thus gained Grant could almost see his way 
into Vicksburg. To him, then, Jackson seemed almost within his grasp, and 
thence it was but a step into the coveted strong-hold. The force sent from 
Helena, which had now been recalled (perhaps too soon), had swept a clear 
course for him to Grenada. Pemberton had fallen back to Canton, a few 
miles north of Jackson. On November 29th Grant reached Holly Springs ; 
on December 3d his head-quarters were at Oxford, and his cavalry in the 
advance were driving Van Dorn out from Water Valley and Coffeeville. 
Not a score of miles from Coffeeville is Grenada; and if all holds well be- 
hind—at the dozen points in the rear where garrisons have been left to keep 
open communications—Jackson must fall before Christmas, and Vicksburg 
before New Year. 

So sure was Grant of his goal, that, while at Oxford (December 8), he dis- 
patched General Sherman, commanding the right wing of his army,‘ to un- 
dertake a co-operative expedition from Memphis against Vicksburg. Sher- 
man was to take with him one division of his present command, and all the 
spare troops from Memphis and Helena. Scearcely a fortnight was allowed 
for the preparation of this important but ill-fated expedition. In the mean 
while Grant waited, or pushed on slowly, so as to give the appearance of a 
continuous movement. On the 14th of December he wrote to Sherman, 
saying that, for a week hence, his head-quarters would be at Coffeeville, and 
expressing particular anxiety to have the Helena cavalry back again with 
him—evidently not at ease about Van Dorn’s movements in his rear. With 
one eye on Vicksburg, he was forced to cast the other suspiciously on Holly 
Springs, his principal dépét of provisions and ammunition, garrisoned with 
little over a thousand men under Colonel R.C. Murphy. Van Dorn was 
leading his cavalry against this place, and Grant, knowing this, gave Mur- 
phy timely warning. The blow fell suddenly, on December 20, and found 
Murphy unprepared. The place was surrendered, and Grant, cut off from 
his base, was obliged to fall back to Grand Junction, and to give up a cam- 
paign which, but for this fatal surrender, promised a fortunate issue. 

Sherman embarked from Memphis on the 20th of December,’ the very 
day on which Holly Springs was surrendered. He had in his command 
Morgan’s and the two Smiths’ divisions—about 80,000 men. At Helena 
this army was re-enforced by over 12,000 men under General Frederick 
Steele, comprising the brigades of Hovey, Thayer, Blair, and Wyman. 

From a letter written by Sherman to Porter (December 8), we gather a 
pretty definite idea of the objects which the expedition was intended to ac- 


1 Abrams, p. 8. 2 This is Bowman’s estimate.—Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 77. 

§ Speech at St. Louis after the war. ; 

* General Grant's army constituted the Thirteenth Army Corps, of which the right wing was 
under command of General Sherman. ‘This right wing consisted of three divisions : 

The First, commanded by A. J. Smith, and consisting of two new brigades, Burbridge’s and 
Landrum’s. ; ; , 

The Second, commanded by Morgan L. Smith, consisting of G. A. Smith's and David Stuart’s 
brigades. 

The Third, commanded by G. W. Morgan, comprising the new brigades of Osterhaus, Lindsay, 
and De Courcey. 

The other brigades remained at Memphis. 

° Before embarkation General Sherman issued the following characteristic order : 

“JT. The expedition now fitting out is purely of a military character, and the interests involved 
are of too important a character to be mixed up with personal or private business. No citizen, 
male or female, will be allowed to accompany it, unless employed as a part of the crew, or as serv- 
ants to the transports. Female chambermaids to the boats and nurses to the sick alone will be 
allowed, unless the wives of captains and pilots actually belonging to the boats. No laundress, 
officer’s or soldier’s wife, must pass below Helena. : : ’ 

“II. No person whatever, citizen, officer, or sutler, will, on any consideration, buy or deal in 
cotton, or other produce of the country. Should any cotton be brought on board of any trans- 
port, going or returning, the brigade quarter-master, of which the boat forms a part, will take pos- 
session of it, and invoice it to Captain A. R. Eddy, chief.quarter-master at Memphis. 

“TIT. Should any cotton or other produce be brought back to Memphis by any chartered boat, 
Captain Eddy will take possession of the same, and sell it for the benefit of the United States. If 
accompanied by its actual producer, the planter or factor, the quarter-master will furnish him with 
a receipt for the same, to be settled on proof of his loyalty at the close of the war. ; 

“TV. Boats ascending the river may take cotton from the shore for bulkheads to protect their 
engines or crew, but on arrival at Memphis it must be turned over to the quarter-master, with a 
statement of the time, place, and name of its owner. The trade in cotton must await a more 
peaceful state of affairs. ol avis 

“V. Should any citizen accompany the expedition below Helena in violation of these orders, 
any colonel of a regiment or captain of a battery will conscript him into the service of the United 
States for the unexpired term of his command. If he show a refractory spirit, unfitting him for 
a soldier, the commanding officer present will turn him over to the captain of the boat as a deck- 
hand, and compel him to work in that capacity, without wages, until the boat returns to Memphis, 

**VI. Any person whatever, whether in the service of the United States or transports, found 
making reports for publication which might reach the enemy, giving them information, aid, or 
comfort, will be arrested and treated as spies.” 


5U 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSTPPT. 


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MAP ILLUSTRATING OPERATIONS ON THE YAZOO AND THE ARKANSAS, 


complish. Sherman at this time, and, indeed, up to the time of his own de- 
feat, confidently expected that Grant would succeed on the northeast of 
Vicksburg—a result which, so far as he was concerned, was chiefly valuable 
because it would keep Pemberton on the line of the Yalabusha, and thus 
insure his own success on the Yazoo. “We hope,” he writes, “ that they 
(the rebels) will halt and re-form behind the Yalabusha, with Grenada as 
their centre. Ifso, General Grant can press their front, while I am ordered 
to take all the spare troops from Memphis and Helena, and proceed with all 
dispatch to Vicksburg.” He intended first to break the inland communica- 
tions of Vicksburg, and then to make a combined attack upon the city by 
land and water, Porter co-operating with the fleet. He would “cut the road 
to Monroe, Louisiana, to Jackson, Mississippi, and then appear up the Yazoo, 
threatening the Mississippi Central Road where it crosses the Big Black,” 
thus disconcerting the enemy and throwing him on to Meridian, leaving 
Vicksburg an easy capture. 

The want of sufficient transportation for Sherman’s large force was the 
cause of much embarrassment in fitting out the expedition, and of great 
confusion and inconvenience on its route to Friar’s Point. The confusion 
was increased by the necessary haste of the embarkation. The transports, 
suddenly pressed into service, were crowded so closely as to afford scarcely 
more than standing-room, and, of course, there were no adequate accommo- 
dations for the comfort or cleanliness of the men. The discomforts of this 
situation were exaggerated by the embarkation of Steele’s force at Helena. 
The negroes along the river were greatly impressed at sight of an expedi- 
tion which they confidently believed had been sent down for the express 
purpose of their liberation. Many of them, indeed, came upon the boats, 
and were taken under the protection of the flag. The fleet arrived at Mil- 
liken’s Bend on Christmas eve, and not a few of the enthusiastic soldiers 
expected to eat their Christmas dinner in Vicksburg. 

The next day troops were landed, and destroyed the railroad leading from 
Vicksburg to Texas. The expedition was convoyed by Porter’s gun-boats, 
on December 26th, to Johnston’s Landing, twelve miles up the Yazoo Riy- 
er.’ On the transport fleet Morgan’s division led the advance, followed in 
order by Steele, Morgan L. Smith, and A. J. Smith. 

Vicksburg itself is situated upon very high bluffs, which extend south- 
ward along the river to Warrenton, and northward till they touch the Yazoo, 
about fifteen miles from Haines’s Bluff. Between these bluffs, upon which 
the Confederates were now strongly fortified, and the Yazoo is a low coun- 
try, full of swamps, lagoons, sloughs, and bayous. The points of approach 
to the bluffs from the river are few and difficult—far more difficult than 
Sherman had anticipated. In this bed of mire and quicksand the national 
troops were landed, on the 27th, near Chickasaw Bayou, which runs from 
Vicksburg around the hills in the rear of the city and into the Yazoo, taking 
a sharp turn northward before it reaches the river. 

Searcely had Holly Springs fallen into Van Dorn’s hands before Pember- 
ton was warned of the attempt about to be made against the northern de- 


* «On entering the Yazoo, the first object that attracted the attention was the ruins of a large 
brick house and several other buildings, which were still smoking. On inquiry, I learned that this 
was the celebrated plantation of the rebel General Albert Sidney Johnston, who was killed at Shi- 
loh, It was an extensive establishment, working over three hundred negroes. It contained a 
large steam sugar refinery, an extensive steam saw-mill, cotton-gins, machine-shop, and a long 
line of negro quarters. 

‘* The dwelling was palatial in its proportions and architecture, and the grounds around it were 
magnificently laid out in alcoves, with arbors, trellises, groves of evergreens, and extensive flower- 
beds. All was now a mass of smouldering ruins. Our gun-boats had gone up there the day be- 
fore, and a small battery planted near the mansion announced itself by plugging away at one of 
the iron-clads, and the marines went ashore after the gun-boats had silenced the battery, and 
burned and destroyed every thing on the place. If any thing were wanting to complete the ceso- 
late aspect of the place, it was to be found in the sombre-hued pendent moss, peculiar to Southern 
forests, and which gives the trees a funereal aspect, as if they were all draped in mourning, as 
on almost every Southern plantation there were many deadened trees standing about in the fields, 
from the limbs of all of which long festoons of moss hung, swaying with a melancholy motion in 
every breeze.” —Missourt Democrat. 


446 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


fenses of Vicksburg. In this respect he had an overwhelming advantage 
over Sherman (who knew nothing of the unfavorable turn which affairs had 
taken in the rear of Vicksburg), and Grant’s withdrawal to Grand Junction 
left him free to pursue his advantage without hinderance. He faced about 
with his army; and by the time Sherman had landed on the south bank of 
the Yazoo, he had not only an equal force to confront the latter, but also an 
impregnable line of defense, covered by abatis, constructed from the thicket 
in front of his works. Thousands of slaves had for months been engaged 
upon these fortifications. 

The emergency which Sherman was about to meet was one in which nei- 
ther the bravery of his Western soldiers nor his own fertile ingenuity availed 
him any thing. It is true, the enemy had a line of works fifteen miles in 
extent to defend; and, suppos- 
ing that he was attacking a force 
much inferior to his own in point 
THELESNOUTE DED Ze~—ai— aN Ay of numbers, Sherman may well 

S be justified in the confident hope 
that he might, at some point in 
this long line, make an impres- 
sion, and that, by persistent 
pressure, he must succeed in 
driving the enemy out of his 
fortifications. 

Having debarked his troops, 
he pushed the enemy’s pickets 
back toward the bluffs, and on 
the 28th intended to make a gen- 
eral assault. Chickasaw Bayou 
proved the chief obstacle to his 
plan of attack. Dividing the country in the enemy’s front into nearly equal 
portions, it could be crossed only at two points, each completely covered by 
the enemy’s fire. This necessitated either a division of the attacking force, 
or the restriction of the assault to the west side of the bayou; and, as the 
bayou turned westward along the base of the bluffs, it covered the enemy’s 
entire left, and had in this section only four points at which a crossing could 
be effected, and even at these only in the face of rifle-pits on the table-land 
behind, of rifle-trenches on the hill-sides farther back, and of heavy batteries 
posted on the summits of the hills. Along the base of these hills, and back 
of the bayou, ran the road from Vicksburg to Yazoo City, serving the enemy 
as a covered way along which he could at leisure move his artillery and in- 
fantry, concentrating them upon any of the points which might be selected 
for crossing the Federal troops. 

Steele advanced on the east side of the bayou, but, encountering a swamp 
over which there was no passage except by a long corduroy causeway, and 


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BATTLE OF CHIOKASAW BAYOU. 


[ DECEMBER, 1862. 


that, too, at the risk of losing one half of his division, wisely concluded to 
give up the attempt. Morgan, on the other side of the bayou, advanced up’ 
to the enemy’s centre as far as to the bank of the bayou in front of the bluffs, 
where his progress was arrested, though he held his ground during the en- 
suing night. Morgan L. Smith advanced simultaneously farther to the right. 
While reconnoitring the ground he was disabled by a bullet lodged in his 
hip, and Brigadier General David Stuart succeeded to the active command. 
Where this division reached the bayou there was a crossing by means of a 
narrow sand-slip, but the attempt was deemed too perilous. On the extreme 
right General A. J. Smith advanced, and Burbridge’s brigade—arriving on 
the field about noon, having just returned from a raid on the Vicksburg and 
Shreveport Railroad—was pushed forward by Smith to the bayou, with or- 
ders to cross on rafts under cover of a heavy cannonade. Landrum’s brigade 
occupied a high position on the main road, within three fourths of a mile of 
the enemy’s works, and with Vicksburg in plain view on his right. 

On the morning of the 29th Steele had been recalled, and held the left, 
supporting Morgan. The entire army lay opposite the Confederate centre 
and left, with the inevitable bayou on its own left and front. Nothing had 
been heard from Grant, but his near presence was conjectured from a. sig- 
nal rocket which had been seen ascending in the east the first night after 
landing. 

Sherman determined to assault the hills in Morgan’s front, while A. J. 
Smith should cross at the sand-spit to the right. The assault was made, and 
a lodgment effected on the table-land across the bayou, the heads of the sup- 
porting columns being brought well up to the enemy’s works. The audac- 
ity of the troops up to this point was never surpassed. Blair’s brigade, orig- 
inally holding a position between Morgan and M. L. Smith, in advancing, 
had crossed the track of Morgan’s division till it reached the extreme front 
on the left, in Steele’s van. Here it crossed the bayou at a point where both 
banks were covered by tangled abatis, and the quicksand bed of the bayou 
was covered by water three feet deep. Through this bed Blair led his bri- 
gade across, leaving his horse floundering in the quicksands behind, and car- 
ried two lines of rifle-pits beyond, under a fire which struck down one third 
of his command. But, despite such instances of valor, beyond the crossing 
of a few regiments, and the slight foothold gained on the southern bank of 
the bayou, no impression was made; and so scathing was the fire from the 
enemy’s rifle-pits, and the cross-fire from his batteries, that the advanced col- 
umns faltered and fell back, leaving many dead, wounded, and prisoners. 

Still Sherman urged A.J. Smith, on the right, to push his attack across 
the sand-bar. The latter had already crossed the Sixth Missouri, who lay 
on the other side, under the bank of the bayou, with the enemy’s sharp-shoot- 
ers directly over their heads. They were about to make a road by under- 
mining the bank, when the utter failure of Morgan’s assault on the left led 
to an order for their withdrawal, which was accomplished, as the advance 


POSITION OF THE SIXT MISSOURI AFTER CROSSING TUE BAYOU. 


—_— Le 


DecemneEr, 1862. ] 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPL 


447 


ADMIRAL PORTER'S FLEET AT THE MOUTH OF THE YAZOO. 


had been, with heavy loss. All this time Burbridge had been skirmishing 
across the bayou, and Landrum pushing ahead through the abatis toward 
Vicksburg. 

The night of the 29th was spent by the troops in the position of the night 
before, lying, exposed to a heavy rain, upon the miry ground, with no shel- 
ter but their blankets, and with no consolation from victory for their past 
loss or present hardship. 

Sherman now gave up all hope of success from his present position. His 
only resource left was an attempt to turn the enemy’s line by carrying his 
extreme right, the batteries upon Drumgould’s Bluff, some miles farther up 
the Yazoo. While his army was encamped in the swamp on the night of 
the 29th, Sherman visited Admiral Porter on board his flag-boat, where was 
concerted the following plan of operations: Porter was to move up the Ya- 
zoo and bombard the batteries, while about 10,000 picked troops should 
make a determined assault, the rest of the army making a strong demonstra- 
tion on the enemy’s left. If successful in carrying out this plan, the national 
forces would have complete possession of the Yazoo River, and would hold 
the key of Vicksburg. 

Steele’s division, and one of Morgan L. Smith’s, were accordingly em- 
barked on the night of the 31st. But a dense fog made it impossible for 
Porter to advance his gun-boats, and the expedition was deferred to another 
night. But the next night the clear moonlight, which would last till morn- 
ing, proved as unfavorable as the fog of the night before, since there would 
be no cover of darkness for landing the troops, and the attempt to secure a 
lodgment on the ridge between Yazoo and Black Rivers was abandoned. 

Porter had previously (on the 24th and 27th) assailed the position at 
Haines’s Bluff without success. In the second attempt the gun-boat Benton 
had been disabled, and Captain Gwin, her gallant commander, received a 
wound of which he died January 38, 1863. 

The entire expedition was now a pronounced failure. The loss suffered 
by the national forces was 191 killed, 982 wounded, and 756 missing. The 
Confederate loss was very slight. It was also evident to General Sherman 
that the army under Grant, due a week ago, must have failed to co-operate 
with him. On the morning of January 2d the expedition was re-embarked 
for Milliken’s Bend, and before nightfall the last of the transports had passed 
out of the Yazoo, At the mouth of the river Sherman met General McCler- 
nand, who had come down on the steamer Tigress with orders to assume 
command of the expedition. To him General Sherman resigned his com- 
mand.! 


1 On January 4 Sherman issued the following order: 

‘Pursuant to the terms of General Order No. 1, made this day by General McClernand, the 
title of our army ceases to exist, and constitutes in the future the Army of the Mississippi, com- 
posed of two ‘army corps,’ one to be commanded by General G. W. Morgan, and the other by 
myself. In relinquishing the command of the Army of the Tennessee, and restricting my au- 
thority to my own ‘corps,’ I desire to express to all commanders, to the soldiers and officers re- 
cently operating before Vicksburg, my hearty thanks for the zeal, alacrity, and courage mani- 


The War Department had, on December 18, 1862, issued a general order 
dividing the Army of the Tennessee into four separate army corps, to be 


fested by them on all occasions. We failed in accomplishing one great purpose of our movement, 
the capture of Vicksburg, but we were part of a whole. Ours was but part of a combined move- 
ment, in which others were to assist. We were on time. Unforeseen contingencies must have 
delayed the others. 

‘*We have destroyed the Shreveport road, we have attacked the defenses of Vicksburg, and 
pushed the attack as far as prudence would justify, and, having found it too strong for our single 
column, we have drawn off in good order and good spirits, ready for any new move. A new com- 
mander is now here to lead you. He is chosen by the President of the United States, who is 
charged by the Constitution to maintain and defend it, and he has the undoubted right to select 
his own agents. I know that all good officers and soldiers will give him the same hearty support 
and cheerful obedience they have hitherto given me. There are honors enough in reserve for all, 
and work enough too. Let each do his appropriate part, and our nation must in the end emerge 
from this dire conflict purified and ennobled by the fires which now test its strength and purity. 
All officers of the general staff not attached to my person will hereafter report in person and by 
letter to Major General McClernand, commanding the Army of the Mississippi, on board the 
steamer Tigress, at our rendezvous at Gaines’s Landing, and at Montgomery Point. 

‘* By order of Major General W. T. Suerman. 

‘¢ J. H. Hammonp, A. A. G.” 

The connection of General McClernand with this expedition against Vicksburg is chiefly worthy 
of note as being so characteristic of the entire want of system—and, we might add, of judgment— 
in the general direction of the national armies at this time, and, indeed, until Grant became lieu- 
tenant general. It appears that, independently of any consultation with Grant, of whose winter 
campaign Vicksburg was the objective point, McClernand had in the autumn of 1862 been in- 
trusted by the War Department with the organization of an expedition down the Mississippi. 
This, we understand, was done at McClernand’s own instance. There was a long correspondence 
between him and the Department, the latter adopting his suggestions and urging him to hasten 
his preparations. The President and the Secretary of War united in drafting a document order~ 
ing him to organize the troops remaining in Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois, and to forward them with 
all dispatch to Memphis and Cairo, that, as soon as a sufficient force, not required elsewhere, 
should be got together, an expedition against Vicksburg might be organized under his command. 
The troops, however, were ‘‘subject to the designation of the general-in-chief,” and were to be 
employed ‘‘ according to such exigencies as the service in his judgment might require.” The 
order was a confidential one, but the President, in his indorsement, allowed McClernand to show 
it to governors or others at his discretion, and expressed his ‘‘ deep interest” in the proposed ex~ 
pedition. 

McClernand was all in earnest. On the 16th of December he writes: 

‘¢ Having substantially accomplished the purpose of the order sending me to the states of In- 
diana, Illinois, and Iowa, by forwarding upward of 40,000 troops, as was particularly explained 
in my letter of the Ist instant to the Secretary of War, and referred by him to you, I beg to be 
sent forward in accordance with the order of the Secretary of War on the 21st of October, giving 
me command of the Mississippi expedition.”’ 

Whether General Halleck looked with disfayor upon the arrangements made with McClernand 
by the President or Secretary of War, thinking it would be better to leave the disposition of the 
troops at Memphis to General Grant, does not appear. Certain it is, however, that when Grant, 
early in December, received the order to send an expedition down the river, no mention of McCler- 
nand was made. When Halleck received McClernand’s letter of the 16th, the expedition was 
upon the point of starting under Sherman’s command. Yet, two days after the receipt of this 
letter, the following telegram was transmitted to Grant from Halleck: 

‘“‘The troops in your department, including those from General Curtis’s command which join 
the down-river expedition, will be divided into four corps. It is the wish of the President that 
General McClernand’s corps shall constitute a part of the river expedition, and that he shall have 
the immediate command under your directions.” 

McClernand was detained by his correspondence with the War Department until December 
25th, when he left Springfield (Ilinois), with his staff, for Cairo—nearly a week after Sherman’s 
expedition had started from Memphis. Grant had dispatched an order the same day that he re- 
ceived Halleck’s telegram, giving McClernand the command, but the dispatch was interrupted at 
Jackson, Tennessee, and could proceed no farther. 

Finally, McClernand received the dispatch and was ready to leave Memphis December 30th, 
reaching the mouth of the Yazoo, as we have secn, just in time to meet the retreating expedition, 
with which he had been so curiously connected. 

In regard to Sherman’s conduct of the expedition, General Grant, writing after the capture of 


448 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [JANUARY, 1863. 


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THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPL 


449 


CONFEDERATE TRANSPORT BRINGING CATTLE TO VICKSBURG, 


known as the Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth, and to be 
commanded respectively by McClernand, Sherman, Hurlbut, and McPher- 
son, while General Grant was to retain command of the whole. Upon as- 
suming command of the expedition, now returned to Milliken’s Bend, 
McClernand gave the command of his own corps to General Morgan, this 
command comprising the divisions of A. J. Smith and Morgan’s own divis- 
ion, now commanded by General P. J. Osterhaus. Sherman’s corps com- 
prised also two divisions, Steele’s and M. L. Smith’s (now commanded by 
Stuart). 

These two corps, with McClernand in chief command, embarked upon the 
same transports which had brought them from Memphis, and, under con- 
voy of Admiral Porter’s gun-boats, proceeded up the river to attack Fort 
Hindman, commonly known as Arkansas Post, on the north bank of the 
Arkansas River, fifty miles from its mouth, and a little more than twice that 
distance below Little Rock. Here a settlement had been made by the 
French in 1685. The fort was situated on the first high ground to be found 
in ascending the Arkansas; it had a parapet eighteen feet across, with a 
ditch of twenty feet wide by eight deep, strong casemates, and a cordon of 
rifle-pits. Its commander was General T, J. Churchill, who had under him 
a garrison of about 5000 men. The fort was mounted with eight guns, and 
its capture was an affair of no great difficulty. But Churchill had orders 
from Lieutenant General Holmes, the Confederate commander in Arkansas, 
“to hold on till help arrived, or till all were dead.” 

The expedition entered White River, and, after ascending it for fifteen 
miles, through a cut-off, moved into Arkansas River January 9, and by 
noon of the next day the troops were all debarked three miles below the 
fort. The story of the capture is soon told. The gun-boats, even while the 
troops were landing, had shelled the sharp-shooters out of their rifle-pits 
along the levee, and, moving up to the fort, opened a bombardment. By 
land the army was pushed up around the fort, across bayous and swamps, 
and during the night of the 10th slept on their arms, in readiness for the 
assault of the next day. The gun-boats opened again a little after noon on 
the 11th, and in two or three hours the guns of the fort had been complete- 
ly silenced. In the mean time several brigades had charged up to within 
musket-range of the enemy’s works, where they found partial shelter in the 
ravines. In this advance General Hovey was wounded, and General Thay- 
er had a horse shot under him. General A.J. Smith pressed back the Con- 
federate right until, as he sent word to McClernand, he could “almost shake 
hands with the enemy.” As soon as the guns of the fort were silenced, 
McClernand ordered a general assault, when a white flag appeared on the 
ramparts, just as the Highty-third Ohio and Sixteenth Indiana, with General 
Burbridge at their head, were entering the intrenchments on the east side, 
while Sherman’s and Steele’s advanced regiments were 


831 wounded, and 17 missing. A few days later, the fortifications at Ar- 
kansas Post, the command of which had been assigned to General Burbridge, 
were dismantled and blown up. The position was of no importance, and 
was therefore abandoned. Before the withdrawal from Arkansas, however, 
an expedition under General Gorman and Lieutenant Commanding Walker 
was sent up the White River, and Des Are and Duval’s Bluff were captured. 

Grant, having attended to the reorganization of his forces into four army 
corps, proceeded to Memphis, and on the 18th of January he went down 
the river and met Sherman, McClernand, and Porter near the mouth of the 
White River, returning from their successful raid into Arkansas, and, ac 
companying them to Hore he consulted them in regard to farther opera- 
tions for the reduction of Vicksburg. Three days later, McClernand’s force 
reached Young’s Point, nine miles above Vicksburg, on the opposite bank 
of the river, facing the mouth of the Yazoo. For over two months—until 
the movement on New Carthage—Grant’s army was engaged in several un- 
successful attempts at an approach to Vicksburg from above. Before enter- 
ing upon a review of these experiments, let us for a moment turn our atten- 
tion to the interesting exploits of some of our gun-boats during this interval. 

On the 2d of February, Colonel Charles R. Ellet, with the Queen of the 
West, ran past the batteries, with orders to destroy the City of Vicksburg, a 
vessel which had, after Sherman’s failure, been brought down by the enemy 
from the Yazoo to the front of Vicksburg. This movement had not escaped 
Porter's observation. It was also known to him that supplies were contin- 
ually being obtained both at Vicksburg and Port Hudson by means of trans- 
ports. To these transports, also, Colonel Hllet was expected to pay his re- 
gards. The Queen of the West was a wooden steamer, strengthened so as 
to carry an iron prow. Her armament consisted of an 80-pounder rifled 
Parrott gun on her main deck, one 20-pounder and three 12-pounder brass 
howitzers on her gun-deck. In order to protect her from the shot and 
shells of the batteries, she had had her steering apparatus removed and 
placed behind the bulwarks of her bows, and three hundred bales of cotton 
covered her machinery. The change in her steering apparatus proved a 
great inconvenience, and, after starting on her trip, it was found necessary 
to return it to its original position. This caused some delay, and she did 
not pass into full view of the batteries before sunrise, thus becoming a fair 
target for a hundred guns bearing upon her at once. Only three or four 
shots, however, struck her before she reached the City of Vicksburg, which 
was made fast to the river’s bank at the centre of the bend. Colonel Ellet 
made for the steamer at once, and struck her, but the force of the blow 
was broken by wide guards, which overlapped the prow of the ram, and pre- 
vented the latter from reaching the hull of the Vicksburg. The current, 
which was very strong at this point, swung the Queen round side by side 


on the point of entering on the north and west, and the 
fort was in McClernand’s hands, with 5000 prisoners, 
17 guns, and 8000 small-arms. Churchill professed, 


even after the capture, his intention to have held out 


till the last man was slain, and said he was only pre- 


vented from doing so by the unauthorized display of 
the white flag by some of his Texan soldiers. So 
The 
Confederate loss in killed was 60, and in wounded from 


75 to 80. McClernand reports his own loss 129 killed, 


Vicksburg, says, “‘General Sherman’s arrangement as commander of 
troops in the attack on Chickasaw Bluffs last December was admirable. 
Seeing the ground from the opposite side from the attack afterward, I 
saw the impossibility of making it successful.” 

The account of the expedition published just after its failure in 
the Missouri Democrat abounded in vituperative charges against Gen- 
eral Sherman. It accused him of an ambition to anticipate Grant in 
order to gain for himself the entire glory of the capture of Vicksburg ; 
it asserted, without any authority, that Sherman knew that McClernand 
was properly the commander of the expedition, and represents him as 
exulting in his shrewdness in ‘‘cutting that general out ;” and it charges 
him, in effect, with the murder of 2000 soldiers for the satisfaction of 
his own ambition. It is, however, quite evident that the motive which 
led to this outburst of indignation was General Sherman’s order in rela- 
tion to newspaper correspondents. 

5X 


450 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ FEBRUARY, 1863. 


LOSS OF THE QUEEN OF THE WEST. 


with the enemy. At this moment Colonel Ellet fired his starboard bow gun, 
loaded with incendiary shells, into the Vicksburg, his own cotton bales be- 
ing at the same time set on fire by shells from the batteries. It was impos- 
sible to attempt any thing farther at this point, and the Queen, without ma- 
terial injury, passed the lower batteries. Below Natchez she captured and 
burned three small steamers laden with provisions. During the night a 
flat-boat, with a cargo of coal, was cast loose from the fleet above, and float- 
ed down to the ram. 

A week later (February 10) the Queen started upon another expedition 
down the river, accompanied by the De Soto as tender. The next evening 
she reached the mouth of Old River, into which Red River runs. On the 
12th, leaving the De Soto to guard the mouth of Old River, the Queen en- 
tered the Atchafalaya, and made some captures of army wagons and provi- 
sions, and, on the way back to her anchorage of the previous night, was fired 
upon from the shore and her master mortally wounded. On the 12th the 
two steamers passed up into Red River, and, moving up to the mouth of the 
Black River, where they anchored for the night, they the next morning 
captured the Era, No. 5, a steamer of 100 tons, with fourteen Texan soldiers, 
$28,000 in Confederate money, and 4500 bushels of corn destined for Little 
Rock. The pilot of the Era was taken on board the Queen, and, either by 
accident or design, he grounded the steamer directly under the guns of Fort 
Taylor, located at a bend in the river twenty miles above the spot where the 
Kra was captured, and where she now lay under guard. The guns of the 
fort opened with frightful accuracy upon the unfortunate Queen, nearly ev- 
ery shell striking her, and one shot pierced her smoke-pipe, filling the boat 
with steam. It was impossible for the Queen to reply to the shots that 
were crashing through her machinery. There was the greatest confusion 
on board; cotton-bales were tumbled into the river, and men, jumping over- 
board, clung to them, hoping to float down to the De Soto, a mile below; 
negroes, frightened to death, were plunging into the water, where, with no 
means of preservation within their reach, they were drowned. The De Soto 
endeavored to come to the rescue, but the attempt proved too perilous, and 
she withdrew out of range. As she floated down she picked up several of 
the crew. Colonel Ellet escaped in this manner. By 11 o’clock P.M. the 
De Soto reached the Era, and, proving unmanageable, was blown up. Upon 
the Era, with the Confederate ram Webb sixty miles behind him and in 
swift pursuit, Colonel Ellet worried his way out of Red River and up the 
Mississippi, past Ellis’s Cliffs, where he met the Indianola, one of the finest of 
the national gun-boats. Just as the Era came alongside of her unlooked-for 
deliverer the fog lifted, and revealed her pursuer, the Webb, not far in the 
rear. The tables were then turned, and the Webb was pursued by the two 
boats, but, being a swift vessel, she escaped. 

The Era was now furnished with supplies, and sent back to Admiral Por- 


ter. The Indianola! had set out from the mouth of the Yazoo on the night 
of February 13. She passed the batteries without steam, floating down with 
the current at the rate of about four miles an hour. Although her crew 
could hear the voices of the Confederate soldiers on the bank, yet she passed 
by unobserved until she drifted by a camp-fire on the levee, when she was 
discovered by a soldier, who discharged his musket at her. This was the 
signal for a general discharge of muskets and cannon. As the Indianola 
now put on steam to hasten her progress her position became known, and 
she was opened upon from every battery which she had now to pass; but 
she suffered no injury. She was commanded by Lieutenant Commander 
Brown. How she arrived in time to rescue the Era has been already shown. 

The Queen of the West was being repaired by the enemy, and as it would 
be difficult to manceuvre so long a boat as the Indianola in the waters of 
the Red River, and no pilots could be obtained, Brown returned with his 
boat up the river. When he reached the mouth of the Big Black River, 
forty miles below Vicksburg, on the 24th, the Webb and the Queen of the 
West hove in sight behind him, accompanied by two cotton-clad steamers. 
Brown had expected another vessel to come down to assist him in meeting 
the emergency which now threatened, but he had been disappointed. It 
was now half past nine P.M., and the night. was very dark. Clearing for 
action, Brown stood down the river to meet them. The Queen of the West 
led in the attack, striking through a coal-barge against the Indianola, but 
harmlessly ; then came the Webb. “ Both vessels came together, bows on,” 
says Brown, “ with a tremendous crash, which knocked nearly every one 
down on board both vessels, doing no damage to us, while the Webb’s bow 
was cut in at least eight feet.” Not minding the cotton-clads, which kept 
up an incessant fire with small-arms, Brown turned his attention to the rams, 
with whom he was now engaged at close quarters. From his forward guns 


* «<The Indianola was a new iron-clad gun-boat, one hundred and seventy-four feet long, fifty feet 
beam, ten feet from the top of her deck to the bottom of her kcel, or eight feet four inches in the 
clear. Her sides (of wood) for five feet down were thirty-two inches thick, having beveled sticks 
laid outside the hull (proper), and all of oak. Outside of this was three-inch-thick plate iron. Her 
clamps and keelsons were as heavy as the largest ship’s. Her deck was eight inches solid, with one- 
inch iron plate, all well bolted. Her casemate stood at an incline of twenty-six and a half degrees, 
and was covered with three-inch iron, as were also her ports. She had a heavy grating on top of 
the casemate that no shell could penetrate, and every scuttle and hatch was equally well coy- 
ered, She was ironed all round, except some temporary rooms on deck, and, besides the amount 
of wood and iron already stated, had coal-bunkers seven feet thick alongside of her boilers, the en- 
tire machinery being in the hold. She had seven engines—two for working her side wheels, two 
for her propellers, two for her capstans, and one for supplying water and working the bilge and 
fire pumps. She had five large five-flued boilers, and made abundance of steam. Her forward 
casemate had two eleven-inch Dahlgren guns, and her after casemate two nine-inch. Her forward 
casemate was pierced for two guns in front, one on each side, and two aft, so that she could fire 
two guns forward, one on each side, and four at an angle sideways and astern. She had also hose 
for throwing scalding water from her boilers that would reach from stem to stern, and there was 
communication from the casemates to all parts of the vessel without the least exposure. ‘The pilot- 
house was also thoroughly iron-clad, and instant communication could be had with the gunners 
and engineers, enabling the pilot to place the vessel in just such position as might be required for 
effective action.”—Appleton’s Annual Cyclopedia, 1863, p. 44. 


2 


Fesrvary, 1863. ] 


he fired at his antagonists as opportunity offered. He 
received a third blow, which crushed the starboard coal- 
barge. Two more blows were struck without serious- 
ly damaging the Indianola. The sixth blow from the 
Webb crushed the starboard wheel and disabled the 
starboard rudder, starting a number of leaks back of 
the shaft. The Webb now struck a fair blow in the 
stern, starting the timbers of the Indianola, which let 
in the water in large volumes, Finally, the gun-boat, 
with two feet and a half of water over her floor, was run 
ashore. Unable longer to hold out against four vessels, 
mounting ten guns, and manned by over a thousand 
men, Brown surrendered, after a fight of an hour and 
a half All his guns had been either thrown overboard 
or rendered useless. 

The enemy intended immediately to repair the In- 
dianola, which was an important accession to his fleet. 
Her destruction afterward was probably the most lu- 
dicrous incident of the war. It happened in this way. 
Porter observed the Queen of the West on the morning 
of February 25th at Warrenton, seven miles below 
Vicksburg. He had not heard of the capture of the 
Indianola, and the appearance of this boat excited alarm. He had no 
expectation that the Queen would so soon be repaired, and began to fear 
(too late) for the safety of the Indianola. In a letter written by him on the 
26th, he expresses his anxiety on her account. It appears that he stood 
in becoming awe of the Queen (whose loss he considered more to be de- 
plored than the disaster at Galveston), but had little fear of the Webb, which 
really gave the death-blow to the Indianola. The latter vessel (the Indi- 
anola) Porter characterizes as weak, the only good thing about her being 
her battery. But a trivial instrument of war at this crisis was destined to 
effect more than the Queen of the West or the Indianola had been able to 
accomplish. Admiral Porter had observed that while the Queen and the 
Indianola were running past the batteries, five of the enemy’s guns were 
burst and dismounted. He therefore tried to provoke the fire of the bat- 
teries by placing a mortar so that its fire bore upon that portion of the town 
where there was nothing but army supplies. For a time the mortar accom- 
plished its object, when the enemy gave up firing. 

“Finding,” says the admiral, “that they could not be provoked to fire with- 
out an object, 1 thought of getting up an imitation monitor. Ericsson saved 
the country with an iron one, why could I not save it with a wooden one? 
An old coal-barge, picked up in the river, was the foundation to build on. 
It was built of old boards in twelve hours, with pork-barrels on top of each 
other for smoke-stacks, and two old canoes for quarter-boats; her furnaces 
were built of mud, and only intended to make black smoke and not steam.” 

Porter considered his “dummy” a very much better-looking affair, after 
all, than the Indianola. Well, he let slip this formidable dog of war one 
night (that of the 24th), hardly expecting of it such good service as it really 
accomplished before the enemy discovered how he had been fooled. When 
the dark monster, without a soul on board, was disclosed by the first dim 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSTPPT. 


TUE INDIANOLA RUNNING THE VIOKSLURG BATTERIES, 


morning light, the Confederates appear to have had no hesitation about 
firing. ‘ Never,” says Porter, “did the batteries of Vicksburg open with 
such a din; the earth fairly trembled, and the shot flew thick around the 
devoted monitor.” Ofcourse the dummy” could not be sunk, for the shots 
went in one side and out at the other. ‘he soldiers of Grant’s army lined 
the banks, and “shouted and laughed like mad” to see the fun. In the very 
midst of this frolic the Queen of the West appeared off Warrenton, and a 
damper was thrown upon the jollity of the spectacle on which all eyes had 
been fixed, by apprehensions as to the fate of the Indianola. 

In the panic occasioned by the appearance of the “dummy,” the enemy 
had given warning to the Queen of the West, who, supposing that she was 
pursued by a monster gun-boat, and trembling for her life, turned and fled 
down the river. The sham monitor, though it deigned no reply to the Con- 
federate guns, did pursue the Queen as rapidly as a five-knot current would 
allow. Dispatches had been already sent from Vicksburg ordering the In- 
dianola to be blown up without delay, that she might be saved from the 
clutches of her novel antagonist. The Queen of the West took refuge in 
the Red River, but, having no support, was not long afterward blown up to 
avoid capture. The order to blow up the Indianola was obeyed, and the 
gun-boat was annihilated. This exploit of the “dummy,” strange as it may 


1 Jn regard to the effects produced by Porter’s “dummy,” the Richmond Hxaminer of March 
7, 1863, says: 

‘“¢The telegraph brings us tidings of something which is tremblingly described as a ‘turreted 
monster.’ Gun-boats are deemed not more dangerous than dug-outs, but when the case is altered 
to an interview with a ‘turreted monster,’ then the brave defenders of the Father of Waters can 
do nothing better than make two-forty toward the mountains. 

“The reported fate of the Indianola is even more disgraceful than farcical. Here was perhaps 
the finest iron-clad in the Western waters, captured after a heroic struggle, rapidly repaired, and 
destined to join the Queen of the West in a series of victories. Next we hear that she was of ne- 
cessity blown up, in the true Merrimac-Mallory style, and why? Laugh and hold your sides, lest 


ADMIRAL PORTER'S “ DUMMY.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ Marcu, 1863. 


vn ne 


a 


| nto. FROG 


THE LANOASTER AND SWITZERLAND RUNNING TILE VIOKSBURG BATTERIES. 


seem, broke up that naval supremacy of the river below Vicksburg which 
had been almost secured by the enemy. Ifa few more regular gun-boats 
had run the blockade with the same results as the Queen of the West and 
Indianola, the Confederates would have soon had a powerful and almost 
irresistible fleet. It was certainly ingenious in Admiral Porter to send the 
“dummy” down instead. 

Precisely a week after the victory of the “dummy” the rams Lancaster 
and Switzerland attempted to pass the batteries, being wanted by Admiral 
Farragut in the Red River. By some delay, it was daylight when they came 
under fire. The Lancaster was sunk, and the Switzerland, though she suc- 
ceeded in passing, was badly cut up. Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet! com- 


you die of a surfeit of derision, oh Yankeedom! - Blown up because, forsooth, a flat-boat or mud- 
scow, with a small house taken from the back garden of a plantation put on top of it, is floated 
down the river before the frightened eyes of the Partisan Rangers. A turreted monster! 

“** A most unfortunate and unnecessary affair,’ says the dispatch. Rather so! ‘The turreted 
monster proved to be a flat-boat, with sundry fixtures to create deception!’ Think of that! 
‘She passed Vicksburg on Tuesday night, and the officers (what officers ?), believing her to be a 
turreted monster, blew up the Indianola, but her guns fell into the enemy’s hands.’ ‘That is pass- 
ing odd. Her guns fell into ‘the enemy’s hands after she was blown up!’ Incredible! Mallory 
and Tatnall did better than that with the Merrimac. 

«The Queen of the West,’ continues the facetious dispatch, ‘left in such a hurry as to forget 
part of her crew, who were left on shore.’ Well done for the Queen of the West and her brave 


officers! ‘Taken altogether,’ concludes the inimitable dispatch, ‘it was a good joke on the Par- 
tisan Rangers, who are notoriously more cunning 
than brave.’ Truly an excellent joke —so ex- 
cellent that every man connected with this affair 
(if any resemblance of the truth is contained in 
the dispatch) should be branded with the capital 
letters ‘'T. M.,’ and enrolled in a detached com- 
pany, to be known by the name of ‘ The Turret- 
ed Monster’ henceforth and forever.” 

1 A few weeks afterward, at the close of the 
summer, Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet applied for 
leave of absence on account of illness, and in Au- 


PROVIDENC 


SWAN LAKE 


TENSAS RiveR 


“IssissiPP! 


RORT GIBSON 


ATCHAFALAYA p 


' 


LAKE I'ROVIDENOE ROUTE, 


POSITION OF WILLIAMS’S CANAL, 


TUE 


manded the latter vessel; the Switzerland was commanded by Lieutenant 
Colonel John A. Ellet, brother of Alfred Ellet. 

The aspect of military affairs at the close of 1862 was for the nation a dis- 
couraging one. The repulse at Fredericksburg in the East had its Western 
counterpart in Sherman’s defeat on the Yazoo. Indeed, the whole year just 
closed had presented no grand results in favor of the national arms except 
the capture of New Orleans. 

The Yazoo expedition had been an experiment, and a somewhat costly 
one; and, following upon its failure, for several weeks, so far as Vicksburg 
was concerned, every operation of Grant’s army was an experiment, and 
proved a failure. The state of the river did not allow of those brilliant op- 
erations which in the end were successful. But Grant had a large army, 
consisting of McClernand’s command, and of his own troops brought down 
from Memphis. It would almost seem that it was to keep this immense 
force out of idleness that he embarked upon the series of adventures which 
preceded the advance to New Carthage in April. 


gust retired to the home of his uncle, Dr, Ellet, at Bunker Hill, Illinois. He had been troubled 
with a severe attack of neuralgia in the face, for which he was in the habit of taking some opiate. 
On the night of October 16th he died, either from an overdose of morphine or from prostration. 
He was little more than twenty years old, was a man of great literary culture and refinement, 
and had shouldered responsibilities such as few of much riper years were called upon to bear. 


ROLLING FORK 


TALLAHATCHEE 


2 


J> 
ff YAL00 CTIY 


SUNFLOWER 


yao? 


/ HAINES 
BLUFF 


VICKSBURG 


THE YAZOO PASS ROUTE, 


4 
dif 


THE STEELE’S BAYOU ROUTE. 


Maron, 1863. ] 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 4 


Wi 
j i 


i 


BZ er 


iil 


Falta 
CSNY : 


NEGROES AT WORK ON THE CANAL, 


First among these was General Williams’s Canal, to which allusion has al- 
ready been made. Grant came down to Young’s Point in person on the 2d 
of February, and under his superintendence the work on the canal was re- 
opened and vigorously prosecuted. To secure the encampment from inun- 
dation, a levee was constructed on the eastern side. The river was rising 
rapidly, and it proved difficult to keep the gathering flood out of the canal 
and the camps. While the work was still going on, on the 8th of March 
the levee gave way suddenly just west of the canal, and the waters with 
great violence rushed in, carrying away the dikes which had been built and 
the implements of the workmen, and, entering the camps, drove the soldiers 
to the refuge of the levee. The entire peninsula south of the railroad was 
flooded. 

Failing to find a route for his transports to a point below Vicksburg by 
means of the canal, Grant directed his attention more prominently toward 
another mode of effecting this object, by a route which his engineers had 
pronounced practicable. By cutting a channel into Lake Providence from 
the Mississippi, it was thought possible that transports might be conveyed 
through that lake, then through the Tensas, Black, and Red Rivers into the 
Mississippi below Natchez. Work had been begun on the channel shortly 


ox 


after the work on the canal had been reopened. This Lake Providence 
route would have brought the army down to a point far below Vicksburg, 
but it would have enabled Grant to co-operate with Banks at Port Hudson. 
The channel, about a mile in length, was completed March 16th. Before, 
however, any thing had been fairly done in making this plan available, the 
promise of success by means of a similar route on the east side of the river 
created a diversion. The flood, to which a path was opened by the Lake 
Providence Canal, inundated a large district of country in Louisiana, some 
portion of which was a fine cotton-growing region. 

The plan of operations on the east of the Mississippi, by the Yazoo Pass 
route, had at first for its object only the destruction of the enemy’s transports 
on the Yazoo, and the gun-boats which were being built on that stream. 
Hight miles below Helena (but on the opposite bank) a canal was cut into 
Moon Lake, from which, by Yazoo Pass and the Coldwater and Tallahatchie 
Rivers, there was a passage into the Yazoo. The navigation by this route 
proving better than was expected, Grant entertained a hope of gaining in 
this way a foothold on the high land above Haines’s Bluff. Major General 
J.B. McPherson, commanding the Seventeenth Corps, was directed to hold 
his men in readiness to move by this route, and he was re-enforced by one 


3 


454 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[Marcn, 1863. 


ANY =) 
re 
Sf } 


BREAK IN THE MIL8siSsipPL LEVEE, NEAR THE CANAL, 


division from McClernand’s and another from Sherman’s corps. “ But,” 
says General Grant, “‘ while my forces were opening one end of the pass, the 
enemy was diligently closing the other end, and in this way succeeded in 
caining time to strongly fortify Greenwood, below the junction of the Talla- 
hatchie and Yalabusha.” The passage into the Coldwater River was an af- 
fair of great difficulty. The flood which had been occasioned by the cutting 
of the canal, the swift current of the stream, and the gigantic branches of the 
cypress and sycamore overhanging the boats and obstructing their passage, 


ld 


- == v, i (ites; 
YUL LE 


rendered the progress of the expedition very slow, the rate of speed being 
about one mile in four hours. The boats were greatly damaged, but the ex- 
pedition succeeded in reaching the junction at Greenwood, where Fort Pem- 
berton opposed such a resistance that it was compelled finally to withdraw. 
An unsuccessful attempt was made by the gun-boats to reduce the fort, which 
they bombarded for two days. The land about the fort was loose, and at 
this time flooded with water, a circumstance which debarred the army from 
co-operation in the attack. The Confederate force was estimated at over 


= 


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sal alps. 


¢ ——— ANNI 4 i 


AMONG THE BAYOUS. 


McOLERNAND'S CORPS MARCHING THROUGH THE BOGS, 


DROWAGOLDS 
SBOE BRIT: 


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we 
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W CARTAAGES 


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WI NERNON'S 


FROM MILLIKEN’S BEND TO NEW CARTHAGE, 


5000 men, under the command of General Tilghman, who a year before had 
been captured at Fort Henry, in Kentucky. 

Another plan was then attempted by which Fort Greenwood might be 
avoided and left in the rear. This was to be effected by a passage up the 
Yazoo River to Cypress Bayou (opposite the position occupied by Sherman 
in the attack on Chickasaw Bluffs the previous December), thence into 
Steele’s Bayou, and through Little Black Fork into the Big Sunflower 
River, and turning at Rolling Fork southward into Deer Creek, which emp- 
ties into the Yazoo above Haines’s Bluff. The expedition, commanded by 
Admiral Porter, consisted of the gun-boats Pittsburg, Louisville, Mound 
City, Cincinnati, and Carondelet, with a number of small transports. Porter 
found a co-operating military force essential, and a column was sent under 
Sherman. “The expedition failed,” says Grant, “probably more from want 
of knowledge as to what would be required to open this route than from 
any impracticability in the navigation of the streams and bayous through 
which it was proposed to pass. Want of this knowledge led the expedition 
on until difficulties were encountered, and then it would become necessary 
to send back to Young’s Point for the means of removing them. This gave 
the enemy time to move forces to effectually checkmate farther progress, 
and the expedition was withdrawn when within a few hundred yards of free 
and open navigation to the Yazoo.” 

Grant then reverted to his original plan of moving his transports to the 
south of Vicksburg. His engineers had prospected a route through the 
bayous which ran from near Milliken’s Bend on the north and New Car- 
thage on the south, through Roundabout Bayou into Tensas River. The 
route was opened, and one small steamer and a number of barges were taken 
through the channel. But about the middle of April, the river beginning 
to fall rapidly, the roads became passable between Milliken’s Bend and New 
Carthage, and communication by water was out of the question. 

In the course of the Deer Creek raid a Federal soldier is reported to have 
been captured and taken before a Confederate officer, when the following 
colloquy took place: ‘‘ What in the devil is Grant in here for? what does 
he expect to do?” “To take Vicksburg,” was the reply. ‘ Well, hasn’t 
the old fool tried this ditching and flanking five times already?” “ Yes,” 
replied the soldier, “ but he has got thirty-seven more plans in his pocket.” 
It is quite impossible to conceive what these other thirty-seven plans could 
have been, for certainly, with the exception of that which was next put in 
operation, and which resulted in the capture of Vicksburg, it seems that 
every possible mode of approaching, turning, or avoiding the city had been 
tried. 

Grant’s idea, from his first arrival at Young’s Point, was to get his army 
across the river at a point below Vicksburg, having 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


455 


over bad roads for a distance of thirty-five miles from Milliken’s Bend, 
McClernand’s advance was therefore one of extreme difficulty. 

As the water fell it was found necessary to get the transports which were 
to convey the army across the Mississippi down the river by running the 
Vicksburg batteries. The gun-boats selected to convoy the transports were 
the Benton, Lafayette, Price, Louisville, Carondelet, Pittsburg, Tuscumbia, 
and Mound City—all iron-clad except the Price. Three transports were 
selected—the Forest Queen, Henry Clay, and Silver Wave—their machinery 
being protected by cotton bales. They were laden with supplies. On the 
night of April 16th the expedition set out. he iron-clads were to pass 
down in single file, and when abreast of the batteries were to engage the 
latter, covering the transports with the smoke of their cannonade. Fire was 
not opened upon the fleet until it was squarely in front of Vicksburg, and 
then the gun-boats responded, pouring their full broadside of twenty-five 
guns into the city. Into the cloud of smoke which now rolled heavily 
above the gun-boats the three transports entered. The Forest Queen, in 
the advance, received a shot in the hull and another through the steam- 
drum, which disabled her instantly. The Henry Clay, next in order, was 
stopped to prevent her running into the crippled vessel, and at the same 
moment received a shell which set fire to her cotton. Her demoralized 
crew launched the yawl and made for the shore, while the transport, in a 
blaze of flame, floated down the river, finally disappearing below Warrenton. 
The Forest Queen was towed down by a gun-boat, and the Silver Wave 
escaped uninjured. 

Succeeding in getting these two transports down, Grant ordered six more 
to be sent in the same manner. Five of these, on the 22d, succeeded in 
passing the batteries with slight damage; the other was sunk just after pass- 
ing the last battery. 

Admiral Porter repaired the damaged transports, five of which were 
brought into running order, while the other two were in a fit condition to 
serve as barges. The limited number of transports in his possession led 
Grant to extend his line of movement to Hard Times, in Louisiana, seventy- 
five miles from Milliken’s Bend. Here, before the end of April, the Thir- 
teenth Corps (McClernand’s) was in readiness for the campaign about to be 
undertaken across the river. 

It was at this crisis that Colonel Grierson’s raid was undertaken, under 
directions from General Grant. The entire Confederate force in the states 
bordering on the Mississippi was now being gathered together to meet the 
blows which Grant was preparing to strike. Thus the way was open for one 
of those bold cavalry incursions for which hitherto only the Confederates 
had distinguished themselves, but which, from this time, became a prominent 
feature in the national conduct of the war. Morgan, Forrest, and Van Dorn 
had set the example, which was to be followed now by Colonel Grierson in 
a bold movement from La Grange, in Tennessee, through the State of Mis- 
sissippi to Baton Rouge, in Louisiana. 

At the outbreak of the war, Colonel Grierson, a native of Illinois, entered 
the army as an aid to General Prentiss. Subsequently colonel of the Sixth 
Illinois, he soon rose to the command of a brigade in Grant’s army. The 
force placed at his disposal for his celebrated raid consisted of a brigade 
1700 strong, composed of the Sixth and Seventh Illinois and Second Iowa 
Cavalry. 

La Grange, the starting-point of the expedition, is an inland town, about 
fifty miles east from Memphis, on the southern border of Tennessee. Grier- 
son’s command set out from this place on the morning of April 17th, the 
Sixth Illinois in the advance. At night the head of the column encamped 
within four miles of Ripley, the first town reached after crossing the Missis- 
sippi border. The route of the expedition through Mississippi, as will be 
seen from the following map, passed entirely around Pemberton’s army, be- 
tween the Ohio and Mobile and the New Orleans and Jackson Railroads, 
crossing the railroad leading east from Vicksburg a little south of Deca- 
tur, and the New Orleans Railroad just in the rear of Natchez. After three 
days of adventurous riding, and meeting only inconsiderable detachments 
of the enemy, which were easily scattered, the command on the night of the 
19th reached Mr. Wetherall’s plantation, eight miles south of Pontotoc, and 


effected which, he proposed to attack the city from 


the rear. He was now able to set about this work 
in earnest. It was with this view that he had sought 
to open a water communication between Milliken’s 


Bend and New Carthage. At the same time, he had 
determined to occupy the latter place with his troops. 
New Carthage was the first point below Vicksburg 


that could be reached by land at the stage of water 


then existing. On the 29th of March, McClernand, 
with his corps, was ordered to advance and occu- 
py this position, to be followed by Sherman’s and 
McPherson’s corps as soon as supplies and ammu- 
nition for them could be transported. The roads, 
though level, were intolerably bad, and as McCler- 
nand’s advance reached Smith’s Plantation, two miles 
from New Carthage, it was found that the levee of 
Bayou Vidal was broken in several places, and New 
Carthage had been insulated. The troops were there- 
fore compelled to take a more circuitous route by 
marching twelve miles around the bayou to Per- 
kins’s Plantation. Supplies of provisions, ammuni- 
tion, and ordnance for the troops had to be hauled 
1 Iowa Colonels and Regiments, p. 223. 


GRANT'S TRANSPORTS RUNNING THE BATTERIES, 


456 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| APRIL, 1863. 


SAVING THE BRIDGE ACROSS PEARL RIVER, 


PHILADELPHIA 


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SOHEMH OF GRIERSON’S RAID. 


sixty miles from its first night’s encampment. 


Forty miles were made the next day; and on the 
21st, Colonel Hatch, with the Iowa regiment, in an 
excursion, the object of which was the destruction 
of the Mobile Railroad at Columbus, was confront- 
ed by a superior force of the enemy. In the fight 
which ensued Colonel Hatch was seriously wound- 
ed, and his command dispersed. . On the 27th the 
expedition reached Pearl River, where it was joined 
by a detachment of thirty-five men who about a 
week before had been sent from the main column 
to cut the telegraph running northward from Ma- 
con. This little party had succeeded in marching 
to Macon and safely returning to the main col- 
umn, under the leadership of Captain Forbes. It 
had been in great peril, for the whole state was 
now alarmed. Unable to capture Macon, it was 
misled by false information to Enterprise, where, 
but for the boldness of Captain Forbes, it would 
have fallen into the hands of three thousand Con- 
federate soldiers. The captain, understanding his danger, tried to bluff 
the enemy, and succeeded. He rode boldly up to the town with a flag of 
truce, and demanded the instant surrender of the place to Colonel Grierson. 
Colonel Goodwin, commanding the Confederate force, asked an hour to con- 
sider the proposition, to which request Forbes was only too willing to ac- 
cede. That hour, with rapid riding, delivered his little company from its 
embarrassing situation. 

In the mean time, the main column, which, after Hatch’s defeat, only num- 
bered 1000 men, had been rescued from imminent peril by a deliverance still 
more remarkable, because it was providential rather than strategic. During 
the 22d and the following night, the expedition made the most difficult 
march of the raid. Waiting in the morning for the return of a battalion 
which had been detailed to destroy a large shoe factory near Starkville, it 
had been delayed, and toward night found itself entangled in the swamps of 
the Okanoxubee River, a few miles south of Louisville, The water in many 


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GRLERSON'’S COMMAND ENTERING BATON ROUGE. 


places on the roads was four or five feet deep, and the tired horses, after a 
march already accomplished of over fifty miles, and now confronted by a 
waste of water, without the light of day to guide their path, were many of 
them drowned. Fortunately not a man was lost, and the next morning 
(that of the 23d) found the entire column hurrying forward to reach the 
bridge across Pearl River. Confederate scouts had gone before them, and 
if the bridge should be destroyed there was no hope of escape. It was not 
till late in the afternoon that Colonel Prime, with the Seventh Illinois, neared 
the bridge. Upon a closer approach it was discovered that the enemy’s 
scouts were already engaged in the destruction of the bridge, stripping up 
the planks and hurling them into the river. The scouts were driven from 
the bridge, which in a few minutes more would have been rendered useless. 
This was near Decatur, where, on the next day, Grierson destroyed two ware- 
houses full of commissary stores, several carloads of ammunition, and burned 
the railroad bridges and trestle-work, besides capturing two trains of cars 


7 


Apnit, 1863.] 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


457 


It was Grierson’s raid which first demonstrated that 
the Confederacy was but a shell, strong at the surface 
by reason of organized armies, but hollow within, and 
destitute of resources to sustain or of strength to re- 
cruit those armies. 

The same day that Grierson entered Baton Rouge 
was fought and won the battle of Port Gibson, the 
first of a series of victorious battles in the rear of 
Vicksburg which in the course of two months had 
their crowning success in the capture of the “ heroic 
city.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 
THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI.—( Continued.) 


Opening of the new Campaign against Vicksburg.—Getting into Po- 
sition. —Battle of Port Gibson and Evacuation of Grand Gulf.— 
Feint Attack at Haines’s Bluff.—General Banks’s Progress in Lou- 
isiana.—Port Hudson.—Farragut runs the Blockade.—Battle at 
Raymond.— Capture of Jackson. — Battle of Champion Hill.— 
McClernand’s Fight on the Black River.—Investment of Vicks- 
burg.—First Assault, May 19th.—Second Assault, May 22d.—The 


THE ADVANCE ON PORT GLBSON, 


and two locomotives. On the morning of the 27th they reached the Pearl 
River at a point sixty miles nearer its mouth. Here again they were fortu- 
nate in obtaining ferriage across the river. At Gallatin, on the night of the 
27th, they captured a 82-pounder rifled Parrott gun and 1400 pounds of 
powder. At Bahala, on the 28th, four companies, detailed for that purpose, 
destroyed the railroad dépét and transportation. The next day, at Brook 
Haven, on the New Orleans and Jackson Railroad, the Seventh Illinois 
dashed through the streets, burned the railroad dépdt, cars, and bridges, and 
paroled over 200 prisoners. After farther destruction of railroads and stores 
at Bogue Chito and Summit, Grierson’s command on the Ist of May, near 
Osyka, returned to the main road to avail itself of a bridge, its only means 
of crossing an important stream. Here it fell into an ambuscade, and Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Blackburn was severely wounded. That night it crossed 
Amite River, evading the sleeping pickets of the enemy. Finally, at noon 
on May 2, the raiders galloped into the streets of Baton Rouge, a8 dusty, 
ragged, and wayworn a band of heroes as ever was seen. 

In this raid, Grierson’s command, by a succession of forced marches, often 
through drenching rain and almost impassable swamps, sometimes without 
rest for forty-eight hours, had in sixteen days traversed 800 miles of hostile 
territory, destroying railroad bridges, transportation, and commissary stores, 
paroling a large number of prisoners, and destroying 3000 stand of arms, at 
a cost of only twenty-seven men. 

As a result of his observations, Grierson writes: 

“The strength of the rebels has been over-estimated. They have neither 
the arms nor the resources we have given them credit for. Passing through 
their country, I found thousands of good Union men, who were ready and 
anxious to return to their allegiance the moment they could do so with 
safety to themselves and families. They will rally around the old flag by 
scores whenever our army advances. I could have brought away a thou- 
sand with me, who were anxious to come—men whom [I found fugitives 
from their homes, hid in the swamps and forests, where they were hunted 
like wild beasts by conscripting officers with blood-hounds.” 

Five hundred negroes followed the raiders into Baton Rouge on the cap- 
tured horses. 


Siege.—The Capitulation.—Results of the Campaign.—Capture 
of Port Hudson. 


AG. length the campaign was opened which was to result in the capture 
of Vicksburg. The transports had been brought down, and three corps 
of troops were in motion. McClernand, who had the advance, had been 
waiting— impatiently waiting,” according to his report, for an opportuni- 
ty, had with considerable difficulty crossed the peninsula from Milliken’s 
Bend to New Carthage. ‘Old roads,” says he, ‘‘ were repaired, new ones 
made, boats constructed for the transportation of men and supplies, twenty 
miles of levee sleeplessly guarded day and night, and every possible precau- 
tion used to prevent the rising flood from breaking through and ingulfing 
us.” He had also to contend with Harrison’s cavalry, which finally retreat- 
ed to Perkins’s Plantation, six miles below New Carthage. Upon McCler- 
nand’s approach, New Carthage was hastily abandoned by the enemy, who, 
taking refuge at James’s Plantation, a mile and a half below, was dislodged 
also from that position. The arrival of the transports at this point acceler- 
ated the movement of the corps, which advanced from New Carthage to 
Perkins’s Plantation, General Hovey constructing on this route nearly 2000 
feet of bridging out of extemporized material, thus in the short space of 
three days completing the military road from the river above to a point on 
the river forty miles below Vicksburg. 

On the 22d of April Porter notified McClernand that on the following 
morning he would attack Grand Gulf, requesting the latter to send an in- 
fantry force to occupy the place so soon as he should succeed in silencing 
the enemy’s guns. Osterhaus’s division was detached for this purpose; but, 
after farther consideration, the attack was postponed. The line being now 
extended southward on account of the limited number of transports, McCler- 
nand advanced to Hard Times, fifteen miles below Perkins’s Plantation, and 
seventy miles from Milliken’s Bend. ‘This position was three miles above 
Grand Gulf. It being desirable to get below this strong-hold, the cavalry, 
followed by McClernand’s, and afterward by McPherson’s corps, crossed Cof- 
fee Point to D’Schron’s Plantation, and on to a point opposite Bruinsburg. 
While the cavalry were reconnoitring this route, an attack was made (April 
29th) on Grand Gulf by the gun-boats, a military force 15,000 strong having 
embarked on transports for the purpose of effecting a landing in case the at- 
tack succeeded. Seven gun-boats participated in the attack—the Louisville, 


ATTACK ON GBAND GULF, 


458 


Carondelet, Mound City, Pittsburg, Tuscumbia, Benton, and Lafayette. The 
three last mentioned attacked the upper and more formidable batteries. The 
batteries below were soon silenced, and the entire force of the bombardment 
was directed against the upper one, which had been hotly engaged by the 
Benton and Tuscumbia. Both these vessels were now suffering severely. 
Many on board were numbered among the killed and wounded; and, just 
as the Pittsburg came up to their support, a large shell passed through the 
Benton’s pilot-house, wounding her pilot and disabling her wheel, so that 
she was forced to drift down and repair her injuries. In a very short time 
the Pittsburg had lost eight killed and sixteen wounded. The Tuscumbia, 
too, was being badly cut up. General Grant was watching the conflict from 
a tug-boat, and to him the prospect of success in this direct attack did not 
appear promising. The gun-boats had now fought at a disadvantage for 
nearly six hours in the strong currents and eddies of the stream, and were 
being very much crippled, while the guns of the enemy’s batteries were ap- 
parently uninjured. 

It was therefore determined to cross over to Bruinsburg—the landing for 
Port Gibson—and to turn the position at Grand Gulf McClernand’s corps 
was disembarked at Bruinsburg before noon on the 80th, and, after a distri- 
bution to the troops of three days’ rations, which took up three or four 
hours, the army began its advance toward Port Gibson. McPherson’s corps 
followed as rapidly as possible. 

The march began at three o’clock P.M. Carr’s division moved in the 
ran, followed in order by Osterhaus’s, Hovey’s, and A.J. Smith’s. There 
was no halting except for the preliminary packing of haversacks, and, in the 
case of Benton’s brigade, even this had been dispensed with. This brigade, 
the first of Carr’s division, had moved forward as soon as it was landed, and 
had left a detail behind to bring its supplies; not a light labor, when it is 
remembered that the brave fellows carried these provisions upon their backs 
under a broiling sun for a distance of four miles. Benton’s command hav- 
ing gained the hills, four miles back from the river, and waited there for its 
rations, the whole corps was soon in motion. It marched on until midnight, 
when, about eight miles out from Bruinsburg, there was a smart encounter 
with the enemy. A fight of two or three hours ensued, in which the artil- 
lery took chief part, resulting in the withdrawal of the enemy. Farther ad- 
vance was impossible, and the soldiers laid down and slept upon their arms 
until daylight. They had been awakened the morning before at three 
o'clock by the bombardment of Grand Gulf—covering the movement of the 
transports down the river—and for twenty-four hours had not had a mo- 
ment’s sleep. At dawn the march was resumed, and continued for four 
miles, when the enemy was encountered in his chosen position on Centre 
Creek, three miles west of Port Gibson. 

Grant’s movement had proved a complete surprise to Pemberton, who, 
until the last fortnight, had supposed Tullahoma, in Tennessee, to be the ob- 
ject of the impending campaign rather than Vicksburg. As late as April 
13th, three days before the first passage of Grant’s transports below Vicks- 
burg, Pemberton telegraphed to Joe Johnston, then at Tullahoma, “I am sat- 
isfied Rosecrans will be re-enforced from Grant’s army. Shall I order troops 
to Tullahoma?” But on the 17th the descent of the transports had appa- 
rently convinced him of his mistake, as he then telegraphed to Johnston 
the “return” of Grant, and the “resumption” of operations against Vicks- 
burg. From this time he was scarcely allowed either the chance of a doubt 
as to Grant’s real intentions, or time for preparation. And what time he 
had slipped leisurely away without any show of positive energy on his part. 
He must have known, when he saw the transports going down, that an at- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| May, 1863. 


tempt would be made by Grant to cross the river somewhere below Vicks- 
burg, and that probably it would be made at Grand Gulf. Thus, on the 29th 
of April, he telegraphed to Johnston, “The enemy is at Hard Times in large 
force, with barges and transports, indicating a purpose to attack Grand Gulf, 
with a view to Vicksburg.” 

The only preparation which he had made against this contemplated at- 
tack was to send a few thousand troops, under command of General Bowen, 
to Grand Gulf. The attempt to occupy Grand Gulf was made, as we have 
seen, on the 29th; it was going on, indeed, while Pemberton was telegraph- 
ing the above dispatch to Johnston. But suddenly the attack was given up, 
and Bowen, leaving a small force at Grand Gulf, found it necessary, with an 
incompetent army, to move southward from the mouth of the Big Black, 
putting that river between himself and Vicksburg. Re-enforcements were 
on the way; but Grant was moving with precipitate rapidity, and nothing 
could now prevent his immediately landing two corps. On the morning of 
the 1st of May, Bowen found himself, with only two brigades, in a position 
which should have been taken ere this by the greater portion of Pember- 
ton’s army. His situation made victory for him impossible, for Grant al- 
most inevitable. One thing, and but one, was in his favor; this was the 
character of the country in which he must venture battle—‘‘a country,” 
said Grant, “the most broken and difficult to operate in I ever saw.” It is, 
of course, useless to speculate as to what might have happened had Pember- 
ton appreciated the importance of the strongest possible resistance at this 
point; but it is none the less a damaging fact that he did not appreciate it. 
But it was too late now for Pemberton to speculate about the matter; the 
Vicksburg campaign was already virtually decided. Bowen, resist however 
bravely he might, must retreat; and Grant must advance, carrying with him 
the key of Vicksburg. 

Bowen’s resistance was as gallant and as obstinate as the circumstances of 
his situation allowed. His army, if it might be called an army, was posted 
on Centre Creek, where, out of the road leading from Bruinsburg, two others 
branched in opposite directions, but each conducting to Port Gibson. Upon 
the one rested his right, and his left upon the other. He had between five 
and six thousand men. Opposed to him were more than twice his own 
numbers, supported by a full corps, which was moving rapidly upon the 
field. But in such a position a small force easily opposes a very much lar- 
ger one. The roads run along narrow ridges, with deep and almost impen- 
etrable ravines on either side. Only a comparatively small army can be 
brought into action at one time in such a field, and it is only by long-con- 
tinued fighting that the superiority in numbers is made to tell. 

It was McClernand’s corps which, on the national side, fought the battle 
of Port Gibson. Carr’s division held the front, the first brigade on the right, 
and the second on the left. Hovey’s division occupied the ridges on Carr's | 
right. Osterhaus’s confronted the enemy’s left, and secured McClernand’s 
rear. When A.J.Smith’s division came up, it moved into the position first 
occupied by Hovey, while the latter advanced to the support of Benton’s 
brigade (Carr’s right), which had been fighting against odds for nearly two 
hours. Opposite the Eighteenth Indiana regiment, which was Benton’s 
right, touching the road from Bruinsburg at Magnolia Church, was a Con- 
federate battery, situated on an elevated position, and which was a source of 
great annoyance. A spirited charge was made by detachments from both 


Carr’s and Hovey’s divisions, resulting in the capture of this battery and 
400 prisoners—-an achievement which should be credited to both divisions. 
From this time the enemy was steadily though slowly driven back. Sev- 
eral attempts on his part, directed against McClernand’s centre, had already 


GENERAL LOGAN OROSSING THE BAYOU PIERRE, 


—— 


<== 


———' Ss 


“=e 


—— 


Marcy, 1863. ] THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


failed ; against Osterhaus’s position on the left he still maintained his ground, 
until finally J. EK. Smith’s brigade, of McPherson’s corps, came to the assist- 
ance of Osterhaus, when, by a flank movement, Bowen was driven from the 
field; yet, from the nature of the ground and the approach of darkness, he 
was able to retire in good order. The next morning Port Gibson was oc- 
cupied by MecPherson’s corps, after bridging the Bayou Pierre, the enemy 
having burned the bridge in his retreat. The national loss in the battle had 
been 180 killed and 718 wounded; that of the enemy was in proportion 
probably much heavier. 

On the 3d of May, as a consequence of his defeat at Port Gibson, the ene- 
my evacuated Grand Gulf just as Admiral Porter was about to subject that 
position to another bombardment. As soon as the place was abandoned, 
Grant determined to make it his base of supplies. His forces had now ad- 
vanced fifteen miles out, to Hankinson’s Ferry, on the Big Black. Before 
any farther progress could be ventured, it was necessary to complete the 
arrangements occasioned by the change of base from Bruinsburg to Grand 
Gulf, and to wait for Sherman’s corps. 

This corps had been left behind until the last, as a blind to Pemberton, 
to prevent his sending heavy re-enforcements southward from Vicksburg to 
Bowen’s army. Sherman, on April 28th, received an order from Grant to 
make a feint the next day against the Confederate batteries on the Yazoo 
simultaneously with the attack on Grand Gulf. The field in which this dem- 
onstration was to be made was the scene of his repulse four months before, 
and the associations revived were doubtless not of a pleasant character to 
General Sherman, who was now called upon—by a threatening advance, to 
be followed by a hasty retreat—to incur the popular suspicion of a second 
defeat. But Sherman could afford to look past disaster in the face, and to 
defy the popular impression which his present task must occasion, but which 
succeeding events would shortly dispel. So far as his own army was con- 
cerned, there would also exist, for a brief period, this unfavorable impression; 
but it could not last long enough to cause demoralization, or to impair the 
confidence of his soldiers in his military leadership. He embarked General 
Blair’s division on ten steam-boats, and at 10 A.M. on April 29th entered the 
waters of the Yazoo, where he found the flag-boat Black Hawk, the iron-clads 
Choctaw and De Kalb, the gun-boat Tyler, and several smaller wooden boats, 
ready for co-operation. During that night this military and naval force lay 
off the mouth of Chickasaw Bayou, and early next morning got within range 
of the Confederate batteries. A vigorous bombardment of the latter was 
kept up for four hours, and, toward evening, Blair’s division was disembark- 
ed in full view of the enemy, as if intending an assault. The ruse succeed- 
ed; for, although there was no road across the submerged field which lay 
between the river and the bluff, it seemed to the enemy, from his previous 
experience of Sherman’s movements, more than probable that a real attack 
would be ventured. After the landing of the troops, the gun-boats and the 
batteries resumed their cannonade. The 1st of May, while the battle of 
Port Gibson was being fought, was occupied on the Yazoo in movements 
similar to those of the day before. In the midst of these movements, or- 
ders came from Grant hurrying Sherman’s corps forward down the river to 
Grand Gulf. The force in front of the Yazoo batteries vanished as rapidly 
as it had appeared. Sherman, dispatching orders to Steele and Tuttle to 
march to Grand Gulf by way of Richmond, silently fell down to Young’s 
Point on the night of May 1st. 

At noon on May 6th Sherman’s corps reached Hard Times. In the course 
of the next two days it had crossed the Mississippi and marched to Hankin- 
son’s Ferry, where it relieved Crocker’s division, and enabled it to join 
McPherson’s corps in the advance movement which had been ordered by 
Grant the day previous. 

Grant’s purpose had originally been to collect all his forces at Grand Gulf, 
accumulate a good supply of provisions and ordnance stores before moving, 
and, during the time thus occupied, detach one of his corps to co-operate 
with General Banks in the reduction of Port Hudson, after which, by a 
junction of the two armies, he would have an additional force of about 
12,000 men to bring against Vicksburg. But, after the advantage he had 
gained at the outset in defeating Bowen, he wisely deemed it not worth his 
while to wait for Banks, who was now west of the Mississippi, and could 
not be at Port Hudson before May 10th, and determined, from the foothold 
already acquired, to push rapidly northward to the rear of Vicksburg... He 
knew that Johnston would, as quickly as possible, re-enforce Pemberton, and 
that if he waited for the capture of Port Hudson, while the delay might 
bring him a few thousand more men, it would bring Pemberton a much lar- 
ger force. He therefore, on the 7th, had ordered a general movement of his 
army against the railroad conducting from Vicksburg westward to Jackson. 

Before following the course of this campaign through the battles imme- 
diately preceding the investment of Vicksburg, let us glance at General 
Banks's progress in Louisiana up to the commencement of operations against 


Port Hudson. 


General Banks arrived at New Orleans December 14th, 1862, when he as- 
sumed the command of the Department of the Gulf, relieving General But- 
ler. He brought with him a military force of about 10,000 men, and the 
fleet with which he sailed consisted of twenty-six steam and twenty-five 
sailing vessels. The entire Army of the Gulf, thus re-enforced, numbered 
30,000 men, and was designated the Nineteenth Army Corps. General 
Banks's object was threefold—to regulate the civil government of Louisi- 
ana; to direct the military movements against the rebellion in that state 
and in Texas; and to co-operate in the opening of the Mississippi by the 
reduction of Port Hudson. This latter post, lying within his department, 


VISINOT ‘AHNOW NOLVA LV DNIGNVT SUNVI 


459 


HAH 
nA WTHI 
i Hi 


HARPER'S 


PICTORIAL HISTORY 


OF THE CIVIL WAR. [APRIL, 1863. 


BURNING OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 


was on the east bank of the Mississippi, at the terminus of the Clinton and 
Port Hudson Railroad, twenty-five miles above Baton Rouge. 

The first notice taken of Port Hudson as a military post was in the latter 
part of August, 1862, when W. D. Porter, of the Essex, went up the river to 
reconnoitre the batteries reported to be in process of erection at this point. 
At that time no guns could be discovered, but earthworks were being con- 
structed. About a week after this reconnoissance, the Anglo-American, in 
passing Port Hudson, was opened upon from three batteries, and received 
seventy-three shots. 

In March, 1863, General Banks had concentrated at Baton Rouge, which 
he had reoccupied immediately after his arrival at New Orleans, an army 
of 25,000 men, and on the 18th made a strong demonstration against Port 
Hudson. All that was intended to be effected by this was a diversion in fa- 
vor of Admiral Farragut, who, with a naval force (consisting of the Hart- 
ford, Mississippi, Richmond, and Monongahela, and the gun-boats Albatross, 
Genesee, Kineo, Essex, and Sachem, and six schooners), was about to run 
the Port Hudson batteries, which had been multiplied and strengthened 
during the last six months. Had Banks, instead of merely making a dem- 
onstration, invested Port Hudson, it might, according to Halleck’s report, 
have been easily reduced; but as the garrison consisted at this. time of 
about 18,000 men, this result would not probably have been reached. 

Farragut had to pass a line of batteries commencing below the town and 
extending along the bluff about three and a half miles. Early on the 14th 
his fleet reached Prophet’s Island, five miles below Port Hudson. In the aft- 
ernoon the mortars and two of the gun-boats opened on the batteries, and at 
9 30 P.M. the signal to advance was given. The Hartford, with the admiral 
on board, took the lead, with the gun-boat Albatross lashed to her side. 
The Richmond and the gun-boat Genesee followed; the Monongahela, with 
the Kineo, came next, and the Mississippi brought up the rear, the mortars 
still bombarding the batteries. The admiral’s ship passed without difficulty, 
but the smoke from their fire obscured the river from the vessels following. 
The Richmond, receiving a shot through her steam-drum, dropped out of 
fire, with three of her crew killed and seven wounded. The captain of the 
Monongahela also dropped down the river and anchored. The gun-boat 
Kineo, her propeller fouled by a hawser, and with a shot through her rud- 
der-post, followed their example. So accurate was the fire from the batter- 
ies that the destruction of the whole fleet was imminent. The Mississippi 
grounded, and, after destroying her engines, spiking her guns, and setting 
her on fire, Captain Smith, with the officers and crew, abandoned her, escap- 
ing to the shore opposite Port Hudson. The vessel soon drifted down the 
river, and finally exploded. Such is the story of the fleet. General Banks 
had a slight encounter with the enemy, and returned to Baton Rouge. Far- 


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starts the New Or 
leans and Opelousas Railroad, terminating at Brashear City, eighty miles dis- 
tant, where Grand Lake forms a junction with the Atchafalaya. Opposite 
Brashear City is Berwick, near the entrance of the Bayou Teche into the 
Atchafalaya. Starting from a point near Opelousas, the Teche runs south- 
eastwardly about two hundred miles. The principal towns on its banks 
are Franklin, Martinsville, and Opelousas. It was up this river that, only a 
few weeks previous, General Weitzel had attempted to advance, but, meet- 
ing so stubborn a resistance from the Confederate General Mouton, aided 
by the gun-boat Cotton, had been compelled to fall back. Apprehending a 
second advance, however, the enemy had burned the gun-boat. The ob- 
structions put in Weitzel’s way had also been swept away by the current 
of the bayou. But, a few miles above Pattersonville, on the river, Fort Bis- 
land had been constructed, and was held by several thousand Confederates. 

This region was the richest in the state, and Banks devoted himself to its 
reclamation from the enemy. Having concentrated his forces at Brashear 
City, Weitzel’s brigade was crossed over to Berwick on the 10th of April, 
followed shortly by General Emory’s division. As Banks advanced up the 
bayou, General Dick Taylor, commanding the Confederates, retired upon 
Fort Bisland. On the 12th, Grover’s division, embarked on transports, and 
accompanied by the national gun-boats Clifton, Estrella, Arizona, and Cal- 
houn, entered Grand Lake, the object of the expedition being to get in Tay- 
lor’s rear, and either to cut off his retreat if he evacuated his works, or, if 
he remained, to attack him, co-operating with the forces in front. On the 
13th this division landed about three miles west of Franklin. The enemy, 
on its approach, blew up the Queen of the West, which he had only recently 
captured. A fight occurred at Irish Bend, where Grover landed, and the 
enemy retreated, destroying, as he fell back, his gun-boat Diana, and some 


transports at Franklin. Banks meanwhile pushing him in front, Taylor was 
obliged to abandon his fortified po- TR 

sition. He was vigorously pursued ; 
at New Iberia, on his retreat, he de- 
stroyed five transports loaded with 
commissary stores and ammunition, 
and a gun-boat not yet finished. 
This place was reached by Banks’s 
army on the 17th, and a cannon 
foundery was taken, and two regi- 
ments sent to destroy a celebrated 
salt mine in the town. Already 1500 
prisoners had been captured, besides 
a large number of horses, mules, and 
beeves. 

Taylor retreated on Opelousas aft- 
er a brief stand against Grover at 
Bayou Vermilion. His destruction 
of bridges as he fell back occasioned 
some delay in Banks's advance, but — 
the latter reached Opelousason April |e3@ 
20th, Taylor continuing his retreat a 
toward Alexandria, on the Red River. Tlie exes: 
The gun-boats at the same time oc- 


MAP OF PORT LIUDSON, 


MAP OF THE BAYOU TECHE OAMPAIGN. 


461 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSTPPT. 


May, 1863.] 


462 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [May, 1863. 


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BANKS’S ARMY LEAVING SIMMSPORT. 


May, 1863.] 


JOHN A. LOGAN, 


cupied Butte-d-la-Rose, opening the Atchafalaya to Red River, and thus es- 
tablishing communication with Admiral Farragut, who held the mouth of 
that river. During the first week in May, while Grant was preparing for 
an advance from Grand Gulf, Taylor evacuated Fort De Russey and Alex- 
andria, falling back to Shreveport, near the border of Texas, with orders 
from General Moore to withdraw into the latter state if pressed by General 
Banks. On the 6th of May Admiral Porter appeared before Alexandria 
with a fleet of gun-boats, and took possession of the town without opposi- 
tion. Thus, after the capture of 2000 prisoners, two transports, and twenty 
guns, and compelling the destruction by the enemy of eight transports and 
three gun-boats, General Banks had conquered all of Louisiana west of New 
Orleans and south of the Red River, and had possession of the latter stream 
from its mouth to Shreveport. 

He now put his army in motion against Port Hudson, sending as many 
as possible by water, and marching the remainder to Simmsport, where 
they were ferried across the Atchafalaya, and moved down the west bank 
of the Mississippi to a point opposite Bayou Sara, where they crossed on the 
night of May 23d, and the next day Port Hudson was besieged on the north, 
while General C. C. Augur, with 8500 men from Baton Rouge, invested it 
on the south. ‘These two investing armies joined hands on the 25th, after a 
repulse of the enemy by Augur, and a steady advance of the right wing, un- 
der Generals Weitzel, Grover, and Dwight, resulting in the enemy’s retiring 
within his outer line of intrenchments. 

General Frank Gardner commanded the garrison at Port Hudson, which 
had now been very much reduced to meet the more pressing exigencies of 
the Vicksburg campaign. Leaving this position thus invested by an army 
of 12,000 men, we return to the battles around Vicksburg. 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


468 


he must secure at once; the railroads centring there must be destroyed, as 
also the military stores there accumulated. This was the special duty as 
signed to McPherson, while McClernand and Sherman were to strike the 
railroad farther to the west. 

General Grant moved with Sherman. On the evening of May 11th he 
telegraphed to General Halleck that his forees were across Fourteen-mile 
Creek, that he should communicate no longer with Grand Gulf, and there- 
fore might not be heard from for several weeks. This telegram, in the gen- 
eral’s own mind, meant “Success is certain, but no time is to be lost; I must 
look to the country for my soldiers’ rations, and fight my way round Vicks- 
burg to a new base of supplies on the Yazoo!” 

The next day, McPherson, having nearly reached Raymond, a few miles 
west of Jackson and south of the railroad, met two brigades of the enemy, 
under Generals Gregg and Walker. A battle followed between General 
Logan’s division, which was in the advance, and the Confederates, who held 
a strong position on a creek within three miles of Raymond, with two batter- 
ies posted on an eminence commanding the road on which McPherson was 
moving, and with his infantry lying on the hills to the right of this road, 
and in the timber and ravines in front. Although the fight was severe 
enough to inflict upon Logan a loss of 69 killed and 341 wounded, it was of 
short duration. After an unsuccessful attempt to execute a flank movement 
on Logan’s left, and a furious charge for the purpose of capturing De Gol- 
yer’s battery, which was repulsed with severe loss to the assailants, the ene- 
my was driven from the field, and Logan entered Raymond. The Confed- 
erate loss in this battle was severe both in killed and wounded, and on ac- 
count of desertion. The killed amounted to 108, the wounded and captured 
to 720. The forces engaged were nearly equal. Johnston reports Gregg’s 
and Walker’s force as 6000. Logan’s division was inferior in numbers, but 
Crocker’s arrived in time to accelerate the enemy’s retreat. 

At this stage of Grant’s progress his army extended from Raymond west- 
ward toward Edwards’s Station. As the enemy defeated by McPherson re- 
treated toward Jackson, where re-enforcements were continually arriving, 
and where Johnston was hourly expected to take command in person, both 
Sherman and McClernand were ordered to move toward Raymond prepara- 
tory to an attack on Jackson. McPherson, on the 18th, advanced to Clin- 
ton, the first important position directly west from Jackson, where he de- 
stroyed the railroad and telegraph. Sherman approached Jackson from the 
southwest by the Mississippi Springs Road, while McClernand moved to 
Raymond, and on the 14th occupied with one division Clinton, with a sec- 
ond Mississippi Springs, a third remaining at Raymond. 

McPherson and Sherman were the same day moving against Jackson. 
When, at about 10 A.M., the former was within three miles of Jackson, he 
was met by the bulk of the enemy’s forces under General W. H. T. Walker, 
whose command, consisting of South Carolina and Georgia troops, had ar- 
rived the previous evening. At the same time, and about the same distance 
south of Jackson, Sherman encountered the enemy in a position apparently 
of great strength. After some delay, caused by a heavy shower, McPherson 
disposed his forces for an attack. Crocker’s division was in the advance. 
The battle here was almost an exact repetition of that which took place two 
days before at Raymond, though shorter and less severe. A brief artillery 
duel was followed by an impetuous charge of Crocker’s division across the 
ravine in front, up the hill held by the Confederates—a charge which swept 
the enemy up to and out of their breastworks. The national troops pursued 
until they came within range of the guns defending Jackson, when McMur- 
ray’s and Dillon’s batteries were brought up and shelled the flying Confed- 
erates. 

The resistance offered to Sherman was feeble, the enemy soon retreating 
into his interior defenses. The town was then immediately abandoned by 
the Confederates, and at 4 P.M. the flag of the Fifty-ninth Indiana was wavy- 
ing over the Capitol, McPherson’s and Sherman’s commands entering the 
place almost simultaneously. McPherson’s loss in this battle was 387 killed, 
and 228 wounded and missing. The Confederate loss in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners amounted to 846. 

General Joe Johnston had reached Jackson on the 


night of May 138th. 


The movement ordered by General Grant on May 
7th, and which had been scarcely begun before the 
arrival of Sherman’s corps, consisted of an advance 
by two parallel roads up the southeast bank of the 
Big Black River, McPherson hugging the river close- 


ly, McClernand moving on the higher or ridge road, 


and Sherman following, with his corps divided on 


the two roads. The movements of these two corps 
after the battle of Port Gibson had indicated an im- 
mediate advance across Black River at Hankinson’s . 
or Hall’s Ferries toward Warrenton. But their real 
objective was the Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad, 
which Grant wished to reach somewhere between 
Bolton and Edwards’s Station. He knew what he 
had to apprehend from Joe Johnston’s army, and 
that vigorous efforts would be made by the Confed- 


erate authorities of Mississippi to arouse the militia 
against him (Governor Pettus, indeed, had, on May 
5th, called upon every man in the state to take up 
arms) to harass his movements. His eyes were 
turned now not directly upon Vicksburg—they look- 
ed eastward to Jackson. ‘This was a point which 


OROOKER’S CHARGE AT JACKSON, 


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JOHN O, PEMBERTON. 


He conducted the battle of the 14th, superintended the evacuation of Jack- 
son, and then withdrew his army northward. This general—probably the 
most able officer in the Confederate service—after his wound at the battle 
of Seven Pines, in Virginia, in May, 1862, was incapable of military service 
until November following, when he was assigned to the command of the 
West.1. He left Richmond with his staff November 29, and on December 
4 reached Chattanooga. The next day he went to Murfreesborough, but was 
still, on account of his wound, prevented from any other than a general su- 
pervision of Bragg’s army. At this time President Davis was on a tour of 
inspection in the West. He visited Murfreesborough with Johnston. The 
next notice we have of Johnston he was with Davis (December 26, 1862) at 
Jackson, before the Mississippi Legislature. On this occasion the Confeder- 
ate President addressed a long and eloquent speech to the Legislature. The 
fact that Davis belonged to Mississippi imparted an unusual interest to this 
address, which was also very characteristic of the man. He had left his con- 
stituency two years before to assume his present position. He alluded in 
eloquent terms to his political connection with the state, and to his interest 
in her welfare; he glanced backward to the time when he had last addressed 
them, and admitted that, while he then had thought war inevitable as the 
result of secession, the conflict had assumed proportions more gigantic than 
he had anticipated; this was due to a want of moderation, sagacity, and mo- 
rality in the Northern people; he wondered now how it had ever been pos- 
sible for the people of the South “to live for so long a time in association 
with such miscreants,” and loved so rotten a government. They of Missis- 
sippi knew as yet but little of the horrors of the war; but he, from his post 
at Richmond, had witnessed them in the captivity of old men, and the in- 
sults offered by “dirty Federal invaders” to delicate women, in the wanton 
destruction of property, and every imaginable outrage. There was a differ- 
ence between the two peoples. ‘“ Our enemies,” he said, ‘are a tradition- 
less, homeless race ;” they had, from the time of Cromwell, been disturbers 
of the world’s peace, first in England, then in Holland, and again in En- 
gland on their return; unable to let Papacy alone in the Old World, they 
could not let Quakers and witches alone in the New. Hence, knowing the 
savagery of the Yankees, it had been his chosen policy to carry on the war 
on the fields of the enemy—a policy which had been thwarted by the supe- 
rior power of the North; and this disparity of power it was which had ne- 
cessitated the rigors of conscription in the South. He appealed to the Mis- 
sissippians to send every available man to the front, and alluded in compli- 
mentary terms to the bravery of the Mississippian soldiers—to the old men 


The following is the order issued from the Adjutant and Inspector General’s office at Rich- 
mond, November 24th, 1862: 

“General J. E. Johnston, Confederate States Army, is hereby assigned to the following geo- 
graphical command, to wit: Commencing with the Blue Ridge of mountains, running through 
the western part of North Carolina, and following the line of said mountains through the north- 
ern part of Georgia to the railroad south of Chattanooga; thence by that road to West Point, and 
down the west or right bank of the Chattahoochee River to the boundary of Alabama and Flor- 
ida, following that boundary west to the Choctawhatchee River, and down that river to Choctaw- 
hatchee Bay—including the waters of that bay—to the Gulf of Mexico, All that portion of the 
country west of said line to the Mississippi River is included in the above command. General 
Johnston will, for the purpose of correspondence and reports, establish his head-quarters at Chat- 
tanooga, or such other place as in his judgment may best secure facilities for ready communication 
with the troops within the limits of his command, and will repair in person to any part of said 
command whenever his presence may for the time be necessary or desirable. 

“*By command of the Secretary of War. Joun Wirners, A. A. G. 

“His Excellency the President, Richmond, Va.” 

we 


yw 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


(May, 1863. 


among them, and the gentle boys of sixteen, of whom he had heard on Vir- 
ginia battle-fields. Je warned them that every effort would be made by 
the enemy to capture Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and told them about the 
brilliant commanders whom he had chosen to defend these positions; then 
again he invoked them, by the glorious dead of Mexico, and by the still 
more glorious dead of the battle-fields of the Confederacy, by the desolate 
widows and orphans left behind, and by their maimed and wounded heroes, 
to rush forward and place themselves at the disposal of the state. Against 
the capture of New Orleans he offset the repulse formerly sustained by the 
enemy’s fleet before Vicksburg, and his recent repulse at Fredericksburg ; 
he referred to the smiles of the Emperor Napoleon; prophesied the conver- 
sion of the Northwest to the Confederate cause; pointed to the bright hopes 
of the trans-Mississippi campaign; and, as the climax of hope, mentioned 
the interesting fact that the gallant State of Kentucky was “still the object 
of the ardent wishes of General Bragg,” and that he had even heard that offi- 
cer, in an address to his troops, speak longingly of Kentucky and the banks 
of the Ohio! Such was the address of President Davis. General Johnston 
was then called upon for a speech. “The scar-worn hero,” says a report of 
the proceedings, “looked a little nervous, while the house rang with loud 
and prolonged applause. He rose and said: ‘ Fellow-citizens, my only re- 
gret is that I have done so little to merit such a greeting. I promise you, 
however, that hereafter I shall be watchful, energetic, and indefatigable in 
your defense.’” 

As soon as Davis reached Richmond he was pressed to remove General 
Bragg and give Johnston command of the Army of Middle Tennessee. 
Davis referred the matter to Johnston, who (February 12, 1863) expressed 
his approbation of General Bragg, and his belief that the interests of the 
service required that the latter should not be removed. A month later, 
while at Mobile, on his way to Mississippi, Johnston received an order to as- 
sume command of the Army of Middle Tennessee, and to direct General 
Bragg to report to the War Department. When Johnston reached Tulla- 
homa he informed the Secretary of War (March 19th) that the change could 
not be made, on account of the critical condition of Bragg’s family. On the 
10th of April he repeated this to President Davis, and added that he him- 
self had been sick, and was not now able to serve in the field. On the 9th 
of May he was ordered to proceed at once to Mississippi and take chief com- 
mand of the forces there. Up to this time Johnston had been physically 
unable to undertake any responsibility for the conduct of the war in Mis- 
sissippi. 

And he assumed the command too late for his assistance to be of any 
value. Grant’s army was already within a short distance of Jackson, while 
Pemberton, completely deceived by the Federal demonstrations toward War- 
renton, was holding the main body of his army on the west bank of the Big 
Black, in the vicinity of Edwards’s Station, where he continued to hold it 
until after the capture of Jackson, making no attempt to find out the real 
movements of Grant, or to harass his exposed flank and rear. 

This was the situation when Johnston reached Jackson, where his little 
army of about 6000 men was of course unable to save the place from cap- 
ture. In retreating he took the Canton Road, by which alone he could pre- 
serve communication with Pemberton. Upon Grant's first landing, John- 
ston had urged Pemberton to attack him without delay, and with all his 
army. ‘ Success,” he said, “ will give back what was abandoned to win it.” 
He telegraphed on May 1st to Richmond that Pemberton was calling for 
re-enforcements, which could not be sent from Bragg’s army without giving 
up Tennessee. ‘Could not one or two brigades be sent from the Hast?” 
A week later Johnston again begged for re-enforcements. 

On the night of his arrival at Jackson, Johnston for the first time knew 
what had been the result of the battle at Port Gibson, and the progress of 
Grant’s army. He urged Pemberton to immediately attack the Federal di- 
vision at Clinton, and promised co-operation. But his own hands were tied 
the next day by Grant’s advance on Jackson. After abandoning the town, 
he marched his army six miles the same day, and encamped for the night. 
He from this encampment sent a dispatch to Pemberton, informing the lat- 
ter of his situation, and that re-enforeements—under General Gist from the 
Kast, and General Maxey from Port Hudson—had been ordered to assemble 
at some point forty or fifty miles from Jackson. The re-enforcements, he 
said, would, when gathered together, number from 12,000 to 13,000. As 
soon as these had joined the two commands under himself and Pemberton, 
the whole army ought to concentrate and fight a decisive battle. 

This dispatch Pemberton says he did not receive until the evening of May 
16th. In the mean time this general had ventured a battle on his own ac- 
count. He had disobeyed Johnston’s order to move toward Clinton, com- 
pliance with which would have secured the junction of the two commands 
on the 15th, and proceeded forthwith, against the advice of his subordinate 
generals, to make a movement which would render union impossible.1_ This 
gestion, to attack Sherman at Clinton, replied that he would at once move from Edwards's Sta- 
tion in compliance with the order, though he considered the movement a hazardous one. Pem- 
berton thought he ought to remain behind the Big Black, and near Vicksburg. He called a 
council of war, and the majority decided in favor of the movement indicated by Johnston. The 
others—including Generals Loring and Stevenson—preferred a movement for the purpose of cut- 
ting off Grant from his supplies by the Mississippi. Little did Loring and Stevenson know about 
Grant’s supplies, or the facility with which the latter could feed his army, even if there were no 
such river as the Mississippi. Pemberton was in favor of neither movement, fearing that either 
would ‘‘remove him from his base,” but determined finally (z.e., on the afternoon of the 14th) to 
direct all his disposable foree—about 18,000 men (probably a low estimate)—toward Raymond or 
Dillon’s, in Grant’s rear. This plan of the campaign completely ignored the existence of Johnston 
or his army. Johnston’s plan was to attack Grant, and to attack him in such a manner as to se- 
cure, first, the co-operation of the two commands, and afterward their concentration. Johnston 
ignored Vicksburg ; it seemed plain enough to him that if Grant could not be beaten in the field, 
it was not only useless to attempt the defense of Vicksburg against a siege, but involved, more- 


over, in the end, the capture of the besieged army. Pemberton, on the other hand, was willing to 
risk every thing for Vicksburg, and would risk nothing which might involve its abandonment, Qn 


May, 1863.] 


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THE WAR ON THE MISSISSTPPL 


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McPHERSON AND HIS OHIRF ENGINEERS, 


movement led to the battle of Champion’s Hill, or Baker’s Creek. Johnston, 
in the mean while, was falling back on Canton, with his hands completely 
tied so far as any possible co-operation with Pemberton was concerned. 

The capture of Jackson was followed by the destruction of the railway 
station, arsenals, workshops, etc.,in the town. It would have been well if 
the work of destruction had here stopped; but some soldiers of Sherman’s 
corps got possession of some bad rum, and burned private houses, the Ro- 
man Catholic church, the hotel, and the penitentiary. 

In the mean time Pemberton was crossing the Big Black. Having re- 
mained idle while Johnston was at hand and fighting, as soon as the latter 
had retreated he advanced and offered battle. Grant became informed of 
these movements of the enemy, which were sufficiently convenient to his 
own purpose. He was now ready to face about toward Vicksburg with his 
three corps. 

Karly on the morning of the 16th, 


Sherman, who had been occupying = 

Jackson, was ordered to join as rap- je 

idly as possible the main body of |Q) pwyzyi ENS/@ 
vp ut 


Grant’s army, then in the vicinity 
of Bolton. Blair’s division of Sher- 
man’s corps was hurried on to Hd- 
wards’s Station. This division sup- a ae 
ported the left of McClernand’s corps, : 
which moved at the same time. 
Three roads to the north of Ray- 
mond, leading out from the Raymond 
and Bolton Road, conducted to Ed- 
wards’s Station, uniting two miles |, 
east of that place. The longer of |-{ 5e37 MEW 
these roads was a mile and a half | 
north of Raymond, another was two 
miles farther north, and a third ran 
out from the Raymond and Bolton 
Road one mile south of Bolton, and 


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was separated from the second or ua Yep GULF sWILLCW SPRING ‘f 
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nand advanced on the morning of 
the 16th. Grant had ordered the ad- 
vance on the night of the 15th to be 
made that morning, and McClernand, 


his own plan he acted without consistency. It 
was plainly absurd for him to refuse a battle 
with Johnston’s co-operation, and forthwith to 
bring on one in which only his own command 
could participate. 

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when he received the order, was ready to move. Hovey’s division was at 
the entrance of the northern road; A.J. Smith’s at that of the southern, 
with Blair in support; and Osterhaus’s at that of the middle, supported by 
General Carr. Grant had already ordered on McPherson’s corps, which was 
ready to support Hovey’s division. As these columns advanced, the several 
divisions supporting each other, their position was one equally fitted for de- 
fense and attack. 

The enemy, under General Pemberton, had taken a strong position along 
a ridge of hills east of Edwards’s Station, and on the right bank of Baker’s 
Creek, his front covered by cavalry skirmishers and artillery. Early on the 
morning of the 16th (6 80 A.M.) Pemberton received a dispatch from Gen- 
eral Johnston instructing him to move northward in order to effect a junc- 
tion of the two commands. It was Pemberton’s intention to obey this or- 


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466 HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


der. Tis trains were ordered back to the Big Black, and the army would 
have followed had it not been already too late. He wrote to Johnston that 
he was coming in obedience to orders; but the most important part of his 
communication was the postscript, which told of heavy skirmishing already 
begun at the front. The skirmishing went on, and grew into a general en- 
gagement. ‘The battle of Champion’s Hill had to be fought, and General 
Pemberton could not help himself. 

Five miles out from Edwards’s Station the enemy’s skirmishers were first 
met on A.J. Smith’s front. Half a mile brought the division within range 
of the enemy’s artillery, and the advance at this point was delayed till the 
opposing guns were silenced. Osterhaus, in the centre, heard the firing on 
his left, and soon after came himself into collision with the enemy on the 
skirt of a thick wood, “covering,” to use McClernand’s phrase, “a seeming 
chaos of abrupt hills and yawning ravines.” Soon he came upon the enemy 
in full force. Two hours and a half after the first skirmishing on the left, 
McClernand learned from Hovey that the latter “had found the enemy 
strongly posted in front,” and that McPherson was close on his rear. 
McClernand had been ordered to find the enemy, but to risk an engagement 
only upon the assurance of certain victory. Grant was on the right, with 
Hovey and McPherson. He had left Clinton for the front at an early hour. 
When he reached the junction of the Vicksburg Railroad with the Raymond 
and Bolton Road, he found McPherson’s advance and his pioneer corps re- 
building a bridge which Osterhaus’s cavalry had destroyed the night before. 
Passing on to the front, after seeing McPherson’s two divisions well under 
way, Grant found Hovey’s division ready at any moment to bring on a battle. 

The top of the ridge on which the enemy rested was covered with dense 
forest and undergrowth. On the south side of the Vicksburg Road, which 
here makes a sharp turn to the left, was a precipitous height resembling in 
character the adjacent ridge. The country to the right of the road sloped 
gently through a short reach of timber, then opening into cultivated fields 
and into a valley of considerable extent. On the road, and into the wooded 
ravine on the left, lay Hovey’s division disposed for attack. McPherson 
operated on the right of the road, threatening the enemy’s rear. 

McClernand, as we have seen, had been delayed, skirmishing and driving 
away the artillery in his front, while Grant, on the right, was waiting to hear 
from him. McClernand appears to have been extremely solicitous about 
McPherson’s supporting Hovey. Grant, having already settled this matter 
to his own satisfaction, signified to McClernand a little after noon that he 
wished him to push forward with all rapidity, and that he would himself at- 
tend to Hovey and McPHerson. 

The Federal left had been made secure by McClernand’s judicious dispo- 
sition of his own and Blair’s divisions. When the order came urging for- 
ward the left and centre, the right, under Hovey, had been contending for 
nearly two hours against superior numbers. Hovey’s division bore the 
brunt of the whole conflict. Directly in his front was the Confederate Gen- 
eral Stevenson’s division, posted in a strong position on Champion Hill, from 
which the battle is named. One brigade, and then a second, of Crocker’s 
division, was sent to re-enforce Hovey, who, after a difficult approach to the 
enemy’s position under a galling fire, was contending against great odds, 
and had been borne back by the overwhelming forces of the enemy. Logan 
had in the mean time gained an important position on Pemberton’s left 
flank, and Grant, appreciating the opportunity thus afforded him, again or- 
dered Hovey’s division forward, re-enforced as above stated, and this attack, 
with that upon the flank, finally drove the enemy from the field. Logan’s 
movement had so far succeeded that the Confederate General Loring’s di- 
vision was cut off from Pemberton, and was compelled to retreat by a long 
detour southward, evading the Federal left, losing all its guns, and narrowly 
escaping capture. 

Hovey’s division lost in this battle 


(May, 1863, 


The pursuit was continued till after dark, resulting in the capture of a large 
amount of munitions and stores. 

Sherman’s corps had no part in the battle, not coming upon the field at 
all. McPherson fought only two of his divisions, Ransom’s brigade not 
having yet arrived from Milliken’s Bend. The entire Federal loss in the 
battle was 426 killed, 1842 wounded, and 189 missing—total, 2457. The 
Confederate loss was not probably less in killed and wounded, besides that 
of some 2000 prisoners, from fifteen to twenty guns, and thousands of small- 
arms. Among the killed was General Lloyd Tilghman, of Fort Henry re- 
nown, now commanding one of Loring’s brigades, who was shot while at- 
tempting to check the Federal pursuit.? 

The pursuit was continued on the 17th, McClernand’s corps in the ad- 
vance. Sherman, having reached Bolton, was turned northward toward 
Bridgeport, where Blair soon joined him, 

The only stand made by Pemberton’s retreating and demoralized army 
was on the banks of the Big Black River. Here it was found by McCler- 
nand on the 17th, strongly posted on both sides of the river. At this point, 
on the west bank—the main position of the enemy—bluffs extend to the 
water’s edge. On the east bank there is an open bottom a mile wide, sur- 
rounded by a stagnant bayou two or three feet in depth and from ten to 
twenty in width, extending in the form of a segment from the river above 
to the river below; behind this bayou the enemy had thrown up rifle-pits. 
McClernand made the most elaborate disposition of his command for an at- 
tack. Carr’s division held the right, and Lawler’s brigade the extreme right. 
After Carr’s division had been delayed by the enemy’s artillery for two or 
three hours, Lawler discovered a way of approach by which the position 
could be successfully assaulted. A charge was made at this point by Lawler. 
His brigade, coming into close quarters with the enemy, received a volley 
in flank, bringing down 150 men; but the charge was sustained. No shot 
was fired by the gallant assailants until they had crossed the bayou. They 
then poured in their volley, and, without reloading, swept on with fixed bay- 
onets, and the position was abandoned by the Confederates, leaving in their 
works eighteen guns, 1500 prisoners, and large quantities of small-arms and 
commissary stores. McClernand’s loss was 29 killed and 242 wounded. 
Those of the enemy who were not captured escaped across the river by a 
bridge which had been constructed of three steam-boats. This temporary 
bridge and the railroad bridge were burned by the fugitives, and it was im- 
possible for the Federals to cross the river in the face of the enemy, whose 
sharp-shooters lined the opposite bluffs. 

That night Pemberton’s disordered army straggled into the streets of 
Vicksburg, bringing panic with its approach.? 

1 As to the numbers engaged on the Confederate side in the battle of Champion's Hill, we have 
taken Pemberton’s estimate (18,000 men). ‘This is, no doubt, below the mark. Grant estimates 
the enemy’s numbers at 25,000. Abrams, to whom we have formerly referred, and who was well 
acquainted with the defense of Vicksburg, gives Pemberton a command of from 23,000 to 26,000 
men, positioned as follows : 

‘Major General Stevenson’s division, composed of the brigades commanded by Brigadier Gen- 
erals Lee, Barton, and Cummings, and Colonel, now Brigadier General Reynolds, in front; Gen- 
eral Loring’s division, composed of the brigades commanded by Brigadier Generals Tilghman, 
Featherstone, and others, in the centre; and Bowen’s division, composed of two brigades under 
Brigadier General Green and Colonel Cockrell. There was also one brigade commanded by 
Brigadier General Baldwin, detached from Major General M. L. Smith’s division, Waul’s legion 
of Texans, and Wirt Adams’s cavalry regiment, the whole making an effective force of between 
23,000 and 26,000 fighting men.” 

2 Abrams thus describes the entrance of the Confederate army into Vicksburg: 

‘* At about 10 o’clock on Sunday night the main body of the Confederate forces commenced 
entering Vicksburg, and then ensued a scene that almost beggars description. Many planters 
living near the city, with their families, abandoned their homes and entered our lines with the 
Confederate forces. We were among the troops when they entered, and never in our life beheld 
any thing to equal the scene. As if by magic, the stillness of the Sabbath night was broken in 
upon by an uproar, in which the blasphemous oath of the soldier and the cry of the child min- 


gled, and formed a sight which the pen can not depict. It was a scene which, once beheld, can 
not be forgotten. There were many gentle women and tender children torn from their homes by 


the advance of a ruthless foe, and compelled to fly to our lines for protection; and mixed up with , 


them, in one vast crowd, were the gallant men who had left Vicksburg three short weeks before, 


211 killed, 872 wounded, and 119 


missing—a total of 1202, about one 


third of its entire strength. Oster 


haus lost 14 killed, 76 wounded, and 


20 missing. In A.J. Smith’s divi- 


sion the loss was 24 wounded and 4 


missing. This record clearly indi- 


cates that Hovey, with McPherson’s 


assistance, had really fought and de- 
cided the battle before McClernand’s 
other divisions had come into any 
very serious collision with the ene- 
my. He had been repulsed, leaving 
behind eleven guns captured from 
the enemy; but his men, undaunted, 
and under cover of a heavy artillery 
fire, again advanced, and carried the 
closely-contested field. 

McPherson’s corps fought with 
equal gallantry — Stevenson’s bri- 


gade, of Logan’s division, making a 
brilhant charge on the enemy’s flank, 
capturing seven guns and several 
hundred prisoners, and, gaining the 
Vicksburg Road, cutting off Loring. 

Carr’s and Osterhaus’s divisions, 
now being well advanced on the 
left, were ordered to pursue the re- 
treating enemy to the Big Black. 


OO1TON BRIDGE BULLY LY McPHEBSON ACROSS THE BIG BLACK. 


wy 


May, 1863.] THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI, AG67 


Johnston, as soon as he learned the result of the fighting on Baker's 
Creek, dispatched to Pemberton: “If Haines’s Bluff be untenable, Vicks- 
burg is of no value, and can not be held. If, therefore, you are invested in 
Vicksburg, you must ultimately surrender. Under such circumstances, in- 
stead of losing both troops and place, you must, if possible, save the troops. 
If it is not too late, evacuate Vicksburg and its dependencies, and march to 
the northeast.” But before the dispatch was received Pemberton had al- 
ready shut himself up in Vicksburg, and Grant had locked him in. 

Was Haines’s Bluff untenable? Sherman had found it impregnable on 
the river side last December. But where was the Confederate army to de- 
fend this post now — this post now so absolutely necessary to General 
Grant? 

While McClernand was crossing the Big Black on the morning of the 
18th by floating bridges a short distance above the scene of the preceding 
day’s battle, Sherman crossed the same river at Bridgeport. From that 
point he approached Vicksburg until within about three miles of the town, 
when he turned to the right and took possession of Walnut Hills and the 


' adjacent banks of the Yazoo without resistance. 


McPherson struck into and followed Sherman’s course up to the point 
where the latter had turned eastward. McClernand advanced on the Jack- 
son and Vicksburg Road, and thence, at St. Alban’s, turned to the left into 
the Baldwin’s Ferry Road, so as to cover the approaches to Vicksburg from 
the southeast. 

That night Vicksburg was fairly invested. It was the night of May 18th, 
1868. Precisely one year had elapsed since the first attempt had been made 
against Vicksburg, and since, in return to S. P. Lee’s demand of surrender, 
the authorities of the town had replied that Mississippians did “not know, 
and refused to learn, how to surrender to an enemy.” 

Admiral Porter, in the mean time, having returned to the Yazoo, on May 
16th was able to open communication with Grant’s army and send it provis- 
ions; he also attacked Haines’s Bluff, the evacuation of which had already 
begun. On the approach of the gun-boats the garrison made a precipitate 
retreat, leaving forts, guns, munitions, tents—every thing.’ 

The way was now open to Yazoo City and the whole valley of the Yazoo. 
Lieutenant Walker, with five gun-boats, was sent up the river by Admiral 
Porter, and, upon reaching Yazoo City (May 20th), found the Confederate 
navy yard there in flames and the city defenseless. There were also found 
two rams—the Red Republic, 310 feet long by 75 wide, and the Mobile, 
ready for plating—and some other vessels. In the hospital were 1500 Con- 
federate sick and wounded. 

Pemberton’s army, as we have seen, began to enter Vicksburg on the 
night of the 17th. The eastward or land defenses of the town were not yet 
wholly completed, but no time was lost in repairing their defects. While 
Haines’s Bluff was being evacuated, the Confederate troops were entering 
their defenses, distributed as follows: On the left was Major General M. L. 
Smith’s division, composed of brigades under Shoup, Baldwin, Vaughan, and 
Buford; in the centre, Major General J. H. Forney’s division, consisting of 
Moore’s and Herbert’s brigades; and on the left, Major General C. L. Ste- 
venson’s division, consisting of brigades under Barton, Cummings, Lee, and 
Reynolds. Bowen’s division, consisting of two brigades under Green and 
Cockrell, was held in reserve. This army, now the garrison of Vicksburg, 
numbered about 25,000 effective men. Including the non-combatants, there 
was an accumulation of provisions sufficient to last nearly two months. The 
fortifications consisted of strong bastioned forts on the right, centre, and left, 
favorably located on high points, and without these ran an exterior line of 
intrenchments. The works had been admirably well planned by M. L. Smith, 
but the execution had been imperfect. They were neither high enough nor 
thick enough; the position of the guns was too much exposed, and the guns 
themselves, being en barbette, were easily dismounted. During the interval 
which elapsed, however, between the occupation of these intrenchments on 
Sunday night, and the first attempt made against them on Tuesday after- 
noon (the 19th), the axe and spade were diligently used, and a strong front 
was presented to the assailants. 

McClernand’s command—the left corps of the besieging army—advanced 
on the 19th to Two-mile Creek (so called on account of its distance from 
Vicksburg), after driving in the enemy’s skirmishers. Overlooking this 
creek, a long hill ran north and south in general conformity with the Vicks- 
burg defenses, which were in plain view on a similar range a mile westward. 
The intervening space between the two ranges consisted of a series of deep 
hollows, separated by long, narrow ridges, both the hollows and the ridges 
running from the enemy’s works toward McClernand’s position until they 
terminated in the valley of the creek, being covered near their termination 
with a thicket of trees and underbrush. McClernand had scarcely occupied 
the hills across Two-mile Creek, and posted his artillery, when he received 
an order from General Grant instructing all the corps commanders to gain 
as close a position to the enemy as possible, preliminary to a general assault, 
which was to be made at 2 o’clock P.M. A.J. Smith’s division, on the right 
of the Vicksburg Road, and Osterhaus on the left, with Carr in reserve, by 
2 o'clock had approached to within 500 yards of the enemy. General Os- 


in all the pride and confidence of a just cause, and returning to it a demoralized mob and a de- 
feated army, all caused through one man’s incompetency.” 

? Admiral Porter, in his dispatch to the Secretary of War, May 20th, says: 

“‘The works at Haines’s Bluff were very formidable. There are fourteen of the heaviest kind 
of mounted 8- and 10-inch and 7}-inch rifled guns, with ammunition enough to last a long siege. 
As the gun-carriages might again fall into the hands of the enemy, I had them burned, blew up 
the magazine, and destroyed the works generally. I also burned up the encampments, which were 
permanently and remarkably well constructed, looking as though the rebels intended to stay some 
‘time. Their works and encampments covered many acxes of ground; and the fortifications and 
rifle-pits proper of Haines’s Bluff extend about a mile and a quarter. Such a network of forts I 
‘never saw.” 


“AVduU SLI NI STIIH FHL NOU DANASMOIA 


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468 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


terhaus, who had been wounded in the fight on the Big Black, was now able 
to resume the command of his division. 

To the right of A.J. Smith, McPherson’s corps, holding the centre, ad- 
vanced in like manner. The right was held by Sherman, who had on the 
18th pushed forward Tuttle’s division, supported by Blair’s, on the north- 
ernmost approach to Vicksburg, while Steele’s division, taking a blind road 
still farther to the right, moved toward the Mississippi. On the morning of 
the 19th Sherman had his right resting on the Mississippi, in plain view of 
Porter’s fleet at the mouth of the Yazoo and at Young’s Point, while his 
front, in sight of Vicksburg, was separated from the enemy by only 400 
yards of very difficult ground, cut up by almost impracticable ravines. The 
Fourth Iowa Cavalry had taken possession of Haines’s Bluff, and communi- 
cation had been opened with Admiral Porter. 

This was the situation when Grant ordered the general assault on the 
19th. Sherman alone was in a position to make a determined attack; and 
Grant, counting on the demoralization of the enemy, hoped, by a vigorous 
onset against the Confederate left, to win an immediate victory. At the 
hour designated Blair’s division moved forward, with Ewing’s and Giles 
Smith’s brigades on the right of the road, and T. K. Smith’s on the left, ar- 
tillery being disposed in the rear to cover the point where the road entered 
the Confederate intrenchments. ‘'Tuttle’s division held the road, Buckland’s 
brigade, however, being deployed to Blair’s rear. The assault was not suc- 
cessful, though it was a most gallant affair. The line advanced across the 
intervening chasms, filled with standing and fallen timber, up to the trenches, 
and the Thirteenth Regulars (Giles Smith’s left), reaching the works first, 
succeeded in planting its colors upon the outer slope; but this was effected at 
a cost of 77 out of 250 men, the commander of the regiment, Captain Wash- 
ington, being mortally wounded, and five other officers more or less severe- 
ly. Almost simultaneously, two other regiments (the Kighty-third Indiana 
and the One Hundred and T'wenty-seventh Illinois) reached the same posi- 
tion, but, though able to hold their ground by making it fatally hazardous 
for any head to appear above the parapet, they could not enter the works. 
Other regiments on either side obtained similar positions, but night came 
on finding them still outside of the works, which they could only threaten 
but not take. Under cover of the darkness Sherman withdrew his advanced 
columns to a safer position. 

The next two days were occupied by the Federals in perfecting their sys- 
tem of supplies (twenty days of marching and fighting had now been passed 
with but about five days’ rations drawn from the commissary), opening mil- 
itary roads, and posting artillery in positions more commanding. The ene- 
my, inspirited by his own success in resisting Sherman’s assault, was em- 
ployed meanwhile in a similar task, 

On the 22d Grant determined to venture a second assault, this time en- 
gaging his whole line. He gives, in his report, four reasons for this second 
attempt: 1st. He hoped the assault, from the position already gained, would 
be successful. 2d. His present force was inadequate to maintain a complete 
investment of Vicksburg and at the same time attend to Johnston’s army, 
now at Canton, and daily increasing in numbers by re-enforcements from 
the East. His own effective army now numbered scarcely more than 80,000 
men, being but little superior in this respect to that immediately in his front. 
3d. Success would close the campaign, and not only save the government 
from sending him large re-enforcements, but also free his own army for far- 
ther operations. 4th. Even if the attempt should prove unsuccessful, the 
troops, impatient now to take Vicksburg, would not work so willingly in 
the trenches before as after such an assault. Accordingly, the assault was 
made. If it had succeeded, it would have been a victory almost unparal- 
leled in the annals of war; for success involved the forcing of a strong line 
of intrenchments eight and a half miles in length, by operations carried on 
over the most difficult ground; it involved the capture of a strong-hold de- 
fended by a garrison of 25,000 men—one third of which was fresh, and not 
yet dispirited by defeat—by an army of about 30,000 men, already exhaust- 
ed by twenty days of rapid marching and severe fighting. It was not an 
impossible achievement, but its only chance of accomplishment must rest 
upon the utter demoralization of the enemy. This demoralization might 
have been counted upon in the case of an impetuous attack immediately fol- 
lowing upon the entrance into Vicksburg of Pemberton’s defeated army ; 
but, just as truly, it could not be counted upon after the repulse of Sherman 
on the 19th. But as Grant had tried every conceivable approach to Vicks- 
burg before attempting the only one which really promised success, so now, 
with the alternative before him of an almost hopeless assault or of a siege 
which must result in his favor, he refused to depend upon certain but de- 
layed victory until he had first risked a somewhat serious loss upon the pre- 
carious chance of instant triumph; he refused to believe any thing hopeless 
until Fortune had added her denial to that furnished by military casuistry. 

The assault was ordered on the 21st to take place at 10 o’clock A.M. on 
the 22d; and so fastidiously was a simultaneous attack insisted upon, that 
Grant had the watch of each of his corps commanders timed exactly to his 
own. We will follow the fortunes of the battle—the last which was fought 
for the possession of Vicksburg—beginning with Sherman’s attack on the 
right. 

At the appointed hour, even at the appointed moment, Sherman’s assail- 
ing column, consisting of Blair’s division (G. A. Smith’s and T. K. Smith’s 
brigades), led by Hugh Ewing’s brigade, advanced along a road selected 
the night before. This road followed the crown of an interior ridge, being 
thus partially sheltered, and finally entered the parapet of the enemy’s works 


* Blair commanded the second division of Sherman’s corps, formerly Sherman’s fifth division. 
"Hugh Ewing’s brigade had belonged to Roscerans’s army, but joined Sherman’s command after 
the battle of Murfreesborough. 


[May, 1863, 


\ 


HUGH EWING. 


at a shoulder of the bastion. Tuttle supported Blair, and Steele, from his 
position half a mile to the right, attacked simultaneously the enemy in his 
front. As Blair advanced, not a head could be seen above the enemy’s 
works except now and then that of some sharp-shooter, who quickly dis- 
charged his piece and then disappeared. To keep these down a line of 
picked skirmishers was placed. The advancing column was led by a vol- 
unteer storming-panty of 150 men, carrying boards and poles to bridge the 
ditch. Meanwhile five batteries concentrated their fire on the bastion com- 
manding the approach; but no enemy appeared, although the assailing col- 
umn, as it came upon the crown of the ridge, was fully exposed. Unassail- 
ed the storming-party had reached the salient of the bastion, and passed to- 
ward the sally-port, followed closely by Ewing’s brigade, when from behind 
the parapet rose the enemy in double rank, and poured on the head of the 
column a terrific fire, staggering and sweeping it back to cover. The rear 
pressed on, but vainly attempted to brave this reserved storm of bullets. 
Still undaunted, Ewine’s advance shifted to the left, crossed the ditch, 
climbed up the outer face of the bastion, and planted its colors near the top, 
burrowing in the earth from the fire upon its flank. Giles Smith’s brigade 
meanwhile formed line in a ravine, and threatened the parapet 300 yards to 
the left of the bastion, while Kilby Smith, from the slope of a spur, assisted 
by Ewing’s brigade, kept up a constant fire on any object appearing above 
the parapet. 

It had been impossible for the two rear brigades to pass the point in the 


road where Ewing had been driven back; but Giles Smith had connected 


with Ransom’s brigade—the right of McPherson’s command—and held a po- 
sition which Blair reported (at 2 P.M.) as favorable for an assault. Sherman, 
therefore, kept up the attack on his front. But Smith and Ransom, charg- 
ing up to the parapet, were met, as Ewing had been, with a reserved fire, be- 
fore which they recoiled to the cover of the hill-side. Steele all this while 
was fighting with equal desperation on the extreme right, and with as little 
profit. 

All along the line the battle had been raging for more than three hours. 
McPherson’s whole corps was engaged. On the left, McClernand had from 
dawn until 10 o’clock kept up a bombardment from thirty-nine guns (includ- 
ing four 30-, six 20-, and six 10-pounder Parrott’s), breaching the enemy’s 
works at several points, and temporarily silencing his guns. Carr's division 
had relieved A. J. Smith’s, in advance on the right of the corps, and, at the 
time designated for the combined attack, Lawler’s brigade of the former di- 
vision, and Landrum’s of the latter, charged the enemy’s line, and in fifteen 
minutes had carried the ditch, slope, and bastion of a fort in their front, which 
was entered by Sergeant Griffith with eleven men of the T'wenty-second 
Iowa regiment. All of these fell inside the fort except the sergeant, who 
captured and brought off thirteen Confederates. The colors of two Illinois 
regiments (the Forty-eighth and Seventy-seventh) were planted on the bas- 
tion, and those of the Thirteenth Ohio on the counterscarp of the ditch. 
Within the next quarter of an hour the ditch and slope of another earth- 
work were carried by Benton’s and Burbridge’s brigades (of Carr’s and 
Smith’s divisions), and their colors were planted on its bastion. Captain 
White, of the Chicago Mercantile Battery, vying with Sergeant Griffith, 


469 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPT. 


May, 1863. ] 


170 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. | May, 1863. 


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carried forward one of his guns by hand to the ditch, and, double-shotting it, 
fired into an embrasure of the work, disabling a gun in it about to be dis- 
charged, and cutting down its gunners, ‘The works thus partially occupied 
by these two divisions were separated from each other by a curtain. Hovey 
and Osterhaus, on the left, advanced on a more extended line of attack, but, 
encountering an enfilading fire, were repulsed. 

Thus far, the battle on the left had not in any essential feature differed 
from that on the right and centre. Each corps had succeeded in planting 
colors on the outer slopes of the enemy’s bastions. Thus much had been 
effected, and nothing more seemed possible. The works partially carried 
were of no value unless the works at their left and right were also carried, 
Grant, who had taken a commanding position in McPherson's front, saw all 
this, and was almost ready to withdraw his forces, when he received a dis- 
patch from McClernand which excited his astonishment. The dispatch in- 
formed him that McClernand had gained two of the enemy’s forts, and asked 
for re-enforcements. It found Grant in Sherman’s front. Now Grant had 
held a better position during the attack for observation of what was going 
on in McClernand’s corps than McClernand himself. He had not seen any 
possession of forts, nor any necessity for re-enforcements. In reply to a dis- 
patch previously received from the same source, asking for aid, he had or- 
dered the latter to re-enforce from his left. He knew that, from the nature 
of the ground, “ each corps had many more men than could be used in the 
assault. More men could only avail in case of breaking through the ene- 
my’s line or in repelling a sortie.” Moreover, McArthur'’s division was on 
its way from Warrenton, and this he ordered McClernand to bring up to 
his aid. He showed McClernand’s dispatch to General Sherman, who or- 
dered a renewal of the attack on his front. While going back to the centre 
Grant received from McClernand a third dispatch, stating that the latter had 
gained the enemy’s intrenchments af several points, but was brought to a 
stand. Grant doubted the accuracy of this information, but he could not 
disregard these reiterated statements, which might, after all, be true, and, that 
- no possible opportunity of success should be allowed to escape through any 
fault of his, he ordered Quinby’s division to report to McClernand, leaving 
McPherson with only four brigades to hold the centre. The dispatches 
were shown to McPherson, to satisfy him of the necessity of making a di- 
version in his front. At half past three a fourth dispatch was received from 
McClernand, still expressing a hope of forcing the enemy’s line, stating that 
he had taken several prisoners, and that his men were still in the forts. The 
prisoners alluded to were probably the baker’s dozen brought in by Sergeant 
Griffith ; and the “men still in the forts” were doubtless there, but in the 
same condition with the eleven unfortunate braves whom Griffith had left 
behind. But Quinby’s division did McClernand no good, and McArthur’s 
did not get up till the next day. The only result of McClernand’s illusory 
dispatches was a mortality list longer by half than it would have been if 
the troops had been withdrawn at three instead of at eight o’clock P.M. 
Sherman had ordered Tittle to detail for the assault one of his brigades. 
Mower’s was selected for this duty, but, upon advancing against the bastion, 
encountered a more severe fire, if possible, than that which had repulsed 
Ewing in the forenoon. Steele, too, renewed his attack midway between 
the bastion and the river. He advanced over ground exposed to a flank 
fire, and deeply cut by gullies and washes up to the parapet, which was 
found too strongly defended to be carried, and, after holding the hill-side, to 
which he had retreated for cover until night, he withdrew his division. 

Thus ended the assault of the 22d of May, which, though it made no im- 
pression upon the Vicksburg defenses, attested the valor of the national 
troops. For ten hours they had fought against fortune, but had not won 
the battle. Repeatedly they had charged the three strong bastioned forts 
on the right, centre, and rear of the enemy’s line, only to be swept back 
each time with decimated ranks. Partial successes, indeed, they had had, 
standing upon the very edge of victory, with their colors flaunting in the 
faces of the foe; but these had only excited false hopes and led to greater 
carnage; death had been the sole reward of their enthusiasm. McCler- 
nand’s loss alone amounted to 1487 killed, wounded, and missing, making 
three fourths of the entire loss of this corps during the whole campaign, 
Nearly one half (677) of the casualties occurred in Carr’s division. A. J. 
Smith’s loss was nearly as great, amounting to 499. Sherman’s corps lost 
about 600 men. The casualties in the three corps counted up to almost 
3000, of which, therefore, nearly one third must have been in McPherson’s 
command, which confronted the most formidable redoubt in the whole line 
—that commanding the main approach (by the Jackson Road) to Vicksburg. 

The Confederates—mostly drawn from the Cotton States—also fought 
with determined bravery. Opposed to Sherman were Baldwin’s and Shoup’s 
brigades (W. L. Smith’s division); Herbert’s brigade (J. Ii. Forney’s di- 
vision) met the persistent attack which was made on both sides of the Jack- 
son Road, the Third, Twenty-first, and Twenty-third Louisiana regiments 
especially distinguishing themselves; while farther to the right, Moore and 
Lee (the latter of Stevenson’s division) held their ground against McCler- 
nand. Bowen’s two brigades re-enforced the other commands as occasion 
required. The Confederate loss was upward of 1000 men. If Pemberton 
had not prevented sharp-shooting and artillery duels from the time of the 
investment—which he was probably compelled to do in order to save am- 
munition—the national troops would have found much greater difficulty in 
approaching so near the Confederate line; as it was, however, the Federal 
sharp-shooters had got so close that it was dangerous for the enemy’s gun- 
hers to rise from cover to load their pieces; and, besides this, many of the 
enemy’s guns were dismounted. The charges, therefore, made by the Fed- 
erals in this battle met with little or no resistance from artillery. 

Admiral Porter co-operated in the assault. On the evening of the 2lst 


7 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


471 


he was notified of the proposed attack by General Grant, and ordered to 
shell the water batteries before and during the first stage of the engagement. 
All that night he kept up a bombardment on the works and the town from 
six mortars which he had stationed in the river, and sent up three gun-boats 
to shell at the same time the water batteries. In the morning another gun- 
boat was added, and the four vessels crossed the river and opened on the 
hill batteries, which they finally silenced. The water batteries were then 
engaged for two hours at a distance of 440 yards. Such was the noise and 
smoke on the river front that Admiral Porter neither saw nor heard any 
thing of the battle in the rear. At 11 o’clock A.M. the spectacle presented 
to an occupant of Vicksburg must have been one of terrible sublimity. An 
unceasing storm of fire enveloped the city on all sides. The gun-boats en- 
gaged the batteries; the mortars and the Parrott guns, mounted on rafts in 
the river, and guns posted on the opposite peninsula, shelled the town; and 
Grant’s army was concentrating every available gun against the forts in the 
rear, while his columns were forming into line for the assault. Still, though 
environed by this circle of fire, stores in Vicksburg were opened as usual, 
the streets were promenaded by women and children, and only a very few 
persons were injured. 

On the 27th of May the gun-boat Cincinnati was sunk in the attempt to 
silence one of the land batteries. She was abreast of the mortars, and 
rounding to, when a well-directed shot from a fine piece of ordnance called 
“ Whistling Dick” entered her magazine, and she began to sink rapidly; 
and other shots in quick succession crashed through her iron plating. The 
gun-boat managed to reach the right bank of the river, and her crew was 
landed before she sank. She was afterward (August, 1863) raised and towed 
to Cairo. 

After the failure of his second assault, Grant was compelled to resort to a 
regular siege of Vicksburg. His army was largely re-enforced.2- McArthur 
was already on hand; Lauman’s division and four regiments had already 
been ordered from Memphis; these were soon joined by Smith’s and Kim- 
ball’s divisions of the Sixteenth (Hurlbut’s) Army Corps, which were as- 
signed to Major General C.C. Washburne. Herron’s division, from the De- 
partment of Missouri, arrived June 11th, and was put on the extreme left, 
Lauman’s connecting it with McClernand; and, three days later, two divi- 


’ Says a citizen who occupied Vicksburg during the siege, ‘‘Such cannonading has, perhaps, 
scarcely ever been equaled; and the city was entirely untenable, though women and children 
were in the streets, It was not safe from behind or before, and every part of the city was alike 
within range of the Federal guns. The gun-boats withdrew after a short engagement, but the 
mortars kept up the shelling, and the armies continued fighting all day. . . . . It would require 
the pen of a poet to depict the awful sublimity of this day’s work—the incessant booming of ean- 
non and the banging of small arms, intermingled with the howling of shells and the whistling of 
Minié-balls, made the day most truly hideous.” 

* Grant’s army, thus re-enforced, consisted of the following sixteen divisions: 


1. F. Steele’s 9. J. A. Logan’s eee ; 

2. F. Blair's, Sherman’s. Corps 10. M. M. Ceoakcr'a, McPherson’s Corps. 

3. J. McArthur’s, ‘ 11. J. G. Lauman’s, ) 

4. J. M. Tuttle’s, 12. W.S. Smith’s = = 

5. P. T. Osterhaus’s, } 13. N. Kimball's, ‘ ie ashburne’s Command. 
6. A. J. Smith’s . _ . 14. F. J. Herron’s 

7. A. P. Hovey’s, McClernand’s Corps. 15. J. Welsh’s, ; ate oe 

8. E. A. Carr’s, 16. R. B. Potter’s, Pe 


There were also belonging to Washburne’s command four regiments from Memphis. The whole 
army numbered nearly 70,000 men. 


QO. O. WASULUENE. 


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WILLIAM H. EMORY. 


sions of the Ninth Army Corps (now belonging to Burnside’s Department 
of the Ohio), under command of J. G. Parke, reached the field, and with 
Washburne’s command were sent to Haines’s Bluff. 

On the 28th of June General McClernand’s connection with Grant’s army 
ceased, Major General Ord superseding him in command of the Thirteenth 
Corps. His military career had for himself been an unfortunate one. As 
to his bravery or his fidelity, no doubt had ever been entertained. A great 
favorite in the southern portion of Illinois, he was yet unpopular among his 
peers and superiors in the army. He had been very successful in political 
life, and had always identified himself with the Democratic party. At twen- 
ty years of age he took an honorable position at the bar; he established 
(1835) the first Democratic press in Shawneetown, Illinois, his native town; 
in 1836 he was elected to the State Legislature from Gallatin, his native 
county; in 1838 the office of lieutenant governor was tendered him, which 
he declined, not being of the constitutional age (thirty years); he was again 
in the Legislature in 1840, and during the session accepted a challenge to 
personal combat from Judge J. W. Smith, who had been offended by some 
strictures made by McClernand on the conduct of the Supreme Court, but, 
the judge not appearing, the duel was not fought; he was again elected in 
1842, and the next year was sent as representative to Congress, being re- 
elected in 1844, 1846, and 1848; in 1850 he prepared and offered the first 
draft of the famous compromise measures of that year; the next year he re- 
tired to Jacksonville, Illinois, removing thence to Springfield in 1856, and 
in 1859 was elected representative in Congress from the capital district ; 
twice he had been a presidential elector (for Van Buren and Pierce); in 
April, 1861, at the instance of Governor Yates, he accompanied a volunteer 
force to Cairo and occupied that place, and in July he resigned his seat in 
Congress. Such are the naked outlines of his political career. But when 
he entered the service of his country against the rebellion he was not with- 
out military experience, having at an early age served as a private in the 
Black-Hawk War until its close. It was rather to his disadvantage that he 
was urged forward in the first stages of the civil war by his political friends. 
[If he could have done in his military as he had in his political life—taken 
his position where circumstance assigned him, and let his aspirations follow 
the appreciation of his military merits by his superior officers—he would 
then have found his true place, whether high or low. He fought well at 
Fort Donelson, and again at Shiloh; afterward he commanded the army 
corps of the reserve in Halleck’s campaign against Corinth. We next hear 
of him in connection with the expedition against Vicksburg at the close of 
1862. At that time Grant had command of the Army of the Mississippi. 
But Grant’s time had not yet come. Ifthe capacities for generalship which 
he afterward revealed had been then known, he would, at any rate, have 
been allowed to command his army without interference from Washington. 
Unhappily, this interference could not then be avoided. Grant assigned 
Sherman to command the Vicksburg expedition; the War Department re- 
lieved Sherman, and put McClernand in command. If any attribute was 
peculiarly characteristic of Grant, it was his knowledge of men. He had 
faith in Sherman, he had not in McClernand; but McClernand was forced 
upon him. It soon proved that Grant was right. McClernand, in com- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1863. 


mand of a single corps, very soon assumed to be a guas? commander-in-chief. 
Military courtesy as well as military discipline requires absolute subordina- 
tion; but McClernand’s aspirations were disagreeably prominent; he was 
officious in advice and suggestions as to how the campaign ought to be con- 
ducted. The assault of May 22d, and the false hopes entertained on account 
of his dispatches to Grant, soon brought on a crisis. In addition to this, 
McClernand’s congratulatory order to his command, on May 31st, amounted 
to an insinuation against his superior officer, and he was promptly relieved. 
Afterward we find McClernand engaged in the advocacy of McClellan for 
President in opposition to Lincoln. He resigned his place in the army in 
November, 1865. 


Four days after the second assault on Vicksburg, General Banks had in- 
vested Port Hudson. Port Hudson is located on a bend in the Mississippi 
River, about twenty-two miles above Baton Rouge, and one hundred and 
forty-seven from New Orleans. Batteries had been erected along the river 
on high bluffs, extending from 'Thompson’s Creek above the town southward 
for three and a half miles. The Jand defenses began from Thompson’s Creek, 
and ran in a semicircular form for ten miles till they connected with the low- 
er battery. The line of investment from right to left was held by Weitzel’s 
brigade, and Grover’s, Paine’s, Augur’s, and T’, W. Sherman’s divisions. The 
Confederate works had been skillfully planned, consisting, like those around 
Vicksburg, of strong redoubts commanding all the approaches to the town, 
and supporting each other, with rifle-pits between and in front; the garrison, 
however, had been reduced to about 6000 men. An attempt was made on 
May 27th to carry the works by assault. A heavy bombardment preceded 
the attack, which was begun by Weitzel, Grover, and Paine on the right at 
10 A.M. The left, under Augur and Sherman, did not attack with any vig- 
or until four hours later, and thus all the value of a simultaneous assault was 
lost. The river batteries in the mean time were engaged by Farragut’s fleet 
—_the Hartford and Albatross above, and the Richmond, Monongahela, Gen- 
esee, and Essex below. The naval attack was not entirely unsuccessful; the 
gun-boats compelled the enemy to abandon his southernmost battery, dis- 
mounted many of his heavy guns, and even reached the landward defenses 
with a fire in reverse. 

But on the land side the assault was a complete failure. Not because of 
any want of gallantry in the troops; no men ever fought better. The 
enemy’s rifle-pits were protected by impassable abatis swept by heavy guns. 
The battle on the right lasted till 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Weitzel, 
Grover, and Paine—neither of whose commands amounted to more than a 
brigade—with two regiments of colored troops, crossed Sandy Creek in the 
morning, and succeeded in driving the enemy through the woods to his for- 
tifications. Augur and Sherman in the afternoon achieved a similar success 
on the left, moving up to the fortifications until they held the sides of the 
parapet opposite the enemy, but, toward night, being exposed to a flank fire, 
they withdrew. The position gained on the right was maintained. The 
negro troops were posted on the extreme right, a position well calculated to 
test their steadiness and bravery. They made during the day three charges 


CUVIER GROVER. 


May, 1863. ] 


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474 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [May, 1863, 


on the enemy’s batteries, and, although losing heavily, they held their posi- 
tion with the other troops without flinching until nightfall. This was the 
first instance in which negro troops fought during the war. In this action 
General T. W. Sherman was severely wounded. The entire National loss 
was 1842, of whom 293 were killed. The Confederate loss was inconsid- 
erable. 

The troops now went to digging, mining, and sharp-shooting. They were 
mostly nine-months’ men, whose time had nearly expired. In a hostile re- 
gion, with a large body of Confederate cavalry in their rear, and all Louisi- 
ana left open to Dick Taylor by Banks’s concentration against Port Hud- 
son, their situation was not an enviable one, and would have been perilous 
if, at this time, the attention of the enemy had not been so wholly given to 
the more important post of Vicksburg. 

After several days’ bombardment a second assault was made on Port 
IIudson. The chief point of attack was the northeasterly corner of the 
enemy’s line of intrenchments. The result of the assault was a nearer ap- 
proach to the works, and on the left, while Grover and Weitzel made the 
more palpable attack on the right, General Dwight succeeded in carrying 
and holding an eminence which commanded a vital point in the defenses 
known as “the Citadel.” But what had been thus gained had cost 700 
more men, and no subsequent assaults were made. Among the wounded 
was General Paine. 

On the west side of the Mississippi, Dick Taylor had had the field in 
Louisiana almost entirely to himself. Early in June he reoceupied Alex- 
andria and Opelousas. Upon his advance down the Atchafalaya, apparently 
threatening New Orleans, the advanced federal posts were withdrawn to 
Brashear. To this latter point Lieutenant Colonel Stickney had been sent 
by General Emory from New Orleans, to take command. From misman- 
agement, and lack of preparation and discipline, the enemy succeeded in 
taking Thibodeaux, Terre Bonne, and Bayou Beeuf, capturing their garri- 
sons, while another column, under Mouton and Green, threatened Brashear 
: from Berwick. Brashear was surrounded and captured with 1000 prison. 
aM a a ers, Fort Buchanan, 10 heavy guns, and thousands of liberated negroes were 

ah reduced to slavery. Ryder, who had a few weeks before needlessly burned 

Berwick, managed to escape with the only national gun-boat left in the 
bayou. The road was now open for Taylor to advance to Algiers, the west- 
ern suburb of New Orleans, Lafourche having been evacuated by Stickney. 
But the enemy fortunately had too weak a force to attempt the recapture 
of New Orleans; therefore he moved northward and threatened Donaldson- 
ville; but, even after his storming-party had entered the fort, he was repulsed 
by the aid of the gun-boats, with a loss of 200 killed and 124 prisoners. 


In the mean time Grant's army held its ground before Vicksburg. Five 
days after the investment the garrison had been reduced to 144 ounces of 
food per day to each man, and it is reported that Pemberton had expressed 
his determination never to surrender the town till the last dog had been 
eaten and the last man slain. The only hope of relief from the alternative 
of starvation or surrender was in Joe Johnston; but if Pemberton enter- 
tained any hope from this source he leaned upon a broken reed. Grant’s 
re-enforcements enabled him to give Sherman a detached command, con- 
sisting of the forces at Haines’s Bluff, a division from each of the Thirteenth, 
Fifteenth, and Seventeenth corps, and Lanman’s division, for the especial 
purpose of looking after Johnston. The character of the country was also 
in his favor, enabling him by intrenchment to secure himself against an at- 
tack in his rear, while the Big Black formed a strong defensive line on the 
south, and his means of communication were beyond the enemy’s reach. 
Johnston was also embarrassed by the frequency of straggling and desertion 
in his army. The evil was so great and of such extent as to cause Govern- 
or Brown, of Georgia, through which state the delinquents found their way 
to the East, to issue a proclamation, ordering their arrest by associations of 
citizens as well as by state troops. 


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PLAN OF THE VIOKSBURG DEFENSES, 


Jung, 1863. ] 


The irregularities of the ground between the two lines afforded oppor- 
tunities for the construction of winding covered ways leading up to the 
outworks of the enemy, This circumstance facilitated the construction of 
mines, The excavations were well guarded from the observation of even 
the Federal troops. The first mine was sprung on June 25th, under a fort 
opposite the centre, in McPherson’s front, and to the left of the Jackson 
Road, where Logan, early in the siege, had occupied and erected a fort upon 
a hill near the enemy, and overlooking his works, The explosion threw 
down a part of the face of the fort which had been undermined. An at: 
tempt was made to get possession, but without success. The Confederate 
General Herbert had built a second fort in the rear, so that the explosion of 
the first was of no great importance. A grandson of Henry Clay was killed 
in the struggle with the Federal troops on this occasion. In the same way 
other forts were undermined, the enemy countermining at a great disad- 
vantage, and often the miners and counterminers approached so nearly that 
they could hear each other's picks. If it had been necessary, Grant's army 
would, no doubt, have dug itself into Vicksburg. 

The garrison, exhausted from an insufficient supply of food, was wearied 
moreover by uninterrupted confinement in the rifle-pits, where many, es- 
caping the accurate shots of Grant’s sharp-shooters, fell victims to disease. 
The national troops, on the other hand, sheltered by the kindly covering 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPT. 


475 


i) 


MINERS AT WORK UNDER THE FORT. 


of woods from the burning heat of the summer sun, well supplied with food 
—for they had the resources of the entire West at their backs and within 
their command—and finding innumerable springs of the best water in the 
deep ravines, improved daily in health; thousands of men became available 
who were numbered among the non-effectives just after the assault of May 
22d. 

Next to the hardships endured by the braye defenders of Vicksburg 
were those suffered daily by the non-combatants. Starvation confronted 
these latter in its worst forms. All the beef in the city was exhausted be- 
fore the end of June, and mule-meat was resorted to as a last expedient.! 
The poor were without money, and, but for the charity of those possessed 
of better means, must have starved, with flour at $1000 per barrel, meal 
$140 per bushel, molasses $10 per gallon, and beef at $2 50 per pound, 
The city looked like a pile of half-ruined buildings, so searching were the 
Federal shells. For safety, the inhabitants went to caves dug into the sides 
of the hills, and here too the missiles of death reached them, not sparing 
even innocent children. The spirits both of the citizens and the troops 
were kept up, in a measure, by the rumors continually reaching them that 
Johnston was about to raise the siege. Couriers frequently found their 


* Abrams says that he ‘‘ partook of mule-meat for three or four days, and found the flesh tender 
and nutritious, and, under the peculiar circumstances, a most desirable description of food.” 


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Jury, 1863. ] 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


477 


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way through the swamps and thickets of the Yazoo to Grant’s rear, and on 
their return gave out these vague hints, exciting the most extravagant ex- 
pectations. Many believed that Johnston had gathered together an army of 
50,000 men for the relief of Vicksburg. By the same route used by these 
couriers, Pemberton supplied himself with percussion caps during the siege. 

Johnston himself, with an army of about 24,000 men, gathered together 
from all possible sources under the pressure of necessity, and poorly equip- 
ped, had no hope of raising the siege by an attack on the rear of Grant’s 
army. He could obtain no assistance from Bragg, who was firmly held by 
Rosecrans, and the diminution of whose force would have compelled the 
abandonment of Tennessee, without securing the possession of Vicksburg. 
But it seemed not impossible that some help might come from the west side 
of the Mississippi if Kirby Smith and Taylor could re-establish their com- 
munications with the Vicksburg garrison. Even such help could only have 
protracted the campaign. But, whatever it promised, it was not to be had. 
An unsuccessful attempt was made, in April, by the Confederate General 
Marmaduke, to capture Cape Girardeau, above Cairo, which, if it had suc- 
ceeded, would have somewhat seriously embarrassed General Grant’s opera- 
tions. General Kirby Smith’s attempt to open communications with Vicks- 
burg proved equally abortive. An attack was made early in June upon 
the Federal camp at Milliken’s Bend. The first stage of the attack prom- 
ised a favorable result to the Confederates, who succeeded in driving the 
small detachment of national troops from their outer line of intrenchments to 
the river’s bank, but with the aid of a gun-boat the tide of battle was turned, 
and the Iowa regiments, assisted by negro troops, rallied and repulsed the 
assailants. After another fight at Richmond, nine miles from Milliken’s 
Bend, in which it was defeated, Kirby Smith’s army retired into the interior. 
His 8000 men, says Johnston, had been mismanaged, and had fallen back to 
Delhi. From the West no farther attempt was made for the relief of Vicks- 
burg and Port Hudson. 

A correspondence was kept up between Pemberton and Jackson during 
the siege. Again and again the latter professed his inability to raise the 
siege, or to do any thing more than co-operate with Pemberton in an attempt 
To urgent appeals from the War Department at 
Richmond, Johnston repeatedly replied that he could effect nothing with so 
inadequate a command. “If TI attack,” he said, “there is the Big Black in 
my rear, cutting off my retreat.” Finally, on June 21st, Pemberton wrote to 
Johnston recommending him to make a demonstration on the Federal right, 
and promised to himself move out his garrison, if possible, by the Warren- 
ton Road and across Hankinson’s Ferry. Upon mature consideration this 
plan was deemed impracticable. On the 22d of June, the day after he had 
made this bold proposition, Pemberton suggested that Johnston should make 
to Grant propositions to pass his army out, with all its arms and equipages. 
He could hold out, he said, fifteen days longer. In reply to this, Johnston 

6H 


7 


complimented Pemberton upon his determined spirit, and held out hopes of 
aid from Kirby Smith. He hoped that “something might yet be done to 
save Vicksburg” without resorting to any mode of merely extricating the 
garrison, but he declined to confess his own weakness by making the pro- 
posed terms to General Grant. Such terms, if necessary, must come from 
Pemberton, though they might be considered as made under his authority. 
Johnston, in the mean time, having obtained his field transportation and sup- 
plies, marched toward the Big Black, June 29th, hoping better results from 
an attack on the south than on the north of the railroad. On the night of 
July 3d he sent a messenger to notify Pemberton that he was ready to make 
a diversion to enable the garrison to cut its way out, but before the arrival 
of this messenger Vicksburg had been surrendered. 

It may seem wonderful that Vicksburg should have been surrendered on 
the Fourth of July, a ‘“ Yankee anniversary,” as the enemy was now pleased 
to call it. Pollard, the Southern historian, takes especial umbrage at this 
circumstance. Surrendered it must have been, doubtless; but why, of all 
days of the year, on that day? The explanation must rest with General 
Pemberton. He knew that Grant was preparing for an overwhelming at- 
tack. This attack, he thought, would certainly be made on the 4th. The 
chances in such an event were wholly in Grant’s favor. Of the garrison not 
more than 15,000 men could probably be made available for the defense of 
a line eight miles long, and against a brave, well-fed, and confident enemy 
numbering over 60,000 men. It was bad enough to surrender on the 4th 
of July, but it was still worse to be ingloriously beaten on that day. More- 
over, it was quite natural that Pemberton should be confident of securing 
better terms for his army by indulging the enemy a little in this particular. 

At any rate, on the morning of July 8d an unusual quiet rested upon the 
defenses of Vicksburg, which was soon explained by the appearance of a 
flag of truce upon the works in front of A.J.Smith. This flag ushered into 
our lines two Confederate officers, Colonel Montgomery and General Bowen, 
with a sealed communication from Pemberton to Grant. The letter pro- 
posed the arrangement of terms of capitulation by the appointment of com- 
missioners, three on each side. Of course Pemberton said that he was 
“fully able to maintain his position for an indefinite period.” General 
Grant replied, refusing to submit to the terms of a commission, and demand- 
ing an unconditional surrender. He, however, consented to meet Pember- 
ton at 3 o’clock P.M., and to arrange the terms of surrender by a personal 
interview. 

The two generals met at the appointed hour under a gigantic oak in 
McPherson’s front. Many and various have been the accounts published 
of this important interview. By some Pemberton is represented as having 
chatted in an indifferent manner, making arrangements for the surrender of 
a large army and of the Mississippi River while chewing straws with mar- 
velous sang froid ; others report that he was stormy, irascible, and even im- 


478 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[JULY, 1868. 


INTERVIEW BETWEEN GRANT AND PEMBERTON, 


pertinent. As to General Grant’s behavior there can be no doubt; of course 
he smoked, and equally, of course, he was cool and imperturbable. Whether 
Pemberton chatted or scolded is of little consequence. It is said that the 
latter refused to surrender unconditionally, declaring that he would rather 
fight it out, and that Grant replied, “Then, sir, you can continue the defense. 
My army has never been in a better condition for the prosecution of the 
siege.” However this may have been, the interview ended with the under- 
standing that Pemberton would confer with his subordinate officers, and re- 
turn an answer the following morning. The oak-tree has long since disap- 
peared through the ravages of relic-hunters. Upon the spot where it stood 
a monument was erected. This also was soon so much defaced that in 1866 
it was displaced by a sixty-four-pounder cannon placed in an erect position, 
with the muzzle pointing upward.’ 

Grant, after consultation with his generals, anticipated any communication 
which Pemberton might make by writing him a letter on the evening of the 
3d. He proposed the following scheme: Pemberton’s army should be al- 
lowed to march out of the city as soon as paroled, the officers taking with 
them their regimental clothing, while staff, field, and cavalry officers might 


1 The original monument was a pyramid twenty feet high, surmounted with a fifteen-inch globe. 
On one of its faces was an American eagle sustaining on its wings the Goddess of Liberty. On 
another face was the following inscription: ‘‘To the memory of the surrender of Vicksburg by 
Lieutenant General J. C. Pemberton to Major General U.S. Grant, on the 3d of July, 1863.” 


THE OLD MONUMENT, MARKING THE SITE OF THE SUBRENDLE. 


retain one horse each; the rank and file to be allowed all their clothing, but 
no other property. The necessary amount of rations could be taken from 
the stores in Pemberton’s possession, with utensils for cooking ; also thirty 
wagons for transportation. The sick and wounded would be subject to sim- 
ilar conditions as soon as they should be able to travel. If the terms were 
accepted, he would march in one division and take possession at 8 A.M. on 
the 4th. 

Early the next morning Pemberton’s reply was received, accepting the 
proposed terms in the main, but submitting that, in justice both to the honor 
and spirit of his army, manifested in the defense of Vicksburg, it ought to 
be allowed to march out with colors and arms, stacking them in front of the 
lines, after which Grant should take possession; that the officers should be 
allowed their side-arms and personal property, and that the rights and prop- 
erty of citizens should be respected. 

Some of these requests were acceded by General Grant; others were re- 
fused. He had no objection to paying Pemberton’s troops the compliment 


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of allowing them to march to the front 
and stack their arms, provided they then 
marched back again, remaining as prison- 
ers until they were paroled. The parole 
was insisted upon in its strictest form, to 
be signed in each case by the paroled sol- 
diers individually. He refused to be bound 
by any stipulations as to the treatment of 
citizens, confining himself simply to the as- 
surance that he did not propose to cause 
any of them any undue annoyance or loss, 
With these modifications the parley must 
close. Ifthe terms were not accepted by 9 
A.M. they would be regarded as refused, 
and hostilities would recommence. <Ac- 
ceptance would be indicated on Pember- 
ton’s part by the display of white flags 
along his lines. 

These terms were promptly accepted by 
Pemberton. Three hours were occupied 
by the Confederate army in marching out 
and stacking their arms. In the afternoon 
the national troops marched in and took 
possession. This was the third recurrence 
of the national anniversary since the be- 
ginning of the war. The first saw Con- 
gress convoked to assist the executive in 
meeting, for the first time in our history, 
an aggressive enemy within our own bor- 
ders. The second witnessed McClellan’s 
return to Harrison’s Landing after a most 
disastrous campaign. But on the third was 
celebrated the surrender of Vicksburg and 
the victory of Gettysburg, the two events 
which, taken together, mark the turning- 
point of the war against the Southern Con- 
federacy. 

By 8 o'clock P.M. the national fleet of 
rams, gun-boats, and transports lined the 
levee. Grant, with McPherson, Logan, and 
their several staffs, entered Vicksburg. Af- 
ter an active campaign of eighty days— 
counting from the first passage of the trans- 
ports below Vicksburg—he had won the 
most important and stupendous victory 
of the war. His loss had been 8575, of 
which 4236 fell before Vicksburg. Not 
more than half of the wounded had been 
permanently disabled. The enemy’s loss 
before the surrender amounted to at least 
10,000 killed and wounded, not counting 
stragglers. In addition to these, 27,000 
men were captured with Vicksburg, includ- 
ing fifteen general officers, one hundred 
and twenty-eight pieces of artillery, and 
about eighty siege-guns, besides arms and 
munitions of war for an army of 60,000, 
together with a large amount of public 
property, consisting of railroads, locomo- 
tives, cars, steam-boats, cotton, ete, Much 
property had also been destroyed to pre- 
vent its capture. 

Grant had acted at his own discretion 
in paroling so large a number of troops. 
It saved the government the expense of 
removing them North, which at this time 
would have been very difficult with the 
limited transportation on hand, and also 
of their subsistence, and it left the army 
free to operate against Johnston. 

The enthusiasm of the national forces 
upon their entrance into Vicksburg sur- 
passes description. Tio Pemberton’s army, 
in addition to the distressing hardships of 
the siege, was added the humiliation of de- 
feat. One of the most interesting features 
connected with the capture of Vicksburg 
was the exultation of the negroes. Crowds 
of them congregated upon the side-walks, 


1 Grant sums’ up his loss in the series of battles about 
and before Vicksburg as follows: 
Killed. Wounded, Missing. 
718 5 


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Fourteen-mile Creek.... 4 24 os 
RBG ITIOM Can. ssoescepeecccces 69 341 32 
PBMODS aos 2. ache spnacd 40 240 6 
Champion’s Hill......... 426 1842 189 
Big Black Bridge....... 29 242 2 
Before Vicksburg .......+ 245 3688 303 
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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [JULY, 1863. 


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FEDERAL TROOPS BEFORE JACKSON, MLSSid8LP Pi. 


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welcoming Grant’s army with broad grins of satisfaction. On the next day, 
which was Sunday, they dressed themselves in the most extravagant style, 
and promenaded the streets with a more palpable expression of triumphant 
joy than the conquerors themselves. 

When Johnston was apprised of the surrender of Vicksburg he withdrew 
from the Big Black to Jackson. Immediately after the capture, Grant sent 
the remainder of the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Corps to re-enforce the five 
divisions already assigned to Sherman for operations against Johnston. 
Sherman had constructed a line .of defense in Grant’s rear from Haines’s 
Bluff to the Big Black. ‘This line had kept Johnston from his proposed at- 
tack north of the railroad, and the surrender of Vicksburg had made a di- 
version on the Big Black as unnecessary as it was impracticable. 

Johnston’s four divisions covering Jackson on the morning of July 9th 
were commanded by Major Generals Loring, Walker, French, and Breckin- 
ridge, while a division of cavalry, under General Jackson, guarded the fords 
of Pearl River above and below the town. Sherman in the mean time had 
been marching his command over the intervening fifty miles in the heat and 
dust, and through a country almost destitute of water—so destitute, indeed, 
that Johnston considered a siege of Jackson impossible. His advance ap- 
peared before the enemy’s intrenchments on the 9th, and on the 12th had 
invested the town, both flanks resting on Pearl River. While skirmishing 
was going on in front, the cavalry were operating on the north and south of 
Jackson, destroying railroads and other property. 

Johnston’s position was entirely untenable. Batteries posted upon the sur- 
rounding hills were within easy range, commanding the town, Sherman’s 
army fell but little short of 50,000 men, and he had a hundred guns planted 
upon the hills. In this situation he only waited for his ammunition train, 
which arrived on the 16th. This delay gave Johnston time for retreat; to 
remain was certain disaster. 

In a too eiose approach to the works on the 12th, Lauman’s division suf- 
fered a severe loss—about 500 men, of whom two hundred were captured, 
with the colors of the Twenty-eighth, Forty-first, and Fifty-third Illinois. 
This unfortunate loss was the result of a misapprehension of orders. Lau- 
man’s division was under Ord’s command, and held the extreme night, con- 
fronting Breckinridge. Ord, thinking the position of the division too much 
retired, ordered it forward, so as to connect with Hovey’s. This advance 
was not designed to bring on an engagement, nor would it have done so but 
for a careless misapprehension on Lauman’s part. Pugh’s brigade, after 
crossing the New Orleans and Jackson Railroad at a point about two miles 
south of Jackson, and driving back the enemy’s skirmishers, found itself, 
with less than 1000 men, confronted by a strong line of works held by two 
brigades of the enemy, with two full batteries, and protected by abatis in 
front, The intervening space was open, affording no cover to a charging 
column. Pugh reported this situation to Lauman; but the latter repeated 
the order to move forward. It was certain death to every other man in the 
brigade, but the order was obeyed. No other result was possible but that 
which followed, namely, the useless murder of half the column. Well may 
Lauman have wept when he looked upon the remnant of his old brigade. 
He was afterward relieved of his command by General Ord. 

Jackson was evacuated on the night of July 16th, Johnston retreating 
across Pearl River, burning the bridges behind him, and through Brandon 
toward Meridian, about 100 miles east of Jackson. The town, thus again 
left in possession of the national troops, was once more devoted to destruc- 
tion. Sherman pursued the enemy as far as Brandon, and then returned 
with his army across the Big Black. The Confederate loss at Jackson, by 
Johnston’s report, was 71 killed, 504 wounded, and about 25 missing. De- 
sertions were frequent from his army both during the siege and in the re- 
treat. 

The navy had necessarily a less conspicuous share than the army in the 
capture of Vicksburg, but its co-operation had been absolutely essential to 
Grant’s success. The gun-boats had been constantly engaged in shelling the 
town from below. For forty-two days the mortar-boats had also been at 
work without intermission, throwing shells into all parts of the city, and 
even reaching the works in the rear of Vicksburg, three miles distant, with 
a fire in reverse; thirteen guns had been transferred from the fleet to the 
army; the river had been patrolled from Cairo to Vicksburg, to clear out 
the guerrillas who had on several occasions built batteries on the shore, and 
attempted to sink or capture the transports conveying stores, re-enforce- 
ments, and ammunition to the besieging army; and the gun-boats, with Gen- 
eral Ellet’s marine brigade, had frustrated the schemes of Kirby Smith by 
their co-operation with the small force on the right bank of the Mississippi 
at Milliken’s Bend.? ~ 


? Sherman, speaking of this affair, attributes the disaster to ‘‘ misunderstanding or a misinter 
pretation of General Ord’s minute instructions on the part of General Lauman.” 

2 Immediately after the surrender Sherman penned the following impromptu, but characteris: 
tic letter to Admiral Porter : 

‘“‘T can appreciate the intense satisfaction you must feel at lying before the monster that has 
defied us with such deep and malignant hate, and seeing your once disunited fleet again a unit ; 
and, better still, the chain that made an inclosed sea of a link in the great river broken forever. In 
so magnificent a result I stop not to count who did it. It is done, and the day of the nation’s 
birth is consecrated and baptized anew in a victory won by the united navy and army of our coun- 
try. God grant that the harmony and mutual respect that exists between our respective com- 
manders, and shared by all the true men of the joint service, may continue forever, and serve to 
elevate our national character, threatened with shipwreck. Thus I muse as I sit in my solitary 
camp out in the woods, far from the point for which we have justly striven so long and so well; and 
though personal curiosity would tempt me to go and see the frowning batteries and sunken pits 
that have defied us so long, and sent to their silent graves so many of our early comrades in the 
enterprise, I feel that other tasks lie before me, and time must not be lost. - Without casting an- 
chor, and despite the heat, and the dust, and the drought, I must again into the bowels of the land, 
to make the conquest of the land fulfill all the conditions it should in the progress of this war. 
Whether success attend my efforts or not, I know that Admiral Porter will ever accord to me the 
exhibition of a pure and unselfish zeal in the service of our country. ’ 

‘Though farther apart, the navy and army will still act in concert, and I assure you T shall 
never reach the banks of the river or see a gun-boat but I will think of Admiral Porter, Captain 


ah 


Juny, 1863.] 


The 4th of July, 1863, also witnessed a conflict of some importance at Hel- 
ena, Arkansas, on the right bank of the river, above Vicksburg. This place, 
since its occupation in the summer of 1862 by the advance of General Cur- 
tis’s army, had rested undisturbed in the possession of the national forces, 
and had been of great use as a dépdt of recruits and supplies for operations 
farther south. It threatened also the most important points in those por- 
tions of the state occupied by the enemy. 

Toward the close of the siege of Vicksburg, Lieutenant General Holmes, 
the Confederate commander in Arkansas, at the suggestion of Secretary Mal- 
lory, and with Kirby Smith’s permission, prepared an expedition to attack 
Helena. He left Little Rock on the 25th of June, and made Clarendon, six- 
ty miles east of the capital, on White River, the rendezvous for his forces. 
Yagan, Sterling Price, and Marmaduke were to command columns in the at- 
tacking army. It was Holmes’s design to surprise the Federal force; but 
Price, owing to high water, was four days behindhand, and in the mean time 
General B. M. Prentiss, commanding at Helena, became acquainted with the 
enemy’s intentions. The garrison numbered about 4000 men, and was in- 
trenched behind strong earth-works, well mounted with artillery, and with 
their main approaches covered by abatis. Prentiss had also an important 
ally, upon whose presence the enemy had not calculated, in the gun-boat 
Tyler, commanded by J. M. Pritchett. 

The town lies upon the river flat, but near it are high commanding ridges, 
with ravines opening toward the river. Upon a low ridge nearer the town 
Fort Curtis was located, while upon the higher ridges commanding it out- 


works had been constructed by Brigadier General F. Salomon, to whose- 


charge also had been assigned their defense. These outworks consisted of 
four strong batteries, designated from right to left by the first four letters 
of the alphabet in their succession. The flanks, which, being between the 
ridges and the river, were open, were protected by rifle-pits and batteries. 

Holmes reports his total force to. have been 7646, or about twice the 
strength of the garrison. The Missourians were under Price, Parsons, and 
Marmaduke, while the brigades of Fagan, McRae, and Walker consisted of 
troops gathered together from Arkansas. The Confederate command was 
not lacking in bravery, and the attack was admirably conducted, but the as- 
sailing force was too weak by half for any chance of success against a de- 
termined garrison in so strong a position. The Confederate Governor of 
Arkansas, Harris Flanagan, with his adjutant general, Colonel Gordon Rear, 
were on the field, acting as volunteer aids to General Holmes. 

On the morning of July 4th Holmes’s army was within a mile of the out- 
works, Price led the brigades of Parsons and McRae (8095 men) against 
Battery C on Grave-yard Hill, and succeeded, after great loss, in carrying the 


THE WAR ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 


481 


single regiment lost its colonel, lieutenant colonel, and over 100 men. The 
remainder withdrew to the rifle-pits already captured, where, exposed to the 
fire from the fort, they held their ground until 11 o’clock, when a general re- 
treat was ordered. 

Marmaduke, with 1750 men, had been ordered to take the fort on Righton 
Hill (Battery A) on the north, but he failed even to make a vigorous assault, 
not being supported by Walker’s brigade. 

Holmes reports his loss in this battle as 173 killed, 687 wounded, and 776 
missing. ‘Thus, by his own admission, he lost over one fifth of his com- 
mand. Prentiss says he buried nearly 800 of the enemy’s killed, and took 
1100 prisoners. His own loss was less than 250, all told. The gun-boat 
Tyler had a large share in the havoc which was made among the charging 
columns of the enemy. 

The capture of Port Hudson and its garrison followed as the immediate 
and necessary consequence of the surrender of Vicksburg. In any case, 
Gardner could not have held out much longer. His ammunition for small- 
arms was almost gone, only twenty rounds remaining to each man, and the 
garrison was on the verge of starvation. Its mill had been fired by a shell, 
2000 bushels of corn being burned with it. No meat was left, and the mules 
were being killed to satisfy the demand; even rats, it is reported, were eaten 
by the famishing soldiers. Only fifteen serviceable guns remained on the 
land defenses, the others having been, one after the other, disabled by the 
accurate fire of the Federal guns. Banks’s sappers and miners had dug their 
way up to the works, and General Dwight had a mine ready on the left, 
charged with thirty barrels of powder, in such a position that its explosion 
would have destroyed “the Citadel,” already referred to as a vital point in 
the enemy’s defenses. The hospitals were full of the sick, and the men in 
the trenches were so exhausted and enfeebled that they were unfit for action. 
The capture of Vicksburg, however, precipitated the capitulation of Port 
Hudson. Grant had embarked an expedition, under General Herron, to re- 
enforce Banks, but scarcely were the men on board when the tidings was 
brought of the capture of Port Hudson, and Herron’s expedition was or- 
dered up the Yazoo. 

It was on the 6th of July that the news of the victory at Vicksburg 
reached Port Hudson. Gardner could hardly by any possibility have mis- 
interpreted the tremendous salute of the gun-boats, re-echoed from the land 
batteries, or the news shouted across his lines. . He forthwith convened a 
council of war, and a surrender was determined upon. On the 7th he com- 
municated with General Banks, asking the latter to give him official assur- 
ance of the news. If Vicksburg had really been surrendered, he asked for 
a cessation of hostilities, with a view to the consideration of terms for the 
capitulation of Port Hudson. Banks 


replied by sending Grant’s own dis- 


patch, but refusing a cessation of hos- 


tilities. Conferees were appointed on 


each side, and on July 8th terms of 


surrender were concluded upon, and 


the next morning formal possession 


was taken of the town. 


Banks does not report his loss be- 


fore Port Hudson, but it probably fell 


not far short of 8000. The enemy 


admitted a loss of only 610 men dur- 


ing the forty-five days’ campaign, but 


this, Banks is confident, must have 


been too low an estimate, as he found 


5Q0 wounded in the hospitals. The 


number of prisoners taken was 6408, 


of whom 455 were officers. The 


SALUTING THE FLAG AT PORT HUDSON. 


work, capturing some of its guns, which were either spiked or devoid of fric- 
tion-primers, and therefore useless to the captors. Price had great difficulty 
in bringing his own artillery over the broken country and up the hill. 
Meanwhile his infantry was falling under a fire from all the other works. 
Instead of retreating, hundreds of his command pushed forward in disorder 
and without support, and encountering a cross fire, until, unable to retreat, 
as many as had escaped death surrendered. Price reports a loss in this ac- 
tion of over one third of his command. 

Fagan’s small command of four regiments had attacked at the same time, 
attempting the still more difficult task of carrying Battery D on the left. 
The charge at this point was exceedingly gallant, but met with only partial 
success. The brave Arkansans rushed up the precipitous ravines, and 
drove the Federal sharp-shooters out of their rifle-pits; but every assault 
upon the fort itself only added to the useless slaughter of the assailants. A 


Breese, and the many elegant and accomplished gentlemen it has been my good fortune to meet 
on armed or unarmed decks of the Mississippi squadron.” 


4 


captures of the whole campaign, in- 


cluding the trans-Mississippi opera- 


tions, Banks estimates at 10,584 men, 
73 guns, 6000 small-arms, three gun- 
boats, eight other steam-boats, besides 
cotton and cattle of immense value. 

The capture of Port Hudson scared 
Dick Taylor out of the country east 
of the Atchafalaya, compelling him 
to evacuate Brashear City just one 
month after its capture. Both Grant 
and Banks now urged an immediate 
combined movement against Mobile, 
but were overruled at Washington. It seems some Texan refugees were 
anxious that operations should be recommenced on the line of the Red 
River, and Banks was advised accordingly. The history of the campaign 
thus opened we reserve for a subsequent chapter. 

Herron, in the mean time, having transferred his troops to vessels of 
lighter draft, moved up the Yazoo, his transports preceded by the iron-clad 
De Kalb and two tin-clad gun-boats under Captain Walker. The expedi- 
tion had for its object the destruction of a large number of Confederate 
steam-boats which had run up the Yazoo to find refuge from Porter’s fleet. 
When nearly opposite Yazoo City the De Kalb was sunk by a torpedo. 
The Confederate garrison abandoned the city upon the approach of the ex- 
pedition. Only one of the steam-boats was captured, the others making 
their escape up the river. The fugitive vessels were, however, pursued by 
Herron’s cavalry, and all of them, to the number of twenty-two, were burned 
orsunk. Three hundred prisoners were captured, six heavy guns, 250 small- 
arms, 800 horses, and 2000 bales of cotton. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[JULY, 1863. 


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Thus ended the campaign for the possession of the Mississippi River, 
which now, to use the happy expression of President Lincoln, ‘ran unvexed 
to the sea.” On the 16th of July the steam-boat Imperial arrived at New 
Orleans from St. Louis, the first steamer which had made the trip for more 
than two years. 

The foremost man in this campaign was General Grant, the taker of 
guns and armies. His name was on every tongue. The shout of joy which 
arose from a whole people on account of his victory was mingled with a 
pzean of praise to the victor. He was at once appointed to the vacant ma- 
jor gencralship in the regular army, to date from July 4th,1863. In the 
midst of these acclamations to his honor, President Lincoln addressed him a 
letter’ acknowledging the inestimable service he had rendered his country, 


1 “Executive Mansion, Washington, July 13th, 1863. 
“To MAJOR GENERAL GRANT: 
‘*My prar GENERAL,—I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this 


now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country, I 


OPENING OF THE MISSISSLPPI—ARRIVAL OF THE ‘* LMPERIAL” AT NLW ORLEANS. 


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and adding a personal acknowledgment of his own error of judgment as tu 
the propriety of re-enforcing Banks after the battle of Port Gibson instead 
of moving directly against Vicksburg. In this Vicksburg campaign General 
Grant showed his capacity for the command of a large army, and for the 
conduct of movements the most extensive; a remarkable boldness of con- 
ception, almost unlimited resources, and a steady persistence of purpose not 
to be moved by any obstacle, and not to be conquered by a succession of 
partial defeats. As to total defeat with such a commander, ¢hat was clearly 
impossible. 

wish to say a word farther. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg I thought you 
should do what you finally did—march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the 
transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew 
better than I, that the Yazoo Pass Expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below, 
and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join 
General Banks; and when you turned northward east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake, 


I now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. 
‘¢Yours, very truly, A. Lincoiy.” ' 


Janvuary—ApriL, 1863. 


HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


483 


JOSEPH HOOKER, 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 
HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


Hooker assumes Command.—Bad Condition of the Army.—Hooker’s Measures of R 
Hooker’s Plan of Operations.—Changes in the Commands.—Strength of the two Armies.— 
Hooker’s Orders to Stoneman.—Cavalry Expedition postponed.—Hooker moves upon Chan- 
cellorsville. —The Rappahannock and Rapidan crossed.—Chancellorsville and the Wilderness. 
—Sedgwick crosses near Fredericksburg.—Hooker’s Anticipations of Suecess.—Lee’s Move- 
ments.—Hooker’s Delay at Chancellorsville.—He advances toward Fredericksburg, then re- 
treats.—Position of the Forces.—Lee and Jackson in Council.—A Flank Attack resolved 
upon.—Jackson marches.—Sickles attacks the Confederate Rear.—Jackson’s March.—Lee’s 
Operations. —Jackson routs the Federal Right.—Pleasonton checks the Confederate Advance. 
—Lee’s Operations in Front.—The Advance of Birney. —Jackson Wounded.—Death of Jack- 
son.—His Career.—Wishes the War to be without Quarter.—Hooker assumes a new Position. 
—The Union Line of Battle.—Birney’s Night Attack.— The Battle of Sunday, May 2; Forces 
Present.—Stuart oceupies Hazle Grove.—Assails Sickles.—Is forced back.—Sickles asks for 
Support.—Hooker Disabled.—Sickles falls back.—French attacks Stuart, and is repulsed.— 
Lee assails the Union Centre.—Unites with Stuart.—Occupies Chancellorsville-—The Fed- 
erals Retreat.—Their new Position.—Sedewick ordered up from Fredericksburg.—His dila- 
tory Movement.—Storms the Heights and Advances.—Perilous Situation of Lee.—He sends 
‘Troops to meet Sedgwick.—The Fight at Salem Heights.— The Battle of Monday, May 3: Lee 
re-enforces McLaws. — Early retakes Fredericksburg Heights. — Howe repulses Early and 
McLaws.—Hooker’s Orders to Sedgwick. — Sedgwick recrosses the Rappahannock. —The 


Council of War.—Hooker recrosses the Rappahannock.—Moyements of Averill and Stone- 
man,—Losses at Chancellorsville.—Criticism upon Operations.—ITooker’s Errors.—Lee’s Errors. 


Bama this survey of operations in the West we turn again to Virginia, 
eform,— 


where, at the opening of the year, the two great armies of the Union 
and the Confederacy lay confronting each other upon the banks of the Rap- 
pahannock.’ 

Hooker was invested with the command of the Army of the Potomac on 
the 26th of January. Just three days before, his predecessor had drawn up 
an order dismissing him from the service, and on the very day before it was 
doubtful whether that order should be put in force. But the transfer of 
command was executed with all due military courtesy. “Give,” said Burn- 
side, in his parting address to the army, “to the brave and skillful general 


1 The following are the leading authorities for Chancellorsville: Testimony before the Com- 
mittee on the Conduct of the War, contained in volume i. of the second series (cited as Com, 
Rep., ii.).—Lee’s Report of Chancellorsville (cited as Lee’s Rep.): it embraces his own report 
and those of nearly all of his principal commanders.—Hotchkiss and Allan, engineers in the late 
Confederate army, have put forth a monograph upon Chancellorsville. It is specially valuable 
for its elaborate maps, which clearly represent the topography of the region, and show every move- 
ment upon both sides.—Dabney’s Life of Stonewall Jackson embraces some valuable informa- 
tion respecting the operations of that commander, ‘The author had access to many materials 
which are now probably destroyed. 


484 


who has so long been identified with your organization, and who is now to 
command you, your full and cordial support and co-operation, and you will 
deserve success.” Hooker, in assuming command, said that “he only gives 
expression to the feelings of this army when he conveys to our late com- 
mander, Major General Burnside, the most cordial good wishes for his fu- 
ture.” 

Hooker took command with a confidence in himself which contrasted 
strongly with the self-distrust which had been expressed by Burnside. The 
position had come to him unsought, but, as he believed, not undeserved. 
“No being lives,” he averred, ‘‘ who can say that I ever expressed a desire 
for the position. It was conferred on me for my sword, and not for any act 
or word of mine indicative of a desire for it.” He had, indeed, grave mis- 
givings, not as to his own capacity, but as to the state of the force placed 
under his command.? Foremost among these causes of misgiving was the 
hostility of Halleck, who for six months had sat, and for thrice as long was 
to sit, under the title of general-in-chief, as an incubus upon the Union arm- 
ies. Hooker knew, or at least believed, that Halleck had been hostile to 
him from the first, and the sole request that he made of the President was 
that he would stand between him and his superior in command.’ The con- 
dition of the army was a still more grave matter for apprehension. Burn- 
side had received it from McClellan strong in numbers, discipline, and spirit. 
In three months he transmitted it to Hooker reduced in numbers and im- 
paired in efficiency. Much of this was owing to causes over which Burn- 
side had no control. Lincoln’s policy, as finally indicated by his emancipa- 
tion proclamation, was looked upon with disfavor by a very considerable 
part of the army. Many of the officers in high command, especially those 
who had belonged to the regular army, were far from hostile to slavery. 
McClellan, just escaped from the Chickahominy swamps, had found time 
six months before to present his views of the principles upon which the 
war should be waged. ‘The rebellion,” he said, “has assumed the charac- 
ter of a war; as such it should be regarded. It should not be a war look- 
ing to the subjugation of the people of any state in any event. It should 
not be at all a war upon population, but against armed forces and political 
organizations. Neither confiscation of property, political executions of per- 
sons, territorial organizations of states, or forcible abolition of slavery, should 
be contemplated for a moment. Unless the principles governing the future 
conduct of our struggle shall be made known and approved, the effort to ob- 
tain the requisite forces will be almost hopeless. A declaration of radical 
views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies,’”* 
McClellan gave voice to the prevailing feeling among the leading officers of 
the army. No inconsiderable part of the private soldiers had been drawn 
from a class which looked with bitter aversion upon the negro. 
especially the case with the regiments raised in the large cities of the North. 
To them the very name of Abolitionist was a word of reproach. But now 
the proclamation issued on New Year’s day of 1863 had solemnly pledged 
the nation to the abolition of slavery as an essential feature of the future 
conduct of the war. 

For a time it seemed that McClellan’s prophecy that a declaration of radi- 
cal views upon the subject of slavery would be verified by the rapid disin- 
tegration of the Army of the Potomac. Officers high in rank openly de- 
clared that they would never have embarked in the war had they anticipa- 
ted this action of the government.5 When rest came to the army after the 
disaster of Fredericksburg and the failure of the mud campaign, the disaf- 
fected began to show themselves and to make their influence felt. The army 
fell into a course of rapid depletion. 
were burdened with civilian clothing, sent to soldiers by their friends to fa- 
cilitate their escape from camp. When Hooker took command desertions 
numbered 200 a day. In a week the army lost as many men as were killed 
in any pitched battle. What with deserters and absentees, 85,000 men, al- 
most 4000 of whom were commissioned officers, wellnigh half the nominal 
strength of the army, were away from the field, scattered all over the coun- 
try. The great body of the disaffected, whether in or out of the army, be- 
lieved that the government would soon be forced to restore McClellan to 
the command, and practically to abandon its declared policy of emancipa- 
tion. By these men the appointment of Hooker was looked upon with no 
favor. They could not fail to remember the unsparing terms in which he 
had attributed the disaster of the Peninsular campaign to the utter want of 
capacity of their favorite commander.’ They looked eagerly forward to the 
time when he should be placed at the head of the army, and thence, as po- 
litical affairs seemed to be shaping themselves, raised to the Presidency of 
the United States. The feeling in the army and that in the country acted 
and reacted upon each other, and for a time it seemed that the policy of the 
government would be condemned alike by citizens and soldiers. 

In spite of these untoward circumstances and the grave misgivings which 
he felt, Hooker grasped the command with a firm hand. It was mid- 
winter, and operations in the field must be postponed until early spring 


2 Com. Rep., ii., 112. 

2 «‘T entered upon my duties with many misgivings and forebodings. When it was announced 
to me that I had been placed in command of the Army of the Potomac, I doubted, and so ex- 
pressed myself, if it could be saved to the country.”—Jbid., 112. 

3 «*T was informed by a member of the cabinet that [when it was first proposed to remove McClel- 
lan] the President and five members of it were in favor of placing me at the head of the Army of 
the Potomac, and one or two members of the cabinet and General Halleck were opposed to it.” 
(Hooker, in Com. Rep., ii., 175.)—‘‘I had been reliably informed that I was again opposed by him 
on the removal of Major General Burnside.” (Zbid., 112.)—‘‘In my interview with the Presi- 
dent, among other subjects relating to the new position I had been called to fill, I stated that I 
hoped to succeed, provided he would stand between me and the commanding general of the army. 
This was the only request I made of the President in assuming command.”—/Jbid., 111. 

* McClellan to the President, July 7, 1862, McC. Rep., 280-282. 

5 Com. Rep., ii., 112. 6 Tbid., 112. 

1 “T do not hesitate to say that the failure of the Peninsular campaign is to be attributed to the 
want of gencralship on the part of our commander.”—Hooker, in Com. Rep., i., 575. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE OIVIL WAR. 


This was. 


Express trains, and even the mails, . 


[ JANUARY—APRIL, 1868. 


should render the roads passable. In that interval much could be done. 
Hooker set himself strenuously at work to improve the condition of the 
army. At the very outset he broke up the grand divisions, and restored its 
former organization into corps, each being placed under the command of a 
general in whom he had confidence. ‘Then the great evil of desertions was 
to be encountered. The loose system of furloughs was thoroughly revised. 
Hitherto the corps commanders had granted leaves of absence at discretion. 
By the new regulations no leave of absence could be granted except from 
head-quarters to officers of high rank. In no regiment could more than one 
field officer or two line officers be absent at the same time. Not more than 
two privates out of a hundred in any regiment could be absent on furlough 
at the same time, and no man could receive a furlough unless he had a good 
record for attention to his duties. The leaves of absence being of short date, 
fifteen days being the utmost limit, even these strict rules enabled all deserv- 
ing men who wished it to visit their homes. Disloyal officers were care- 
fully weeded out. Express trains were examined, and all citizens’ clothing 
found therein was burned. ‘The police and commissariat of the army re- 
ceived special attention. Comfortable winter huts were built; vegetables and 
fresh bread were ordered to be issued twice a week. The good result of 
these measures was soon apparent. Desertions ceased; absentees returned 
to their commands; the ratio of sickness sank from more than ten per cent. 
to less than five. The cavalry, which had heretofore beer scattered among 
the grand divisions, was organized into a separate corps, and soon grew into 
a powerful arm, wanting only a fitting man to wield it; but Hooker was 
not, as commander of this army, to find such a leader. He did the best he 
could by giving the cavalry corps to Stoneman, with Averill next in com- 
mand. Sheridan was yet to be brought from a subordinate position in the 
West. The outpost duty had been grossly neglected; the Confederates 
knew what was passing within the Union lines almost as accurately as did 
its own commanders. Hooker changed all this. The picket lines were 
rendered impenetrable. One division lay encamped on Falmouth Heights, 
opposite Fredericksburg, in plain view of the enemy. The camps of the 
other divisions, a score or more in number, covering a circuit of a hundred 
miles, lay beyond the wooded crests of Stafford. What passed beyond this 
screen was hidden from the keenest view which the Confederate commander 
could gain, saving when some ostentatious demonstration, or a sharp, sudden 
dash of pickets was made, with the object, as Hooker explained, “‘ to encour- 
age and stimulate in the breasts of our men, by successes however small, a 
feeling of superiority over our adversaries.” Knowing, moreover, that idle- 
ness was the bane of all armies, every effort was made to keep the troops 
employed, and whenever the weather permitted they were engaged in field 
exercises. 

As winter wore away and spring opened, the commander felt assured that 
he had at length “a living army well worthy of the republic,” or, as he was 
wont to express it in larger phrase, “‘ the finest army upon the planet.” <All 
through those winter weeks he had pondered the problem how and where he 
should strike.’ His instructions were of the most general character. Hal- 
leck wrote: “In regard to the operations of your own army, you can best 
judge when and where it can move to the greatest advantage, keeping in 
view always the importance of covering Washington and Harper’s Ferry, 
either directly or by so operating as to punish any force of the enemy sent 
against them.’ Hooker had, however, caught the true idea of the work to 
be done. It was not so much to capture Richmond as to destroy the Con- 
federate Army of Northern Virginia which lay in his front. Lincoln had 
months before vainly sought to impress this idea upon McClellan.? Grant 
seized upon it months later. In seeking to solve the problem of attack, 
Hooker soon came to the decision that it was impossible to cross the Rappa- 
hannock and assail the enemy directly in front. The misadventure of Burn- 
side had demonstrated this point; and, moreover, since that luckless attempt, 
the Confederate position had been greatly strengthened. The mere passage 
of the river in front of the Confederate lines presented, indeed, no very seri- 
ous difficulty, for Lee adhered to his former plan, rather inviting than threat- 
ening such an operation. But his long lines of intrenchment, stretching for 
a distance of twenty miles along the sides and crests of the heights, were in 
plain view. Interspersed with the infantry parapets were epaulements for 
artillery which would sweep the hill-sides and bottom-lands over which an 

1 «The subject of the campaign was one to which General Hooker gave much thought and at- 
tention. But, while getting the views of every body else, he did not give his own, but kept his 
intentions in regard to the proposed campaign entirely secret from every one, fearing that what 
he intended to do might come to the knowledge of the enemy. When he assumed command of 
the army there was not a record or document of any kind at headquarters of the army that gave 
any information at all in regard to the enemy. There was no means, no organization, and no 
apparent effort to obtain such information. We were almost as ignorant of the enemy in our 
immediate front as if they had been in China. An efficient organization for that purpose was in- 
stituted, by which we were soon enabled to get correct and proper information of the enemy, 
their strength and movements.” (Butterfield, in Com. Rep., ii., 74.)—‘‘ Knowing that the passage 
of the river would be resisted, and perhaps defeated, if brought to the knowledge of the enemy, I 
had taken every precaution to keep it a profound secret. I had not even communicated it to my 
corps commanders, or the officers of my staff.” (Hooker, in Com. Rep., ii., 118.)—A close examina- 
tion of Hooker’s dispatches and orders, compared with what is now known, shows that he was al- 
most as well aware of the strength and positions of the Confederate force as of his own. 

2 Com. Rep., ii., 115, 285. 

3 <«T would press the enemy closely; fight him if a favorable opportunity should present. If he 
make a stand at Winchester, I would fight him there, on the idea that ifwe can not beat him when 
he bears the wastage of coming to us, we can never when we bear the wastage of coming to him. 
We should not so operate as merely to drive him away. As we must beat him somewhere or 
fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far away. IPfwe can not beat the enemy 
where he now is, we never can, he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond. I think 
he should be engaged long before such point is reached.” (Lincoln to McClellan, October 13, 
1862, abridged, Com. Rep., i., 525.)—‘‘ General Hooker finally determined upon a plan of cam- 
paign, the intent and purpose of which was to destroy the army of General Lee where it then 
was; not merely to fight a battle and gain possession of the battle-ground, and have the enemy 
fall back to Richmond, but to destroy him there; for General Hooker believed that we could bet- 
ter afford to fight the enemy nearer Washington than Richmond.”—Butterfield, in Com. Rep., ii.,75. 

4 “ As in the battle of Fredericksburg, it was thought best to select positions with a view to re- 


sist the advance of the enemy than incur the heavy loss that would attend any attempt to prevent 
his crossing.’’—Lee’s Rep., 6. 


Janvary—Apri, 1863.] 


HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


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HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 


486 


assailing foree must march. Abatis of fallen timber guarded every point 
between the impassable swamps at the foot of the hills, while in the rear 
these outer lines were covered by rifle-pits, and every little rise of ground 
bristled with intrenchments like a miniature fortress. To attack these works 
in front seemed hopeless. “Previous exposure in attempting it under Burn- 
side, when the enemy’s preparations were far less complete, had made this a 
conviction in the mind of every private in the ranks.”! 

The enemy could then be assailed only by turning his position either be- 
low or above. Against the former operation was the fact that the river in- 
creases so rapidly in width that it would require a thousand feet of bridging, 
and the pontoon trains and artillery must march twenty miles over a broken 
and wooded country, by roads still axle-deep with clayey mud. This march 
could not be concealed from the enemy on the opposite bank, who could 
easily extend his intrenchments down the river faster than the assailants 
could construct practicable roads. This movement was, then, clearly im- 
practicable.? ; 

It only remained to turn the Confederate right far above Fredericksburg, 
and this was possible only upon condition that the movement should be a 
surprise. Three miles above Fredericksburg, in a straight line, but twice as 
far following the bend of the river, is Banks’s Ford; seven miles farther is the 
United States Ford,’ neither of them to be waded except in the dry season ; 
now the water was so high that the passage could be made only by bridges. 
‘These points were defended by works so strong and strongly held as to pre- 
clude all possibility of carrying them. A little above the United States Ford 
the Rappahannock receives the Rapidan, an affluent almost equal to itself. 
Here was the extremity of the Confederate lines, although small detachments 
were posted up the Rapidan for some miles. If the Rappahannock should 
be crossed above the position, the Rapidan was still to be passed. Lee never 
imagined that his opponent would attempt to turn his flank by marching 
such a distance, over roads almost impassable, into a region where his army 
must subsist upon what it could carry with it, crossing, also, two rivers which 
a single shower would so swell as to cut him off from his ammunition and 
provision trains. Yet this was the bold operation which Hooker resolved 
to undertake. 

The army of Hooker was divided into seven corps. Many changes had 
been made in the principal commands. The Ninth Corps, which Burnside 
had brought back from North Carolina, and which had fought under him at 
South Mountain and Antietam, was detached from the Army of the Poto- 
mac, and, under the immediate command of W. F. Smith,* sent with its old 
leader to the West. Its place was supplied by the Twelfth, under Slocum, 
which had been posted at Harper’s Ferry. The Eleventh, under Sigel, which 
had guarded the approaches to Washington, was brought down to the main 
army. Sigel had applied for leave of absence, and, at the urgent request of 
Hooker, the command of this corps was given to Howard. Butterfield was 
made chief of staff, and the Fifth Corps was assigned to Meade. Stoneman 
was placed at the head of the cavalry, and the Third Corps was given to 
Sickles. Sedgwick replaced Smith in the command of the Sixth Corps. 
Reynolds retained the First Corps, and Couch the Second. The army which 
Hooker had in hand numbered in effective men, “ present for duty,” 120,000 
infantry and artillery, besides 13,000 cavalry. The cavalry, excepting a sin- 
gle brigade of perhaps 1000, under Pleasanton, as we shall have to show, 
were sent away on an expedition in which they accomplished nothing, and 
so must be placed out of the account in estimating the effective force with 
which tlie opposing generals encountered each other in that series of actions 
which we call the battle of Chancellorsville. 'The Confederate force was far 
inferior.6 Three months before it had numbered 80,000; but, confident in 


1 Warren, in Com. Rep., ii., 52. 2 Tbid., 53. 

2 More properly, the United States Mine Ford ; sometimes called the Bark Mill Ford. 

4 As it happened, however, Smith did not accompany the corps to the West. He remained at 
the East, and the command of the corps was given to Parke. 

6 There is no absolutely official report, to which I have been able to gain access, showing the 
exact strength of Hooker’s army, but scattered through the testimony given in the Report of the 
Committee on the Conduct of the War are data which enable me to fix it without possibility of 
any material error. Hooker (Com. Rep., ii., 120) gives the strength ‘‘ for duty” of the Fifth, Elev- 
enth, and Twelfth Corps at 44,661—say 45,000. ‘The Eleventh was the weakest in the army, num- 
bering (Com. Rep., ii., 121) 11,000. There remain 34,000 for the Fifth and Twelfth. These were 
apparently of about equal strength, 17,000 each. ‘The Sixth was the strongest corps; Sedgwick, 
its commander (Jbid.,95), places it at 22,000 ; Hooker (Zbid., 128) says it numbered 26,233 ; but he 
adds, ‘‘ not the whole of which, by a few thousands, it is reasonable to suppose, appeared in line 
of battle.” This difference between 22,000 and 26,000 is about the normal discrepancy between 
those borne upon the muster-rolls as ‘‘ present” and those actually at any moment ‘‘present for 
duty.” Sedgwick, who had for a time the First and the Third, as well as his own corps, the Sixth, 
gives ([bid., 95) the numbers of the two former at 35,000. Sickles (Jbid., 7) says that the strength 
of his corps, the Third, was 18,000, which would leave 17,000 for the First, that of Reynolds. 
There then remains only the Second Corps, that of Couch ; of the strength of this I find no spe- 
cial mention. I assume it to have been 17,000, that being the average number of each of the 
other corps. 

® Confederate writers usually place the numbers of Lee’s army at 45,000. But the official re- 
turns (see ante, p. 381) show that on the 31st of March there were present in the Army of North- 
ern Virginia 73,379 men, of whom 60,298 were present for duty. The force was certainly not 
diminished during the next month, for Longstreet was detached a month before. Lee says(Rep., 
5), ‘General Longstreet, with two corps, was detached for service south of the James River in 
February.” I am inclined to suspect a clerical error here, and that for ‘‘two divisions” we should 
read ‘‘ three ;” for Longstreet’s Corps consisted of five divisions, those of Anderson, McLaws, 
Hood, Ransom, and Pickett. Only the first two are in any way mentioned in the Reports of the 
Battle of Chancellorsville, and in the list of regiments I find none belonging to the last three divi- 
sions. Moreover, Dabney says (Stonewall Jackson, 664): ‘‘ The three divisions of Hood, Pickett, 
and Ransom were absent in Southeastern Virginia, making a demonstration against Suffolk, 
whither they had been directed by the scarcity of forage and food in Spottsylvania.” Dabney, 
who seems to have had access to authentic reports as to Jackson’s force, says : ‘‘ His four divisions 
now contained about 28,000 muskets, and an aggregate of more than 30,000 men and officers. 
They were supported by 28 field batteries, containing 115 guns; besides these batteries, the army 
was still accompanied by a reserve corps of artillery. Stuart’s division of cavalry was also acting 
upon the left.” Adding the artillery and cavalry to the 28,000 muskets and more than 2000 of- 
ficers, will bring the strength of Jackson up to fully 35,000. ‘This writer, indeed, adds: ‘ Lee 
had, in all, an aggregate of about 45,000 men.” But, even apart from the actual returns which 
have been cited, this is clearly an under estimate, for Longstreet’s Corps was always much stron- 
ger than that of Jackson, and the divisions of Anderson and McLaws were much the largest in that 
corps, and had suffered less in the previous actions than the others. They probably numbered, 
including artillery and cavalry acting with them, fully 25,000 men; so that the most reliable in- 
direct evidence attainable corroborates the accuracy of the official returns, which give Lee a little 
more than 60,000 men, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| APRIL, 1863. 


the strength of his position, and somewhat embarrassed by the scarcity of for- 
age, Lee had sent Longstreet with half of his corps southward toward North 
Carolina, where offensive operations were threatened. There remained on 
the Rappahannock the divisions of Anderson and McLaws, and Jackson’s 
entire corps, consisting of the divisions of A. P. Hill, D. H. Hill, Trimble 
(formerly that of Jackson), and Early. But D. H. Hill had been put in com 
mand of the Department of North Carolina, and his division was now under 
Rodes; Trimble was at home on sick-leave, and his division was commanded 
by Colston. Besides these, there was Stuart’s cavalry, reduced to two bri- 
gades, and a strong reserve artillery. The entire effective strength of all 
arms was something more than 60,000 men. Anderson’s and McLaws’s di- 
visions guarded the line from the United States Ford downward beyond 
Fredericksburg, a distance of ten miles; Early held the intrenchments at 
the foot of the hills opposite Franklin’s Crossing; the remainder of Jack- 
son’s corps lay near Port Royal, twenty miles below Fredericksburg. Both 
armies had built for themselves comfortable winter huts in the wooded re- 
gion on either side of the Rappahannock, which formed for the time a bar- 
rier which neither could overpass. 

Hooker, having matured his plan of campaign, wished to commence its 
execution as early as possible. The term of enlistment of 40,000 men, a 
third of his army, would soon expire, and he knew that there was little use 
of putting troops into action just before the close of their time of service. 
Before the middle of April, though the roads were still too heavy for artil- 
lery and wagon trains, he thought that mounted men might move. On the 
12th he ordered Stoneman to take the whole cavalry force, with the excep- 
tion of a single brigade, 12,000 sabres strong, turn the hostile position on the 
left, throw himself between the enemy and Richmond, isolate him from his 
supplies, and check his retreat. Every where and all told, Stoneman could 
not encounter a force half equal to his own. In sharp phrases, which rang 
like battle orders, Hooker gave his directions to Stoneman: ‘“‘ Harass the 
enemy day and night, on the march and in the camp unceasingly. If you 
can not cut off from his column large slices, do not fail to take small ones. 
Let your watchword be Fight! and let all your orders be Fight! Keep 
yourself informed of the enemy’s whereabouts, and attack him wherever 
you find him, Take the initiative in the forward movement of this grand 
army; bear in mind that celerity, audacity, and resolution are every thing 
in war.” The primary object of this cavalry expedition, to which every 
thing was to be subservient, was to cut the enemy’s communication with 
Richmond by the Fredericksburg route.‘ The movement was premature. 
The cavalry rode two days up the Rappahannock, and threw a division 
across, but a sudden storm swelled the capricious stream, and this division, 
in order to avoid being isolated, was forced to recross by swimming. The 
storm continued, the river became wholly impassable, and the cavalry were 
ordered to remain where they were. 

A fortnight of genial spring weather now intervened. It seemed that the 
rainy season was over, the swollen river was confined within its banks, the 
roads grew firmer. Hooker in the mean while had matured his grand enter- 
prise. “I concluded,” he says, “to change my plan, and strike for the whole 
rebel army instead of forcing it back upon its line of retreat, which was as 
much as I could hope to accomplish in executing my first design.” This 
plan was the one which has been already indicated. It was to ascend the 
Rappahannock beyond the hostile lines, throw a strong force across, which 
should sweep down the opposite bank, “ knock away the enemy’s force hold- 
ing the United States and Banks's Fords by attacking them Yn their rear, 
and, as soon as these fords were opened, to re-enforce the marching column 
sufficiently for them to continue the march upon the rebel army until his 
whole force was routed, and, if successful, his retreat intercepted. Simul- 
taneous with this movement on the right, the left were to cross the Rappa- 
hannock below Fredericksburg, and threaten the enemy in that quarter, 
including his dépét of supplies, to prevent his dispatching an overwhelm- 
ing force to his left.”? How near this plan came of success, and how utterly 
it failed, is now to be shown. 

On the 26th of April Hooker issued the orders which gave the first inti- 


The foregoing was written before the appearance of Hotchkiss and Allan’s work, previously 
noted. They give the force of each division as follows : Jackson’s Corps—A. P. Hill, 11,100; D. 
H. Hill, 9000; Trimble, 6000; Early, 7400; in all, 33,500. Anderson and McLaws, 17,000 ; 
Artillery, 170 pieces, 5000 men ; Cavalry, present, 2700—a total of 58,200. But it is expressly 
stated that these are the numbers of ‘‘ muskets,” that is, privates and non-commissioned officers. 
They add (page 24): ‘‘We have not the exact data on which to give the effective strength, but 
an addition of 4000 to the total above would be a liberal estimate.”” This addition to the “ effect- 
ive” must mean the officers, who are included in the Union returns. This statement differs only 
slightly from my estimate as to the total force, but makes that of Jackson larger, and those of An- 
derson and McLaws smaller. Anderson’s division contained three more regiments than that of 
McLaws, and was probably the stronger by 1000. I adopt their statement, distributing the 3800 
“additional,” as nearly as may be, among the different organizations. 

From these data is framed the following table : 


Forces aT CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


CONFEDERATE. 


A. P. Hill 


Union. 

Rernoips (1st Corps). Divisions: 
Doubleday, Robinson, Wadsworth.. 

Coucn (2d Corps). Divisions: 
French, Gibbon, Hancock 

Sicxies (3d Corps). Divisions: 
Berry, Birney, Whipple 

Meapr (5th Corps). Divisions: 
Griffin, Humphrey, Sykes 

SepewicKk (6th Corps). Divisions: 
Brooks, Howe, Newton 

Howarp (llth Corps). Divisions : 
Devens, Schurz, Steinwehr 

Stocum (12th Corps). Divisions: 
Geary, Williams 

PLEasonTon (Cavalry) 


TONG TONE vaccdeassccersene 120,000 


11,800 


TROCOS Sih s conouseceeesta 9,600 


JACKSON'S 


Corrs. Colston 


LoNGSTREET’S 
Corrs. 


Anderson 
McLaws 


Artillery 


Cavalry 
Total Force 


1 Hooker's Instructions, in Com. Rep., ii., 113. > Hooker, in Com, Rep., ii., 116. 


January—Apnrit, 1863. ] 


HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


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PIOKET GUARD. 


mation of his plan. The corps of Meade, Slocum, and Howard were to form 
the main turning column. They were to march at sunrise next day, ascend 
the Rappahannock to Kelly’s Ford, twenty-seven miles above Fredericks- 
burg, cross the river, and move for the Rapidan, cross, and sweep down its 
southern bank. They were to move as lightly as possible, the men to carry 
eight days’ rations on their persons; each corps to have but a single battery 
and six ambulances, the small ammunition to be carried on mule-back. Most 
of the artillery, and several regiments whose term was about to close, being 
left behind, this column marched 36,000 strong. Couch, with two of his 
divisions—that of Gibbon being left opposite Fredericksburg—was to follow 
after as far as the United States Ford, there halt in readiness to cross the 
moment that the hostile force guarding it should be swept away. Sedg- 
wick, with his own corps and those of Sickles and Reynolds, were to cross 
the Rappahannock below Fredericksburg, and make a vigorous demonstra- 
tion to distract the attention of the enemy. 

The main turning column pressed rapidly up the Rappahannock, and be- 
fore night of Tuesday, the 28th, reached Kelly’s Ford. The stream was un- 
fordable, but a pontoon bridge was quickly thrown over, and early on the 


morning of the 29th the crossing was effected. The force, separated into 
two columns, pressed rapidly on to the Rapidan. Slocum and Howard 
crossed at Germania Ford; Meade at Ely’s Ford, ten miles below. The 
Rapidan was hardly fordable, the water reaching to the armpits of the men ; 
but they waded through, bearing their knapsacks on their bayonets. So 
wholly unanticipated was this advance, that a small party of the Confeder- 
ates were surprised at Germania Ford in the act of building a bridge; these 
were all captured. Meade swept eastward down the right bank of the Rap- 
idan, directly toward Fredericksburg, until he came in view of the United 
States Ford over the Rappahannock. T'wo Confederate brigades which had 
been guarding this point fell back. As soon as Couch caught sight through 
the mist of the head of Meade’s column, pontoon bridges were laid, his divis- 
ions passed over, and all the four corps headed straight for Chancellorsville, 
their appointed place of rendezvous, where they were concentrated late in 
the afternoon of the 30th. 

Chancellorsville was a solitary brick house, with a few insignificant out- 
buildings, standing in a clearing on the eastern verge of a wild, wooded re- 
gion known as the Wilderness. Looking eastward toward Fredericksburg, 


488 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [J ANUARY—APRIL, 1863. 


eleven miles distant, are two roads; to the right the Orange plank road, to 
the left the turnpike. These diverge for a space, and then, converging, unite 
half way between Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. Both are excellent 
roads; the one planked, the other macadamized. Westward from Chancel- 
lorsville they run together for a couple of miles, and then separate, the turn- 
pike running to Culpepper, the plank road to Orange Court-house. ‘This 
road is the essential feature of the military position. From the north comes 
in another road, which after a mile divides, sending branches to the different 
fords of the Rapidan and the Rappahannock. The cleared fields around 
Chaneellorsville have a circuit of a mile; the belt of woods surrounding 
them eastward toward Fredericksburg, and southward toward Spottsylva- 
nia, is a mile or two in breadth. Beyond this, in both directions, lies an 
open cultivated country. 

The Wilderness, henceforth to be historic, stretches westward from Chan- 
cellorsville. The region for a space of a dozen miles is seamed with veins 
of iron ore. These have been wrought for five generations. Here indeed 
were erected the first regular iron furnaces in North America. The forests 
had been cut down to furnish fuel for these furnaces. The soil being gen- 
erally too poor to repay culture, the region was left to Nature, which soon 
covered it with a dense mass of dwarf pines, scrubby oaks, chinquapins, and 
the like. Every stump left by the woodman’s axe sent up a cluster of sprouts 
in place of the parent trunk. Whortleberries and brambles of every kind, 
availing themselves of the temporary flood of sunshine, twined and matted 
themselves into thickets through which the solitary huntsman could make 
his way only by dragging his rifle after him. The surface was an elevated 
plateau, swelling every where into low hills and ridges, with swampy inter- 
vales between, along which sluggish brooks made their way toward the Rap- 
idan on the north and the Mattapony on the south. Here and there is a 
little farm-house, or tavern, or church, with a small clearing around it, sur- 
rounded by the forests, like an island in the midst of waters. Four miles 
west of Chancellorsville, the Brock Road, leaving the turnpike, runs south- 
eastward. Besides these, other roads, mostly mere wood-paths, penetrate the 
thickets. In this Wilderness, and upon its eastern and western verge, Lee, 
with the Confederate army of Northern Virginia, was within a year and a 
day thrice to encounter and foil the Union Army of the Potomac under the 
successive commands of Hooker, Meade, and Grant. 

Hooker’s turninge movement, apparently the critical point of his whole 
plan, had been successfully performed. His wary opponent was taken by 
surprise. He knew nothing of it until it was practically accomplished. On 
the 28th, Sedgwick, with his own corps and those of Sickles and Reynolds, 
moved down the river, screened from the view of the enemy by the inter- 
vening heights. All that rainy night they lay upon their arms, with no 
camp-fires to betray their position. Before dawn, while the flanking col- 
umn was crossing the river thirty miles above, the pontoons were borne 
silently to the river bank and swung across. When day broke, Jackson 
saw a great force of the enemy across the stream, holding the very ground 
from which they had dashed upon his lines four months and a half before. 
He sent the news to the commanding general. “I heard firing,” said Lee 
to the messenger, “and was beginning to think it was time that some of 
you lazy young fellows were coming to tell me what it was all about. Say 
to General Jackson that he knows just as well what to do with the enemy 
as I do.”! Noon came before Lee received tidings that Hooker had crossed 
the Rappahannock and was then pressing toward the Rapidan, the columns 
converging upon Chancellorsville. He sent a message to Anderson, who 
held the lines, sharply censuring him for his negligence.? During the night 
of the 29th Anderson’s brigade retired from the ford to Chancellorsville, 
but, learning of the great force that was advancing against them, fell back 
the next morning six miles farther toward Fredericksburg, where they 
intrenched themselves. Saving some skirmishing between Pleasonton’s 
cavalry and the retiring Confederates,’ so slight that no Federal commander 
reports it, Hooker’s columns reached Chancellorsville without opposition. 
To all human seeming, Hooker was justified in the congratulatory orders 
which he issued that evening. “It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the 
commanding general announces to the army that the operations of the last 
three days have determined that our enemy must either ingloriously fly, or 
come out from behind his intrenchments and give us battle on our own 
ground, where certain destruction awaits him.”* To those around him he 
spoke in the same strain. ‘The rebel army,” he said, “is now the legitimate 
property of the Army of the Potomac. They may as well pack up their 
haversacks and make for Richmond, and I shall be after them.”® Sedgwick 
was ordered, should the enemy in his front show any symptoms of falling 


OAVALRY OROSSING AT ELY’S FORD, 


—— 


SSS ST_ 
— ————= 
SSS 
SSS 


— 
———= 


CROSSING AT UNITED STATES FORD, 


MING 
| 


| back, to pursue him with the utmost vigor along the road leading to Rich- 
(i 
| | turned. He hoped to force him to fall back toward Gordonsville rather 
| than by the direct route to Richmond, for which place he would then strike, 


aN 
\ 1 i mond; “pursue until you destroy or capture.”® It was a foregone conclu- 
: i H sion with Hooker that Lee must retreat the moment his flank was fairly 
having fifty miles less to march. In anticipation of these results, he had a 
en eee 


1 Dabney, 661. 

2 « During the forenoon of the 29th Stuart reported that the enemy had crossed the Rappahan- 
nock at Kelly’s Ford on the preceding evening. Later in the day he announced that a heavy 
column was moving from Kelly’s toward Germania Ford on the Rapidan, and another toward 
Ely’s Ford on that river. The routes that they were pursuing, after crossing the Rapidan, con- 
verge near Chancellorsville, whence several roads lead to the rear of our position at Fredericks- 
burg.” (Lee’s Rep., 6.)—“I captured a courier from General Lee, with a dispatch in Lee’s own 
handwriting. It was dated at 12 o’clock that day, and I captured it at one o’clock, only one 
hour from Lee’s hand. It was addressed to General Anderson, and read: ‘I have just received 
reliable intelligence that the enemy have crossed the river in foree. Why have you not kept me 
informed? I wish to see you at my head-quarters at once.’ ”—Pleasonton, in Com. Rep., ii., 27. 

3 The enemy’s cavalry skirmished with Anderson’s rear-guard as he left Chancellorsyille, but, 
being vigorously repulsed by Mahone’s brigade, offered no farther opposition to his march,” —Lee’s 
Rep., 6. 

4 Tfooker’s General Order, No. 47, April 30. 5 Swinton, 275. 5 Com. Rep., ii., 103. 


Arrit, 1863. ] 


| 


Mi 


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| 


HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE, 


ih 


| 


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THE ADVANCE OF SEDGWICK'S CORPS CROSSING THE RAPPAHANNOOK. 


489 


million and a half of rations placed on board lighters, with gun-boats ready 
to tow them down the Potomac and up the Pamunkey, so that his advance 
would not be impeded by want of supplies} 

Hooker had done much, but he left undone the one thing which was 
needed to place his complete success beyond all reasonable doubt. On that 
Thursday night he halted his force in the Wilderness around Chancellors- 
ville, where it was cooped up as effectually as though it had been on an 
island, instead of pushing forward another hour's march, which would have 
brought it into open country beyond. To oppose this march Lee had then 
at hand only the single division of Anderson. McLaws and Early were yet 
on the heights at Fredericksburg, the nearest troops fully ten miles away. 
The bulk of Jackson’s corps were twice as far off. It was not until the 
night of the 30th was far spent that Lee was fully assured that the opera- 
tions upon his front were a feint, and that the main danger was to come 
from his flank and rear. He was not minded to retreat without a struggle. 
The Union army was divided; if one half could be defeated, the whole 
would be neutralized, and if worst came to worst, he could retreat after a 
battle as well as before. Leaving Harly’s division and Barksdale’s brigade 
—less than 10,000 men in all—to hold the line near Fredericksburg, Lee 
began at midnight of the 80th to concentrate the remainder of his force in 
front of Hooker. McLaws was hurried up from the extreme left, and Jack- 
son, with the divisions of A. P. Hill, Rodes, and Colston, from the right. By 
eight o’clock on Friday morning, the first of May, the head of Jackson’s col- 
umn began to come up to Anderson, and three hours later all had arrived 
and formed line of battle at the very place upon which Hooker was now 
directing his advance.? 

For now, as the morning was wearing away, Hooker began to prepare to 
move out of the skirts of the Wilderness into the open space beyond. He 
had ordered Sickles’s corps to join him, and it had come up, raising his force 
to more than 60,000, a number greater by a quarter than Lee could bring 
against him after providing for the maintenance of the lines at Fredericks. 
burg. There were three roads centring at Chancellorsville and running 
eastward. Upon each of these a column was to be pushed out. Meade’s 
corps was to lead: the divisions of Griffin and Humphreys on the left, by 
the river road; Sykes, to be supported by Hancock, of Couch’s corps, in the 
centre, along the turnpike; Slocum’s corps on the right, by the plank road, 
while French’s division of Meade’s corps was to strike still farther south. 
Two o'clock in the afternoon was assigned for the completion of these move- 
ments, After that time the headquarters were to be at Tabernacle Church, 
close by the junction of the plank road and the turnpike, half way toward 
Fredericksburg.’ 

Hooker was destined never, during the war, to see the spot which he had 
assigned for his headquarters. The left column moved five miles down the 
river road, and came in sight of Banks’s Ford without meeting an enemy. 
The right column marched unopposed half as far, when it was arrested by 
tidings from the central column, This column, Sykes leading, Hancock be- 
hind, had pressed down the plank road, and soon came upon the enemy’s 
advance. Sykes drove them back for a space, and at noon gained the point 
assigned to him, After some sharp fighting he was forced back for a little, 
and took up a position which he desired to hold. But orders came that he, 
with all others, should fall back to the positions from which they had set 
out. Warren, who bore the order, had vainly urged that it should not be 
sent; Couch protested against it; Hancock thought they should advance in- 
stead of retreating.* 

Thus, in opposition to the opinions of every general who had felt the ene- 
my, Hooker withdrew his advancing columns, and instead of keeping up the 
offensive which he had assumed, threw himself upon the defensive. With 


Se EES eee 

» Com, Rep., ii., 145. * ; 

2 “The enemy in our front, near Fredericksburg, continued inactive, and it was now apparent 
that the main attack would be made upon our flank and rear. It was therefore determined to 
leave sufficient troops to hold our lines, and with the main body of the army to give battle to the 
approaching column. LEarly’s division of Jackson’s corps, and Barksdale’s brigade of McLaws’s 
division, with part of the reserve artillery under General Pendleton, were intrusted with the de- 
fense of our position at Fredericksburg, and at midnight on the 30th General McLaws marched 
with the rest of his command toward Fredericksburg. General Jackson followed at dawn next 
morning with the remaining divisions of his corps. He reached the position occupied by General 
Anderson at eight A.M., and immediately began preparations to advance.”—Lee’s Rep., 7. 

3 Hooker’s Order, in Com. Rep., ii., 124. 

* **On gaining the ridge about one and a quarter mile from Chancellorsville, we found the ene- 
my advancing and driving back our cavalry. This small force resisted handsomely, riding up and 
firing almost in the faces of the Eleventh Virginia infantry, which formed the enemy’s advance. 
General Sykes moved forward in double-quick time, attacked the enemy vigorously, and drove him 
back with loss till he had gained the position assigned to him. This he attained at about 12 o’clock. 
No sound yet reached us indicating that any other of our columns had encountered the advance of 
the enemy. General Sykes bravely resolved to hold the position assigned him, which his command 
had so gallantly won from the enemy, and I set out with all possible speed to report the condition 
to the commanding general. From information received since the advance began, the general 
decided to countermand it, and receive the enemy on the line occupied the night before.”—War- 
ren, in Com. Rep., ii., 56. ae 

‘*T was in favor of advancing, and urged it with more zeal than convincing argument, I 
thought with our position and numbers to beat the enemy’s right wing. This could be done by 
advancing in force upon the two main roads toward Fredericksburg, each being in good support- 
ing distance, at the same time throwing a heavy force on the enemy’s right flank by the river 
road.” (Warren, in Com. Rep., ii., 56.)——‘‘ The ground upon which Thad posted Hancock in sup- 
port of Sykes was about one and a half mile from Chancellorsville, and commanded it. Upon 
receiving orders from General Hooker to come in, I sent to him urging that on account of the 
great advantages of the position it should be held at all hazards. The reply was to return at 
once. General Warren also went in person and urged the necessity of holding on.” (Couch, 
Report of Chancellorsville.}—*‘ I have no doubt that we ought to have held our advanced positions, 
and still kept pushing on and attempt to make a junction with General Sedgwick.”—Hancock, in 
Com. Rep., ii., 66. ; : 

‘* At 11 o’clock the troops moved forward upon the plank and turnpike roads—Anderson, with 
the brigades of Wright and Posey, leading on the former; McLaws, with his three brigades, preceded 
by Mahone’s, on the latter. Wilcox and Perry, of Anderson’s division, co-operated with McLaws ; 
Jackson’s troops followed Anderson on the plank road. The enemy was soon encountered ou 
both roads, and heavy skirmishing with infantry and artillery ensued, our troops pressing steadily 
forward, A strong attack upon McLaws was repulsed with spirit by Semmes’s brigade; and 
Wright, by direction of Anderson, diverging to the left of the plank road, marched by way of the 
unfinished railroad from Fredericksburg to Gordonsville, and turned the enemy’s right. His 
whole line thereupon retreated rapidly, vigorously pursued by our troops until they arrived withia 
about one mile of Chancellorsville,”— Lee's Rep., 6, 


190 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


(APRIL, 1863. 


Mdiliaaia™ 


4 


LAYING THE PONTOONS FOR SEDGWICK'S CORPS. 


a force largely superior, instead of attacking, he prepared to receive the at- 
tack of the enemy. His reasons, as stated by himself, were based wholly 
upon the character of the region. “The ground in our vicinity,” he says, 
“was broken, and covered with dense forests, much of which was impene- 
trable to infantry. The ravines to the north of the road were deep, and 
their general direction was at right angles to the Rappahannock, affording 
the enemy a formidable position behind each of them. Here was the ene- 
my’s entire army, with the exception of about 8000 men which had been 
left to hold the line from below Hamilton’s crossing to the heights above 
Fredericksburg, a distance of between five and six miles. The right and 
central corps had proceeded but a short distance when the head of the col- 
umn emerged from the heavy forest, and discovered the enemy to be ad- 
vancing in line of battle. Nearly all of the Twelfth Corps had emerged 
from the forest at that moment, but as the passage-way through the forest 
was narrow, I was satisfied that I could not throw troops through it fast 
enough to resist the advance of General Lee, and was apprehensive of being 
whipped in detail. Accordingly, instructions were given for the troops in 
advance to return and establish themselves on the line-they had just left, and 


to hold themselves in readiness to receive the enemy.”! But Warren, who 
had scanned the ground with the eye of an engineer, thought the physical 
conditions favorable to the Union force. ‘TIf,” he says, “the attack found 
the enemy in extended lines across our front, or in motion toward our right 
flank, it would have secured the defeat of his right wing, and consequently 
the retreat of the whole. The advantages of the initiative in a wooded 
country like this, obscuring all movements, are incalculable, and so far we 
had improved them.”? 

The defensive position which Hooker now assumed formed a line of nearly 
five miles from east to west, running mainly parallel and a little south of the 
united plank road and turnpike. The left, a short distance east of Chancel- 
lorsville, was bent back a little northward; the right presented a similar 

* Hooker, in Com. Rep., ii., 125. 

? Warren, in Com. Rep., ii., 56.—Hancock indeed states that Hooker too late countermanded 
the order for withdrawal: ‘‘General Warren, who brought the order, suggested to General Couch 
that he should not fall back, although the order was to that effect. But General Couch did not 
feel at liberty to follow that suggestion, having received peremptory orders to fall back. It ap- 
pears, however, that General Warren rode off to General Hooker and explained the advantages of 


the position we held, and came back with an order that it should be held. But, in the mean time, 
the position had been abandoned, and the enemy had taken possession of it,’~-Com. Rep,, ii. 68 


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May, 1863.] 


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eurve. The general shape was nearly that of the letter (, the main front 
facing southward, the upper and lower curves looking west and east. The 
corps and divisions were somewhat broken up. The general placing in 
front was, Meade on the extreme left, toward Fredericksburg; Slocum in 
the centre; Howard on the right. The corps of Couch and Sickles were 
mainly in reserve, though a division of each was thrust forward into the 
front line, which was strengthened by abatis and breast-works. The right 
was weakly posted, but it was, in military phrase, flung out into the air; but 
as the enemy were wholly on the left, hardly reaching to the centre, it was 
thought that an attack was not to be looked for in that direction, and How- 
ard gave assurance that he could hold his position against any force that 
could be brought against it.? 

At nightfall Lee and Jackson, who had been engaged on different parts 
of the field, met upon the brow of a little hill covered by a clump of pines 
which had escaped the woodman’s axe, whose annual shedding of leaves 
formed a soft carpet upon the ground. They retired apart to consult upon 
the situation. This was critical. They must either win a battle or retreat. 
Hooker having assumed the defensive, they must attack. The Confederate 
skirmishers which had been pushed into the belt of wood had succeeded in 
ascertaining that the Union lines were unassailable in front of Chancellors- 
ville? But Stuart, whose cavalry had been reconnoitring westward and 
northward, reported that in these directions the Federal camps were open, 
and that almost all of his cavalry force was absent. Jackson proposed that 
while a part of the Confederate force should demonstrate upon Hooker’s 
front, the remainder should march clear around his line, and assail it upon 
its right flank and rear. The measure was hazardous in the extreme. The 
Federals, now in position, outnumbered the whole Confederate force, and 


* This map shows, in a general way, the topography of the region in which Hooker proposed to 
operate. Though not perfectly accurate, it is the best then accessible. Of the actual character of 
the Wilderness he was almost wholly ignorant, and had no means of becoming acquainted with 
it. The essential features of the map are the relative positions of Fredericksburg and Chancellors- 
ville, the fords by which the Rappahannock and Rapidan were to be passed, and the roads leading 
oie Fredericksburg by which it was supposed that the Confederate army must retreat. The 
roads are: (1.) The railroad to Richmond, and the Telegraph Road, running southwardly nearly 
parallel with it; (2.) The plank road and turnpike. These are represented on the map as one 
road from Fredericksburg to the point marked as the ‘‘ Wilderness,” where they diverge. The 
road from “‘'Todd’s Tavern” to the ‘‘ Wilderness” shows nearly the line of Jackson’s flank move- 
ment. With these exceptions, the roads laid down are mere rude country roads, hardly passable 
for an army with artillery and trains. In moving from near Falmouth, Meade, Slocum, and How- 
ard crossed the Rappahannock at Kelly's Ford, north of Germania Ford, on the Rapidan ; Couch, 
and subsequently Sickles and Reynolds, at United States Ford. Lee’s chief dépdt was at Guinea's 
Station, on the railroad, near which Jackson's corps had its winter quarters; but they had been 
moved half way up to Fredericksburg, near which place McLaws and Anderson were posted. ‘The 
distance between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville is 11 miles, which will indicate the scale 
upon which the map is drawn. 

? Com. Rep.,ii., 56. 

* “The enemy had assumed a position of great natural strength, surrounded on all sides by a 
dense forest filled with a tangled undergrowth, in the midst of which breast-works of logs had 
been constructed, with trees felled in front so as to form an almost impenetrable abatis. His 
artillery swept the few narrow roads by which his position could be approached in front, and com- 
Manded the adjacent woods. Darkness was approaching before the strength and extent of his 
line could be ascertained; and as the nature of the country rendered it hazardous to attack by 
night, our troops were halted and formed in line of battle in front of Chancellorsville, at right 
angles with the plank road, extending on the right to the mine road, and to the left in the direc- 
tion of Catharine Furnace.” —Lee’s Rep., 8. 


HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


— Se ae 


4HYI/NO_ CE ORGE fee 
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Belle Plain, 
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this was to be divided. But it was certain that Hooker must soon learn 
how small was the force remaining near Fredericksburg, and would then 
bring up Sedgwick from the Rappahannock, increasing the disparity nearly 
two to one. And even if the flank attack should miscarry, the Confederate 
army, then separated into three portions, would still have lines of retreat as 
favorable as they now had. Jackson’s three divisions would have the 
plank road westward, or the road southward through the open country ; 
McLaws and Anderson had the latter route; Early could fall back toward 
the others, and the three bodies could reunite and make a stand upon new 
ground, or, if need were, press on to Richmond; so that, barring the risk, 
which must be run, of a total defeat, their position would be no worse than 
it now was.! 

This plan was settled, and the two Confederate commanders lay down to 
rest without shelter upon the bare ground. Jackson had neither blanket 
nor overcoat. He declined an overcoat offered him by one of his staff. 
Thinking him asleep, the officer took off the cape, spread it over Jackson, 
and fell into slumber. Jackson rose and spread the cape over its owner, 
and laid down again uncovered. Before dawn he was seen sitting crouched 
over a scanty fire, almost hugging it, and shivering with cold, yet busy study- 
ing a rough map of the region, inquiring of his chaplain, who knew some- 
thing of the country, if there were no roads by which the Federal flank 
might be turned. The chaplain only knew that a little beyond was a blind 
forest-path, which, by various windings and turnings, struck the plank road 
four miles west of Chancellorsville. The line was traced on the map. 
“That is too near,” said Jackson; ‘it goes within the lines of the enemy’s 
pickets. I wish to get well to his rear without being observed.” An in- 
habitant of the region was now brought up, who said that the furnace road, 
upon which they were, ran southward for a few miles, and then was inter- 
sected by the Brock road from the northwest, which struck the plank road, 
so that by making a circuit of fifteen miles a point would be reached several 
miles above Hooker's extremest outposts. This was just what Jackson de- 
sired, and at sunrise he began the march with his three divisions.? 


SATURDAY, MAY 2. 


A mile of dense forest intervened between the road and Hooker’s front, 
completely hiding the march from observation, But at one point the road 
crossed a bare hill just opposite Sickles’s position. For two hours the long 
column, with its trains and ambulances, filed over the hill in plain view.’ 
It was clearly a movement in force, but with what purpose was a matter of 
doubt. It might be for offense upon the right, and so Hooker directed 
Howard to be fully prepared, to keep heavy reserves in hand to meet it, 
and especially to throw out pickets in his front. How utterly and crim- 
inally this order was disregarded remains to be shown, But the road on 
which the column was observed ran here due south, straight away from the 
Union lines; this indicated that the movement was a retreat. Sickles sent 


1 Dabney, 672. 2 Thid., 675. 


* Birney, in Com. Rey, ii., 34. 
* Hooker’s Order, 9.80 A.M.,in Com. Rep., ii., 126, 


499 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [May, 1863. 


a rifled battery to a point where it could play upon this column, but the 
distance, a mile and a half, was too great to permit the fire to produce any 
serious effect. Birney’s division, afterward followed by others, and Pleas- 
onton’s cavalry, were sent forward through the woods to reconnoitre. Bir- 
ney passed down the blind road which Jackson had refused to take, fell 
upon a regiment of McLaws’s division which had been placed there as a 
guard, and captured it. This movement of Birney’s so seriously threatened 
Jackson’s trains in the rear that two brigades were hastened back to pro- 
tect them. As it happened, however, Birney did not follow after Jackson’s 
column, and these two brigades, after seeing the trains well away, followed 
hes but were unable to get up in time to take part in the action of this 
ay.! 

Long before midday, Jackson’s column—infantry and artillery, with Stu- 
art’s cavalry patroling the region between him and the enemy, in all 80,000 
strong—were clear out of sight of friend and foe. The troops felt that they 
were upon one of those great flank marches which had more than once led 
them to victory, and they pressed forward with more than their wonted 
speed, every step for hours increasing the distance between them and Lee. 
Their march had been southwestwardly until they reached the Brock road}; 
then it turned at a sharp angle to the northwest. At three o’clock they 
struck the plank road at the old Wilderness tavern. By this march of fif- 
teen miles Jackson had passed clear around Hooker’s position, and was in 
a straight line hardly six miles from the point from which he had started 
ten hours before. Here, like an oasis in the forest desert, was a broad clear- 
ing, which gave him ample space in which to form his corps in battle array. 
Barely two miles away, down the road, lay Howard’s corps, forming Hook- 
er’s right. The Confederate pickets, creeping through the thickets, reported 
its position. Jackson from the summit of a little hill surveyed it, and made 
his dispositions for an assault. 

His column was formed into three lines—Rodes in front, then Colston, 
and, last, A. P. Hill, stretching across the plank road for some distance on 
each side, completely overlapping the head of the Federal line, thus com- 
manding it on front, flank, and rear. 

Lee, with parts of the divisions of Anderson and McLaws,? not 20,000 
men in all, had reserved to himself the less brilliant but not less critical task 
of keeping in check a force three times as strong. For a whole day the two 
corps would be isolated, neither being able to aid or even communicate with 
the other. If Hooker changed the position of his right, Jackson’s meditated 
blow would miss its mark. If, divining the character of the movement, he 
should assail Anderson and McLaws either in front from Chancellorsyille, or 
on the flank and rear by bringing Sedgwick up from Fredericksburg, their 
destruction was inevitable. Between Sedgwick’s 80,000° and him lay only 
Early’s 10,000, guarding a line of six miles. Lee confined himself during 
the morning to demonstrations all along Hooker’s front. arly in the 
morning he got a few guns into a position which commanded the field in 
front of the Chancellorsville House, and drove all the wagons back into po- 
sition. Then, at intervals, his infantry crept into the woods, delivered a yell 
and a volley, and disappeared, to reappear at a different point.* Sickles’s ad- 
vance was so threatening that Lee was obliged to resist it in force.® Sick-' 
les, with Birney’s division, maintained his ground successfully, and sent 
back for re-enforcements ; his other divisions were promised him, together 
with a brigade from Slocum, and one from Howard. Sickles was just about 
to open his attack with all this force, fully equal to the whole of Anderson’s 
and McLaws’s, when some officer came dashing up, breathless, with a report 
that Stuart’s cavalry were moving in his rear, and might cut him off; that 
Jackson’s infantry were very near; that the Union troops were retreating. 
Sickles disbelieved this story. Surely such a thing could not have hap- 
pened without a serious engagement, and had there been a battle he would 
have heard the noise. But almost instantly an aid came up with tidings 
from Howard. The right flank had been turned; Howard’s corps had giv- 
en way, and Jackson was right on Sickles’s rear. Hooker also sent word 
that he could not give the promised re-enforcements; he had to use them to 
check the enemy, who had broken through the Eleventh Corps. Sickles 
must withdraw his whole force, and save as many of them as he could.® 

Jackson had struck his blow. A little after five o’clock he had formed 
his lines, and began to press through the dense thickets which skirted the _ 
plank road, down which, only three miles away, lay a part of Howard’s 
corps, forming the extreme right of Hooker’s army. No assault here had 
been dreamed of. Intrenchments had been thrown up, but they were left 
unguarded. The men had stacked their arms, and were scattered about 
cooking their suppers ; ambulances, ammunition-wagons, pack-mules, and 
cattle were huddled together.? Not a picket was thrown out into the woods 
in front, nor even up the road, where for more than two hours Jackson had 
been deploying his divisions, hardly three miles away. The Union right 
was like a militia regiment at the close of a holiday muster rather than an 
army in presence of an enemy.® 


SEDGWIOK’S BRIDGES LALD. 


1 Thomas and Archer, in Lee’s Rep., 54-58. 

2'These divisions consisted of nine brigades; but Barksdale’s, of MclLaws’s, had been left at 
Marye’s Heights, and Wilcox’s, of Anderson’s, had been sent back to Banks’s Ford. 

3 Reynolds’s corps was withdrawn from Sedgwick that morning, and ordered to Chancellors- 
ville, where it arrived during the night. Sedgwick had then his own corps and Gibbon’s division 
of Couch’s. 4 Warren, in Com. Rep., ii., 45; Pleasonton, [bid., 27; Hooker, Zbid., 127. 

5 « At midday the enemy appeared in some force at the furnace. Posey’s brigade was sent to 
dislodge him, and was soon engaged in a warm skirmish with him. The increasing numbers of 
the enemy made it necessary to move Wright’s brigade over to the support of Posey’s.”—Ander- 
son, in Lee’s Rep., 25. 6 Sickles, in Com. Rep., ii., 6. 7 Com. Rep., ii., 45, 127. 

® Devens, whose division occupied the extreme right, testifies (Com. Rep., ii., 173): ‘About two 
or three o’clock in the afternoon, two soldiers, who had been sent out to observe the enemy's lines 
as spies from one of the other commands, came in and reported that the enemy were massing 
heavily on our right,” and that he sent them to Howard with the tidings. But that no pickets 
could have been pushed out upon the road is evident. The attack which came down that road, _ 
and on both sides of it, was an utter surprise. 


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May, 1863.] 


With a yell and a volley the Confederates dashed out of the woods into 
the open space occupied by this unsuspecting division. The regiments 
upon whom the onset first fell scattered without firing a shot, and rushed in 
wild confusion upon those behind them; these in turn gave way before the 
wild rush of their own comrades. Some of the regiments made a stand to 
stem the torrent; but it was vain, and the whole corps was soon streaming 
down the road, and through the woods toward Chancellorsville. Rodes, 
who commanded the front line of the Confederates, thus describes the con- 
flict: ‘“ At once the line of battle rushed forward with a yell, and Doles at 
the moment debouched from the woods, and encountered a force of the ene- 
my and a battery of two guns intrenched. Detaching two regiments to 
flank the position, he charged without halting, sweeping every thing before 
him; and pressing on to Talley’s, gallantly carried the works there, and cap- 
tured five guns by a similar flank movement of his command. So com- 
plete was the success of the whole manceuvre, and such was the surprise of 
the enemy, that scarcely any organized resistance was met with after the 
first volley was fired. They fled in the wildest confusion, leaving the field 
strewn with arms, accoutrements, clothing, caissons, and field-pieces in ev- 
ery direction. The larger portion of his force, as well as intrenchments, 
were drawn up at right angles to our line; and being thus taken in the 
flank and rear, they did not wait for the attack. On the next side, which 
had an extended line of works facing in our direction, an effort was made to 
check the flying columns. For a few moments they held this position ; but 
once more my gallant troops dashed at them with a wild shout, and, firing 
a hasty volley, they continued their hasty flight to Chancellorsville. It was 
at this moment that Trimble’s division, which had followed closely in my 
rear, headed by Colston, went over the works with my men, and from this 
time the two divisions were mingled in inextricable confusion. Pushing 
forward as rapidly as possible, the troops soon entered a second piece of 
woods, thickly filled with undergrowth. The right, becoming entangled in 
an abatis near the enemy’s first line of fortifications, caused the line to halt, 
and such was the confusion and darkness that it was not deemed advisable 
to make a farther advance. I at once sent word to Lieutenant General 
Jackson, urging him to push forward the fresh troops of the reserve line, in 
order that mine might be reformed. Riding forward on the plank road, I 
satisfied myself that the enemy had no line of battle between our troops and 
the heights of Chancellorsville, and on my return informed the chief of ar- 
tillery of the fact, and he opened his batteries on that point. The enemy 
instantly responded by a most terrific fire, which silenced our guns, but did 
little execution on the infantry. When the fire ceased General Hill’s troops 
were brought up, and, as soon as a portion were deployed in my front, I 
commenced withdrawing my troops by order of the lieutenant general.” 

Rodes was right. Between him and Chancellorsville, hardly half a mile 
away, there was no line of battle, and nothing from which to form one. 
Jackson was almost justified in declaring that with half an hour more of 
daylight he could have carried that place. The check to the Confederate 
rush came from an unexpected quarter. When the tidings came to Sickles 
of the flight of Howard, Pleasonton, with two regiments of cavalry, was 
riding leisurely back to the rear, for in the dense forest there was nothing 
for cavalry to do. He found the open space which he had left a few hours 
before filled with fugitives, ambulances, and guns. He had with him a bat- 
tery of horse artillery. The moment was critical, The enemy must be 
checked then and there, and to do it there was but this battery and those 
few horsemen. Turning to Major Keenan, he said, “You must charge 
into those woods with your regiment, and hold the rebels in check until I 
can get some of these guns into position; you must do it at any cost.” “T 
will do it,” responded Keenan, with a smile, though both knew that the or- 
der was equivalent to a death-warrant. The charge was made; a quarter 
of the regiment fell, their leader at their head. But ten priceless minutes 
were gained. Pleasonton brought up his battery at a gallop, double-shotted 
the guns with canister, and pointed them at the ground line of the parapet, 
telling the gunners to aim low. Then getting a score of guns into position 
out of the confused mass around, he had all double-shotted, pointed at the 
woods in front, and bade the gunners to await his order to fire. Hardly 
was this done when the whole forest, whose verge was a quarter of a mile 
distant, seemed alive with men. Just as he was about to give the order to 
fire, a Federal flag appeared on the front. He sent an aid to learn wheth- 
er these men were friends or foes. ‘Come on,” they shouted; “we are 
friends!” The order to fire was suspended for a moment. During that mo- 
ment the woods blazed with musketry, and the enemy, leaping over the par- 
apet, dashed straight up toward the guns. Then came the order to fire, and 
the low-pointed guns swept the whole line away like chaff. They returned 
again and again to the charge. At one time they came within fifty yards 
of the guns. Had they known it they might have captured them, for the 
artillery were utterly without infantry support. Pleasonton had left but 
two squadrons of raw cavalry. These he disposed in a single line, with 
drawn sabres, in the rear of his batteries, with orders to charge should the 
enemy come up to the guns.$ 

Lee had all day kept up demonstrations against Hooker’s front. Ander- 
son and McLaws had been ordered, as soon as the sound of Jackson’s guns 
was heard, to press strongly upon the Union left, te prevent re-enforce- 
ments from being sent to the right, but not to make any attack in force, 
and inclining all the while to their left, so as to connect with Jackson’s 
right, as he closed in upon the centre.* A fierce artillery fire from several 
commanding positions was kept up, accompanied by ostentatious infantry 
demonstrations upon the line held by Slocum and Couch. Meade had been 
posted upon the extreme Union left, quite out of the reach of the battle, so 

* Lee's Rep., 111, 2 Dabney. 4 Lee's Rep., 9. 


3 Pleasonton, in Com. Rep., ii., 28. 


61 


HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


493 


ALFRED PLEASONTON. 


that Hooker had at hand only Berry’s division of Sickles’s corps, and a sin- 
gle brigade of Couch’s, which had been held in reserve at Chancellorsville. 
Berry’s division was the one which Hooker had commanded, and it had 
never failed him. He pushed this forward at double-quick to meet the 
enemy. It was vain to attempt to check the wild rout of the Eleventh 
Corps. Hooker ordered the few cavalry with him to charge the flying mass, 
sabre in hand. Some of the fugitives were shot down by his staff, but no 
human power could arrest their flight,’ though they had already outstrip- 
ped their pursuers. Berry’s division, with fixed bayonets, pressed through 
the flying mass, hoping to regain the high ground which they had aban- 
doned. They were too late; it was in possession of the enemy. ‘The most 
that he could do was to take a stand upon a ridge, known as Fairview, upon 
the hither side of the forest which bounded the clearing at Chancellorsville, 
and thence to pour a fire of artillery and musketry up the road and into 
the woods, 

Night was closing in. The full moon shone brightly, throwing into 
deep shade the forests, just bursting into leaf. The divisions of Rodes and 
Colston, which had chased Howard’s corps two miles through the dense 
thickets, had fallen into inextricable confusion. Seeing no enemy before 
them, they had halted, and there was a lull in the contest. Jackson, who 
had been urging on the pursuit, ordered A. P. Hill’s division to come to 
the front and take the place of Rodes and Colston, and, accompanied only 
by his staff, passed down the road to examine the position. Some of his 
companions remonstrated against his exposing himself. ‘There is no dan- 
ger,” he replied; ‘the enemy is routed. Go back and tell Hill to press 
on.” A few minutes after a musketry fire from Berry’s pickets pattered 
among the trees. Jackson turned back toward his own lines. Some of 
Hill’s troops were coming down from the opposite direction. Seeing this 
little group of horsemen, they mistook them for Union cavalry, and fired 
upon them. Half of Jackson’s escort fell dead or wounded. He himself 
received three balls at the same instant. One passed through his right 
hand, a second through his left, while a third struck the left arm near the 
shoulder, severing the main artery and shattering the bone. His fright- 
ened horse darted back into the woods toward the Union lines. Jackson 
was bruised and almost dismounted by striking his face against the over- 
hanging bough of a tree. His left arm was useless, but, mastering the 
horse with his wounded right hand, he turned back to the road, and fell 
almost lifeless into the arms of an aid, one of the two who had kept up 
with him. One of these remained, while the other rode off in search of a 
surgeon. Just then Hill, with his staff, came to the spot. With his own 
hand Hill bandaged the broken arm of his commander, and then rode off 
toward where the battle was about to reopen. 

A little group was soon gathered around, and the wounded general was 
placed upon a rude litter and borne back toward the rear. They nad gone 
but a few rods when Berry’s guns poured a fierce fire up the road. One 
of the litter-bearers was killed, the others fled, leaving Jackson with but 
two companions. These flung themselves flat upon the ground to escape 
the canister which hurtled over them. The fire slackening for a moment, 
Jackson rose, and, supported on each side by an aid, staggered into the 

1 Com. Rep., ii., 126. 


494 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. | May, 1863. 


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NEAR CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY 1, 


wood which bordered the road. He came upon Pender’s brigade lying flat 
to avoid the shot pouring into the gloom. ‘TI fear,” said Pender, recog- 
nizing his wounded commander, “that we can not maintain our position 
here.” “You must hold your ground,” replied Jackson, for a moment 
This was the last order ever given by 
Jackson on the field. He was soon replaced in the litter and borne back 
through the tangled brushwood. One of the bearers stumbled and fell. 
Jackson was thrown to the ground, striking heavily upon his broken arm, 
and bruising his side. An ambulance was soon found, in which he was 
borne to the rear, where the broken arm was amputated. The operation 
promised well. Two days later he was borne to the hospital a score of 
miles away. But pneumonia set in, occasioned probably by the exposure 
of that Friday night before his great flank march, when he had slept un- 
sheltered upon the bare ground, aggravated perhaps by the bruise which 
he had received when thrown from the litter. He died on Sunday, the 10th 
of May. When the supreme hour approached, his mind wandered. _Vis- 
ions of the battle-field and of Paradise mingled together. ‘“ Order Hill to 
prepare for battle—pass the infantry to the front rapidly—tell—” Then 


a change passed over his delirium; and murmuring gently, “Let us cross 


over the river and rest under the shade of the trees,” he fell into the sleep 
which knows no earthly wakening. 

The military career of Thomas Jonathan Jackson as a Confederate com- 
mander lasted just two years. On the 2d of May, 1861, he was placed in 
command at Harper’s Ferry; on the 2d of May, 1863, he received his mor- 
tal wound in the Wilderness of Virginia. His great fame was won within 
the last year of his life, for in May, 1862, took place his operations in the 
Valley of the Shenandoah, wherein, by foiling Fremont and Shields, he 
showed that he possessed qualities higher than those of a stubborn fighter 
and a daring partisan. Born of a respectable family, fallen into decay, ac- 
cident gave him an appointment as cadet at West Point. Passing in due 
course from the Military Academy into the army, he served with credit in 
the war with Mexico. Soon after he left the army, and became Professor 
of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Artillery 'Nactics in the Vir- 
ginia Military Academy at Lexington. Meanwhile a great change had oc- 
curred in his moral nature—that alteration which theologians denominate 
“a change of heart.” He embraced that form of Christianity which finds 
its exponents in Calvin and Edwards. Major Jackson, Professor in the Mil- 
itary Academy, was also Deacon Jackson of the Presbyterian Church. His 
ten-years’ career as professor was far from brilliant. He was rather a laugh- 
ing-stock to the gay youths who thronged the Academy. That he was 
master of the management of guns was admitted; that he understood the 
science which he was set to teach was possible; but he had little faculty 
for imparting his knowledge. There were eccentricities in his mode of life, 
arising, materialists would say, rather from a disordered stomach than from 


a disturbed brain, but still sufficiently marked to furnish occasion for men 
to consider him as “half-cracked.” The few who knew him well, however, 
saw that these eccentricities were but superficial; that underlying them was 
a firmness and persistence of character which would enable him to run a 
great career if an opening to such should ever occur. Few even of these 
few knew the boundless ambition, and the unquestioning, almost fatalistic 
self-confidence which lay hidden below all the outward manifestations of his 
character. ‘ 

When the great rebellion broke out, any one would haye been justified 
in assuming that Jackson would have taken sides with the Union. He 
had been educated by the Union; he had fought with honor under the 
flag of the Union; all his interests, and, as might be supposed, all his feel- 
ings, were with the Union rather than with the Confederacy. His personal 
concern in slavery was of the slightest. The region in which he was born 
and where he resided was farming rather than planting. Most of the 
owners of slaves wrought in the fields as laboriously as their servants. 
Unless, as was not often the case, they reared slaves for the Southern mar- 
ket, they would have been richer without than with the ownership of these 
laborers. Society in the Valley was constructed like that of Massachusetts 
rather than like that of South Carolina. But somewhere and somehow 
Jackson, during his quiet ten years as Professor, had become imbued with 
the extremest Southern ideas; not merely the ‘“State-right” doctrine that 
the primary allegiance of the citizen was due to his state—that to the 
nation being secondary and dependent—but with the extremest views of 
the extremest men of the extreme South. As early as 1856 he was a Dis- 
unionist.! He spent a part of the summer of 1860 in New England, and 
on his return said that he had “seen enough to justify the division that had 
just occurred in the Democratic party, which resulted in the defeat of Doug- 
las and the election of Lincoln—a division which, he predicted, would 
render a dissolution of the Union inevitable.’ 

When the war broke out, it would have been hard to find a man so 
fully prepared for extremes as Jackson. The deacon who had gone round 
asking for subscriptions of a few dimes from negroes in aid of the Bible 
Society—who had, with infinite misgivings, consented, upon the represen- 
tations of his pastor, to “lead in prayer” at “evening meetings” —calmly 
declared that no quarter should be given. It was, he said, “the true 
policy of the South to take no prisoners in this war.” He threw himself 


1 Dabney, 143. 2 Thid., 145. 

3 I venture this statement solely upon the assertion of Dabney, whose words I quote. This 
writer professes to give the substance of what was, months after, said by Jackson in justification 
of the ground which he had assumed. The war, he said, as reported by Dabney, ‘‘was different 
from all civilized wars, and therefore should not be brought under their rules. Its intention was 
a wholesale murder and piracy. It was the John Brown raid resumed and extended; and as 
Virginia had righteously put to death every one of those cut-throats upon the gallows, why were 
their comrades in the same crime to claim now a more honorable treatment? Such a war was 
an offense against humanity so monstrous that it outlawed those who shared its guilt beyond the 


496 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 


THE CIVIL WAR. [May, 1863. 


NEAR OHANOCELLORSVILLE, MAY 1. 


into the conflict with all the fervor of a firm but narrow mind, in which 
there was not room for doubt. In the long list of enthusiasts who have 
devoted themselves to a cause, there is not one whose faith was more un- 
doubting than that of Jackson. From the moment that he took the field 
his hypochondria vanished. Heretofore he had timed his hours and meas- 
ured his food; thenceforth the hardest lot of a soldier’s life was endured 
without a thought? He left his home almost without warning, and never 
returned to it alive. He was never for a day absent from the field. The 
mooning professor was at once inspired with the genius of command. 

In all the annals of war there can be found no general who held more 
absolute sway over his troops. Some have regarded him as the hand to 
execute what others conceived; but this certainly falls far below his mili- 
tary merit. ‘lwo great movements, each of which postponed for a year the 
issue of the war, were conceived as well as executed by him. The flank 
march whereby Pope was routed in the summer of 1862, and this of the 
spring of 1863, whereby alone, as it happened, Lee was saved from destruc- 
tion at Chancellorsville, were Jackson’s, both in conception and execution. 
The Confederates might better have lost a battle than this one man. 


Hooker was greatly discouraged by the rout of Howard’s corps. His 
first impulse was to withdraw from Chancellorsville and the road leading 
thence from the Wilderness; but he changed his plan during the night, 
and resolved to await the Confederate attack, meanwhile causing Couch to 
draw up an entirely new line, to which he might fall back in case of need,} 
and ordering Sedgwick up to his aid from Fredericksburg. The line of 
battle was necessarily somewhat contracted. What had before been the 
extreme Union right had been won, and was still held by the enemy. On 
the line now assumed, the right, instead of stretching westward parallel with 


pale of forbearance.” The war, he averred, would soon assume an internecine character; the 
North would arm the slaves against their masters; the Confederate States could not, and should 
not, submit to this, and should retaliate, rather, however, ‘‘ against the instigators than the igno- 
rant tools. But,” he continued, ‘‘by the time this stern necessity had manifested itself, the 
Federal government might have many of our soldiers and much of our territory in their clutches, 
so that retaliation would be encumbered with additional difficulties. It would be better, there- 
fore, to begin upon a plan of warfare which would place none of our citizens in their power 
alive ;” and if, he concluded, “quarter was neither given nor asked,” the Confederate soldiers 
“‘would be only the more determined, vigilant, and unconquerable;” while the Union soldiers 
“would be intimidated, and enlistments would be prevented” (Dabney, 192-194). It must be 
added, however, that when the murderous principle upon which Jackson wished the war to be 
carried on failed to meet the approval of the Confederate government, there was no general in 
their service who more strictly observed the amenities of warfare. When he lay wounded almost 
within the Union lines, he objected to being removed in case it would do him any injury. ‘If 
the enemy comes,” he said, “I am not afraid of them. I have always been kind to their 
wounded, and I am sure they will be kind to me.” —Hotchkiss, 124. 

* “About midnight, or after, I was awakened by General Couch, who told me that we were 
ordered to withdraw, I supposed to some new position, and that the Second Corps was to form the 
rear-guard; but at daylight, just as the movement was about to commence, as I understood, 


General Couch informed me that we were going to remain there and fight a battle.”—Hancock, 
in Com. Rep., ii., 67. 


the plank road, was bent sharply northward, directly across it. The posi: 
tion on the centre and left remained unchanged. Howard’s corps, now 
partly reorganized, was sent to the extreme left, where no assault was antic: 
ipated. Reynolds’s corps, which had come up during the night, was halted 
some two miles away from the actual right; Meade’s was partly in reserve, 
and partly guarding the road leading to the river. These two corps took 
no part in the action which ensued. 

The real line of battle for Sunday, the 3d of May, formed three sides 
of an irregular square. The left, facing eastward toward Fredericksburg, 
was held by Hancock’s division of Couch’s corps; the centre, facing south- 
ward, by Slocum’s corps; the right, facing westward, by Sickles’s corps, with 
French’s division of Couch’s corps. Sickles’s extreme left, on a small pla- 
teau known as Hazle Grove, projecting southward beyond the general line, 
was somewhat isolated and open to assault; but it commanded the centre 
of the Union position. Ifthe enemy won that, he could hold it with artil- 
lery, and pour an enfilading fire along Slocum’s line. Hazle Grove was 
the key to every thing, and should have been held at every hazard ;! but 
Hooker, knowing only of its exposure, and unaware of its vital importance, 
ordered Sickles to abandon it, and fall back to the line on the heights at 
Fairview. The movement began at daybreak, but before it was completed 
the battle of Sunday—the main action at Chancellorsville—was opened. 

Jackson had fallen before he had accomplished half his plan. He had 
intended, after having driven in Hooker's right, to move still farther north- 
ward, and intrench himself at the point where the roads unite which lead 
from Chancellorsville to the river. He believed that he could seize and 
hold that point, which was vital, inasmuch as it commanded Hooker's line 
for supplies. ‘My men,” he said, “sometimes fail to drive the enemy 
from their positions, but the enemy are never able to drive my men from 
theirs.”* But the execution of this design was impossible, even had Jack- 
son been there to attempt it, for Reynolds’s corps had come up and occupied 
this very point. 

Leaving Jackson wounded upon the battle-field, Hill had on Saturday 
evening pressed through the woods to the right, where Pleasonton had got 
his guns into position, and renewed the assault. This was repulsed, and 


1 “T immediately”—that is, on Saturday night—“ set to work, knowing the importance of this 
position, to fix it up for the fight of the next morning. I managed to get forty pieces in position, 
and I cleared out behind us the débris of the Eleventh Corps, that had gone off—the caissons, 
guns, ambulances, etc., all piled up in great confusion in a marsh that was there. I built three 
bridges across the marsh, and, with the support of Sickles’s corps, we could have defeated the whole 
of the rebel army there that morning. At 3 o’clock I received an order to fall back in rear of the 
position at the Chancellorsville House. Before I left, General Sickles informed me that he also 
had orders to leave with his corps. I mentioned to him the importance of this position, and he 
agreed with me that we ought to make an effort to hold it. I feel perfectly satisfied that, had 
General Hooker been able to see the position that I occupied there, he would never have aban- 
doned it; and I looked upon it as a great misfortune that he did not see that point. The rebels, 
having this position, could enfilade our whole line to the Chancellorsville House with their bat- 
teries at this point.”—Pleasonton, in Com, Rep., ii., 29. ? Dabney, 700; Hotchkiss, 125. 


May. 1863. ] 


HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


497 


OHANOELLORSVILLE, MAY 318 


Hill was wounded. Rodes was next in rank, but Hill sent for Stuart, who 
was five miles away, and desired him to take command of the whole corps. 
When he came, Rodes yielded, not with the best grace. Stuart found 
every thing in confusion. This was increased by a midnight attack made 
by Birney, who forced the Confederates back for a space through the woods, 
and recovered some of the guns which had been abandoned by Howard’s 
corps in its precipitate flight. In the darkness some of the Confederate bri- 
gades fired upon each other.” 

All that night Stuart was busy in reorganizing the shattered corps which 
had so unexpectedly come under his command. He was separated from 
Lee by six miles of dense forest. Morning was approaching before he could 
inform his commanding general of his position, and receive instructions. 
The messenger said that Jackson had urged that “the enemy should be 
pressed in the morning.” Lee’s response was, ‘Those people shall be 
pressed.” 

The odds on that Sunday morning were greatly in favor of Hooker. <At 
and about Chancellorsville he still had fully 78,000 effective men. Lee 
proposed to press this force in its intrenchments with 30,000 less. More- 
over Sedgwick, with his own strong corps, and Gibbon’s division of Couch’s 
corps, quite 27,000 men in all, were near Fredericksburg, not fifteen miles 
away. They were confronted by Early with not more than 11,000. It was 


1 “¢Captain Adams, of General A. P. Hill’s staff, reached me post-haste, and informed me of the 
sad calamities which had for the time deprived the troops of the leadership of both Jackson and 
Hill, and of the urgent demand for me to come and take command as quickly as possible” (Stuart, 
in Lee’s Rep., 17).—Rodes says (Ibid., 112): ‘‘I yielded the command to General Stuart, not be- 
cause I thought him entitled to it, belonging as he did to a different arm of the service, nor be- 
cause I was unwilling to assume the responsibility of carrying on the attack, as I had already 
made the necessary arrangements, and they remained unchanged, but because, from the manner 
in which I had been informed that he had been sent for, I inferred that General Jackson or 
General Hill had instructed Major Pendleton to place him in command; and for the still stronger 
reason that I feared that the information that the command had devolved upon me, unknown 
except to my own immediate troops, would, in their shaken condition, be likely to increase the 
demoralization of the corps.” 

2 «The attack was made precisely at midnight by Ward’s brigade, with the remaining part of 
Birney’s division in support. It was admirably conducted under General Birney, and was in all 
points successful. It was made entirely with the bayonet. We drove Jackson back to our original 
line, and reoccupied General Howard’s rifle-pits, and recovered several pieces of artillery and some 
caissons which had been abandoned during the day. Jackson’s force was thrown into great con- 
fusion, and his own artillery opened upon his own men” (Sickles, in Com. Rep., ii., 7).—‘‘ At about 
midnight on Saturday, General Sickles ordered me to attack Jackson’s corps with my division, 
driving them from the plank road and the small earthworks. At one o'clock I reported that we 
held the road and works, and had recaptured the artillery and caissons taken from us during the 
stampede of the Eleventh Corps” (Birney, Zbid., 35).—‘‘ There was much confusion on the right, 
owing to the fact that some troops mistook friends for the enemy, and fired upon them.’’—Stuart, 
in Lee’s Rep., 18. 

.* Hooker had with him the corps of Reynolds, Meade, Sickles, Howard, and two divisions of 
Couch, numbering at the outset 81,000. Howard’s corps had lost 2500, the greater part prison- 
ers; all other losses up to this time could not have exceeded 500, leaving an effective force of 
78,000. Lee’s entire force, exclusive of cavalry, was 60,000. Of these, Early’s division, and two 
brigades from Anderson and McLaws, about 11,000, were left near Fredericksburg. The entire 
losses on Friday and Saturday could not have exceeded 1000, leaving with Lee, near Chancellors- 
ville, about 48,000. We take no account of the cavalry, because the character of the region pre- 
vented them from being brought into active service, on either side, in this operation. 


6K 


clearly possible that Sedgwick would force his way to Hooker, and, assum- 
ing that Early should escape destruction and join Lee, the Federal prepon- 
derance would be greatly increased. Taking no account of probable losses 
on either side, Hooker would have 95,000 men, Lee 59,000. Apart from 
numbers, Hooker’s position was far the better. His 78,000 lay together, 
Lee’s 48,000 were separated, and it depended upon the chances of battle 
whether they could be united. Hooker, moreover, was intrenched upon 
ground mainly of his own choosing; Lee, assuming the offensive, must assail 
these intrenched lines, The region was indeed a difficult one, but the phys- 
ical obstacles were as great for the one side as for the other, and the one 
venturing the offensive must undertake to overcome them. Considering 
that each commander was well informed of the force of his opponent, one 
can not but wonder tkat Lee should have ventured an attack, and that 
Hooker should have awaited it. 


SUNDAY, MAY 3. 


The action was opened at dawn by Stuart, earlier than he had intended. 
He had ordered his right to be swung around through the woods, from the 
position to which his men had fallen back during the night. This brought 
two of his brigades right in front of Hazle Grove, from which Sickles had 
withdrawn every thing except Graham’s brigade, which formed his rear-guard. 
Stuart’s direction was mistaken for an order to attack. A sharp conflict 
ensued, with loss on both sides; but Graham got safely off to Fairview, and 
Stuart took possession of Hazle Grove. A glance showed him the value of 
the position which had been abandoned to him. In a few minutes he occu- 
pied it with thirty guns. His whole force was then ordered to advance upon 
the Union lines, which, as the fog lifted, were seen crowning the Fairview 
ridge, a third of a mile in front. Between lay the valley of a little creek 
covered with a tangled forest growth, through which the attacking columns 
must force their way, in the face of a fierce fire of artillery and musketry. 
Again and again they charged down the valley, through the woods, and up 
the slope, and as often were thrown back in confusion, only to advance again 
with fresh force and unabated resolution. 

Sickles, upon whom all this onset fell, first sent word to Hooker that he 
could hold his position so long as his ammunition lasted, and then, a little 
later, that he needed prompt support. This last urgent demand came in an 
evil time. For two hours and more the Confederate guns at Hazle Grove 
had been playing upon Chancellorsville. The house was riddled by shot. 
A ball struck a pillar of the veranda against which Hooker was leaning. 
He fell senseless. Those around thought him dead or dying. There was no 
one at hand with authority to send the re-enforcements so urgently asked by 
Sickles, though the two corps of Reynolds and Meade were wholly disen- 
gaged. Half of either of these sent to Sickles would have been enough to 


498 


DANIEL FE, SICKLES, 


have secured the victory.!. That attack repulsed, the remainder of Hooker’s 
unengaged force, sweeping around, would have enveloped Stuart’s broken 
corps, and crushed it to powder. Reynolds was indeed minded to bring his 
corps into the fight. This seems to have been the plan of Hooker, as under- 
stood by some of his officers.2 But if such was the purpose of Hooker, its 
execution was prevented by the blow which disabled him. For two event- 
ful hours the Union army was without a commander. Hooker lay insen- 
sible for a time, then, partly recovering, mounted his horse; but pain over- 
mastered him, and he lay upon the ground as if in a doze, the Confederate 
shells bursting all around him. Now and then he was partially aroused 
when some important dispatch required a prompt answer.? 

Sickles’s ammunition was almost exhausted. Again he sent to head- 
quarters asking for aid, but there was no one there even to reply to his ur- 
gent demand. He withdrew his now useless artillery, and fell back with his 
infantry to a second line, which he resolved to hold by the bayonet. He 
was not followed, and, looking to his front, it seemed that the enemy was 
routed. They had the aspect of a disorganized crowd rather than an army. 
Just then French, with his division, had advanced upon the Confederate 
left, and driven it back.t Stuart concentrated all his force upon this point, 
and succeeded in repelling the attack, the only offensive movement made 
by the Union forces at Chancellorsville on that day. Had it been supported 
by a half, or even a quarter of Reynolds's corps, which lay idle only a few 
furlongs off, Stuart could not have escaped destruction. 

While Stuart was thus with varying fortune pressing the attack upon 
the Union right, Lee, with the divisions of Anderson and McLaws, assailed 
the centre held by Slocum, under an enfilading fire from the batteries 
posted at Hazel Grove. The left, held by Hancock’s division of Couch’s 
corps, was threatened, rather than attacked,® for Lee was all the time edg- 
ing to his left in order to make a junction with Stuart. This was effected 
at ten o’clock, at the very moment when the battle hung in even scales. 
Both sides had lost terribly. Stuart’s three divisions, numbering in the 
morning about 27,000, had lost fully 6000 in killed and wounded, and 
1500 prisoners. Sickles and French had lost well-nigh 5000 out of 22,000. 
The united Confederate force, 40,000 strong after all its losses, pressed on 


1 “Tf Hooker had been well enough to have answered my request for re-enforcements, it would 
have turned the whole tide of battle. I have no doubt it would have been won in thirty minutes ; 
at least it would have been won in an hour. It would have been won just as soon as you could 
have got ten thousand men from the right or the left to have repulsed that attack.”—Sickles, in 
Com. Rep., ii., 10. 

2 «We expected that Jackson’s forces would assault us in the morning at Chancellorsville, and 
the intention was that General Sickles, with all his force, was to meet him at once; and the First 
Corps, Reynolds's, was also to attack him and envelop him; and, if necessary, more forces were 
to be drawn from the left of our line, leaving only forces enough to hold Lee’s forces in check” 
(Warren, in Com. Rep., ii., 46).—‘‘I can not tell why the First Corps was not brought into action. 
I thought that the simple advance of two corps would take the enemy in flank, and would be very 
beneficial in its result. General Reynolds once or twice contemplated making this advance upon 
his own responsibility. Colonel Stone made a reconnoissance, showing it to be practicable.”’— 
Doubleday, in Com. Rep., ii., 17. 3 Pleasonton, in Com. Rep., ii., 31. 

4 Sickles (in Com. Rep., ii., 8) thus describes the aspect at this moment: ‘‘The enemy seemed 
to be satisfied with having forced me to withdraw my infantry from their front line to this second 
position, and the battle paused for half an hour or more. The loss inflicted upon the enemy, espe- 
cially by my artillery, was most severe. Their formation for the attack was entirely broken up, 
and from my head-quarters they presented to the eye the appearance of a mass—a crowd without 
definite formation.” —Stuart (in Lee’s Rep., 16) thus describes the situation: ‘‘ In the mean time the 
enemy was pressing our left with infantry, and all the re-enforcements I could obtain were sent 
there. Colquitt’s brigade of Trimble’s division, ordered first to the right, was directed to the left 
to support Pender. Johnson’s brigade, of the second line, was also engaged there, and the three 
lines were more or less merged into one line of battle, and reported hard pressed. Urgent requests 
avere sent for re-enforcements, and notices that the troops were out of ammunition. I ordered that 
the ground must be held at all hazards, if necessary with the bayonet.’”—Several of the Confeder- 
ate brigade commanders report how hardly they were pressed by the advance of French. ‘Thus 
Pender (in Lee’s Rep., 52) says: ‘‘My men were about out of ammunition, broken down, and 
badly cut up.”—Ramseur (bid., 74) tells how he was obliged to run over the Confederate troops 
in his front, and how his line was ‘“subjected to a horrible enfilade fire, by which it suffered se- 
verely.” Out of 1509 men he lost 788. 

* The left, that is of the line as actually engaged, for the corps of Meade and Howard, forming 
the absolute left, were not engaged at all. Hancock says (Com. Rep., ii., 68): ‘ Although the 
enemy massed their infantry in the woods very near me, and attempted to advance, and always 
held a threatening attitude, I judge they had exhausted their troops so much that they dared not 
attack me. ‘There was no forcible attack on me.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1863, 


converging toward Chancellorsville. In their way lay Sickles, French, 
and Slocum, with some 10,000 less. Barely two miles away on either hand 
were Reynolds, Meade, and Howard, with fully 42,000, not a regiment of 
whom were moved to the scene of conflict at the supreme moment. The 
stress of the Confederate assault now again fell upon Sickles. His ammuni- 
tion exhausted, he could only hold his line with the bayonet. Five times 
the enemy dashed upon him; five times they were thrust back. ‘Then the 
whole front melted away, Sickles’s corps first yielding the position.’ Then, 
in obedience to orders from Couch, who had in some sort assumed tempo- 
rary command, the army retreated to the line which had been traced out 
the night before. ~ 

As a defensive position to be held against a superior force, a better could 
hardly have been desired. It formed a sharp curve, the apex three quarters 
of a mile back of Chancellorsyille, the sides stretching back right and left 
to the Rappahannock and Rapidan, covering the fords. Each flank was 
covered by a little stream bordered by dense woods. An enemy could as- 
sail it only by its narrow front, and this was covered by the skirt of the 
forest, pierced with only a few rough roads. It was a position which any 
general might venture to hold against double his force. Hooker had here 
fully 70,000 men, half of whom had not been seriously engaged. Lee had 
left barely 40,000; yet, in the face of these odds, he was on the point of 
renewing the fight, when he was arrested by ominous tidings. While 
the fierce fight had been going on around Chancellorsville, Sedgwick had 
marched from below Fredericksburg, stormed the heights, and was advanc- 
ing to unite with Hooker.? Sedgwick had now his own corps, 22,000 
strong. ‘These were across the river, two or three miles below Fredericks- 
burg. Gibbon’s division of Couch’s corps, 5000 strong, which had been 
left behind at Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, was also under Sedgwick’s 
command; thus, all told, he had 27,000. Confronting him along the heights 
was Karly, who had been left from Jackson’s corps, and Barksdale’s brigade 
of McLaws’s, and Wilcox’s of Anderson’s, in all 11,000 strong. Just after 
four o’clock on Saturday afternoon Hooker sent an order to Sedgwick direct- 
ing him to march upon Fredericksburg, capture it, and vigorously pursue 
the enemy. ‘We know,” he added, though he did not himself believe it, 
“that the enemy is flying, trying to save his trains. Two of Sickles’s divi- 
sions are among them.” This order did not reach Sedgwick until dusk. Al- 
most simultaneously came another, dated three hours later, directing the 
route which should be taken in pursuit. At this time Jackson had struck 
his blow and shattered Howard’s corps. At an hour before midnight an- 
other order came to Sedgwick. Hooker, not aware that he had already cross- 
ed the river, and supposing him still to be on the north bank, directed him to 
‘‘cross the Rappahannock on the receipt of this order, take up your line of 
march on the Chancellorsville road until you connect with the major gen- 
eral commanding, and attack and destroy any force you may fallin with on 
the road. You will leave all your trains behind except the pack trains of 
your. ammunition, and march to be in vicinity of the general at daylight. 
You will probably fall upon the rear of the force commanded by General 
Lee, and between you and the major general commanding he expects to 
use him up. Be sure not to fail.” This peremptory and special order was 
dispatched after Jackson’s assault had been checked.t Sedgwick put his 
corps in motion at once. The moon shone almost as brightly as day upon 
the hills, but thick fogs were gathering in the valley. The Confederates 
were on the alert, and their skirmishers presented some annoyance. Still 
Sedewick’s march was unaccountably slow. It took the head of his column 
until daybreak—a space of fully six hours, to reach Fredericksburg, a dis- 
tance of three miles. 

Two or three attempts were made to carry the heights on the Confederate 
right, which were held by Early with the main strength of his division. 
These attempts were repulsed with little difficulty. Gibbon, who had now 
crossed the river, made a demonstration against their left, but a deep canal, 
the bridges over which had been removed, prevented any advance. It had 
the effect, however, of detaining there a Confederate brigade which was moy- 
ing from that direction toward Marye’s Hill in the centre. This hill was 


1 «*No supports coming up, and the enemy meanwhile having had time to restore order in his 
own lines and bring up fresh reserves, I was again attacked, and, having no means of resistance 
except the bayonet, after repelling five successive attacks I again fell back to General Hooker's 
headquarters, which were then within easy range of the enemy’s cannon, and were rapidly be- 
coming a pile of ruins, almost every shot telling upon the building” (Sickles, in Com. Rep., ii., 9).— 
Hancock, who, from his position on the left, could see something of what was going on upon the 
right, says (Com. Rep., ii., 67): “The first lines finally melted away, and the whole front appear- 
ed to pass out. First, the Third Corps (Sickles’s) went out; then the Twelfth Corps (Slocum’s), 
after fighting a long time, and there was nothing left on that part of the line except my own di- 
vision. I was directed to hold that position until a change of line of battle could be made, and 
was to hold it until I was notified that all the other troops had gotten off.”—The Confederate 
reports uniformly give 10 o’clock as the time when Chancellorsyille was carried; the Federal re- 
ports place the time an hour later. 

2 «The troops, having become somewhat scattered by the difficulties of the ground and the ar- 
dor of the contest, were immediately reformed preparatory to renewing the attack. The enemy 
had withdrawn to a strong position nearer the Rappahannock, which he had previously fortified. 
His superiority of numbers, the unfavorable nature of the ground, which was densely wooded, 
and the condition of our troops after the arduous and sanguinary conflict in which they had been 

“engaged, rendered great caution necessary. Our preparations were just completed, when farther 
operations were arrested by intelligence received from Fredericksburg.”—Lee’s Rep., 10. 

3 «Tt was based on a report sent in from General Sickles that the enemy was flying at the time 
he was sent out to follow up Jackson’s corps. I was of the impression that the general was 
mistaken, but nevertheless felt that no harm could follow from its transmission to General Sedg- 
wick.”—Hooker, in Com. Rep., ii., 147. 

4 Sedgwick (Com. Rep., ii.,95) says that this dispatch was dated at ten minutes past 10. He 
probably gave the hour from memory. Hooker (/bid., 129) gives its date at 9 o’clock. There is 
no doubt, however, as to the time when it was received, although Howe (Jbid., 23) says it was 
‘received just after dark, say 8 o’clock; but he evidently confounds it with a previous order. 
As to the character of the night, I have endeavored to reconcile statements which upon their face 
appear wholly inconsistent. Hooker and Butterfield say expressly and in almost the same words 
(Lbid., 76,129): ‘It was a bright moonlight night, and clear, sufficiently light for staff officers 
to write dispatches by moonlight.” - Howe says (Zbid., 22): ‘‘It was bright starlight, so that I 
could see what was inthe advance.” Sedgwick, on the other hand, says (Jdid., 100): ‘*In conse- 
quence of the enemy and the darkness, it took us until daylight to make a little over three miles. 
It was a very foggy night.” _ i 


May, 1863. | 


held by only two brigades—that of Barksdale occupying the stone wall at 
its base, from which it had so disastrously repulsed Burnside a few weeks 
before. The morning was wearing away, and nothing had been effected. 
At length Sedgwick, urged by Warren, resolved to assail Marye’s Hill in 
front. At 11 o'clock, just as the fight at Chancellorsville was closing, he 
formed two strong columns, which dashed at the wall. The enemy reserved 
their fire until the nearest column, led by Colonel Johns, was within a few 
score yards; they then poured in a solid sheet of musketry. The column 
faltered and fell back. In a couple of minutes it rallied, and pressed fifty 
yards nearer. Again it met the sheet of fire, and again broke. It seemed 
that the tragedy of December was to be re-enacted. But Johns, though 
wounded, rallied his men for a third charge, This time they did not stop; 
they rushed over and around the wall, and in fifteen minutes from their first 
advance. carried it, killing or capturing its defenders. Johns was again 
wounded and borne from the field. Colonel Spear, who led the other col- 
umn, was killed. Other regiments now swarmed up the height from both 
sides. The Confederates made a fierce fight, but it was vain. arly fell 
back southward along the telegraph road. Sedgwick’s corps thus stood 
directly between Early and Lee, with only two brigades in his front. This 
little force retreated sullenly along the plank road, closely followed by 
Sedgwick. 

Such were the tidings which reached Lee at Chancellorsville. His situ- 
ation was full of peril. Sedgwick might overwhelm Karly, and then the 
Confederate lines of communication would be cut, or he might press straight 
on to Chancellorsville, and fall upon Lee’s rear. This corps must be defeated 
at every cost, or all was lost. Four brigades of McLaws and Anderson, 
which had suffered least in the fight of the morning, were sent back to check 
the Federal advance. They came up with the retreating regiments at Salem 
Church, midway between Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. Here a 
brief stand had been made upon a low wooded ridge. This was carried by 
the divisions of Brooke and Newton, for Howe had been posted in the rear 
to keep Early in check, and Gibbon had been left behind to occupy Freder- 
icksburg. The Confederate re-enforcements now pressed Brooke and New- 
ton back through the wood with heavy loss, and were in turn checked by 
the artillery. Night coming on, both armies slept upon the field. All this 
afternoon, Hooker, with 70,000 men, lay supinely behind his intrenchments, 
in front of which were barely 30,000 of the enemy. He made no attempt 
to aid Sedgwick, who had at length, though tardily, accomplished two thirds 
of his march. 


MONDAY, MAY 4. 


No army ever found itself in a more dangerous position than that of Lee 
on Monday morning, the 4th of May. All counted, it now numbered less 
than 50,000 men, Stuart, with nearly all of Anderson, confronted Hooker 
at Chancellorsville. Six miles to the east was McLaws, with less than 
10,000, holding Sedgwick in check. Three miles farther to the south was 
Early, with 8000. Sedgwick had lost heavily, but he still had quite as 
many as McLaws and Early together. It was hardly within the range of 
possibility that Hooker would not discover the situation, and either assail 
Stuart in front with twofold numbers, or, leaving enough to hold him fast, 
fall upon the rear of McLaws, who would thus be crushed between two 
fires. Lee’s only hope lay in dislodging Sedgwick. To do this he must 
still farther weaken his force at Chancellorsville. Anderson’s remaining 
three brigades were moved down, leaving only Stuart, with 20,000 men, in 
front of Hooker. These took position toward Sedgwick’s left, threatening 
to cut him off from the river, while Early marched along the ridge and re- 
took Marye’s Hill, thus throwing himself in Sedgwick’s rear and cutting 
him off from Fredericksburg, which was thereupon abandoned by Gibbon, 
who recrossed the river.!. Sedgwick’s position was now a defensive one, for 
Hooker directed him not to renew the attack upon Salem Heights. By 
noon Lee had about 27,000 men opposed to Sedgwick, who had about 18,000, 
having lost 8000 on the previous day. There was some skirmishing all 
through the day, but no serious attack was made until 6 o’clock, when, An- 
derson having united with Harly, these two divisions fell upon Howe, who, 
with 6000 men, was on the Union left. Howe met the assault with great 
stubbornness, and then fell slowly back toward Banks's Ford, to a strong 
position which he had previously chosen, The enemy dashed furiously upon 
this, but were met by a galling fire and driven back, broken and apparently 
routed. Howe was confident that they would not venture another attack, 
as, indeed, they did not. ‘Two hours after dark he was surprised to learn 
that Sedgwick was about to fall back to the ford. He refused to abandon 
his position without a positive order. The order came, and was obeyed.” 


ete ere nee a 

1 Sedgwick appears to have supposed that Early’s force were re-enforcements from Richmond. 
He says (Com. Rep., ii., 106): ‘I was informed, at an early hour, that a column of the enemy, 
15,000 strong, coming from the direction of Richmond, had occupied the heights of Fredericks- 
burg, cutting off my communication with Fredericksburg.” 


2 <The movement was commenced very late, and Hays’s and Hoke’s brigades were thrown into, 


some confusion by coming in contact ; and it becoming difficult to distinguish our troops from 
those of the enemy, on account of the growing darkness, they had therefore to fall back to reform” 
(Early, in Lee’s Rep., 35).—‘‘ The attack was delivered with a violence that I had never before 
encountered. We resisted the first attack better than I expected, and at a favorable time the left 
of my line was thrown back partially behind some woods. As I expected, the enemy seemed to 
be under the impression, from this movement, that we were giving way. They advanced until 
they reached a point that we should have desired above all others they should have advanced upon, 
and where a reserve force, which I had placed under cover, had an opportunity to get a flank fire 
upon them with full effect. When the fire from our new position struck them, it was but a short 
time before they were entirely broken, and fell back in a rout. After this repulse, the position of 
the Sixth Corps, in my judgment, was less liable to a serious attack than it had been at any time 
-since it crossed the Rappahannock, and I saw no necessity for recrossing the river” (Howe, in 
Com. Rep., 21).—** Some time after we had returned to our old camps, I met General Hooker, and 
spoke to him of the movements we had made and the position we held. I stated to him that aft- 
er the fight of the 4th of May I could have gone with my division to the heights of Fredericks- 
burg, and held them. He expressed his surprise that those heights could have been held on the 
nicht of the 4th, and said, ‘If I had known that you could have gone ou those heights and held 


- HOOKER IN COMMAND.—CHANCELLORSVILLE. 


499 


The division marched to the ford without the slightest molestation, having 
occupied its strong position two hours after having repulsed the attack. 

Hooker all this day lay wholly inactive with his great force of 70,000 
men, within two hours’ march. Between him and Sedgwick, by the road 
along which Meade had marched out on Thursday, there was at no time 
more than three brigades. Hooker’s orders to Sedgwick indicate the uncer- 
tainty under which he labored all that day, even when he had resumed the 
command after his injury. Long before daybreak he directed Sedgwick 
not to resume his assault upon Salem Heights unless he himself attacked, for 
he hoped that the enemy would assail him; but he was too far away to give 
any directions; only, if Sedgwick thought best to cross the river, he could 
go either to Banks’s Ford or Fredericksburg. At 11 o’clock in the morn- 
ing he directed Sedgwick not to cross unless compelled to do so, but, if pos- 
sible, to hold the position at the ford. Half an hour later, Hooker sent word 
that he proposed to advance upon the enemy the next day, and in that case 
Sedgwick’s position would be as favorable as could be desired. Sedgwick 
had all day been doubtful whether he could maintain himself on the south 
side of the river; but after the repulse of the attack made upon him, he 
wrote that he could hold his position. But, just ten minutes before Hooker 
received this, he sent an order to Sedgwick to cross. He immediately coun- 
termanded the order, but, before this was received, which was just before 
daylight, nearly the whole corps were over, and the enemy had taken a po- 
sition which commanded the bridge, and it was too late to return.’ Sedg- 
wick lost in all nearly 5000 in killed, wounded, and missing, the greater por- 
tion of them on Sunday, and captured nearly 1400 prisoners. The Confed- 
erates lost about 4000.? 

But, during the night, Hooker had resolved to abandon his own position. 
He summoned his corps commanders to a consultation. Slocum was not 
present. Howard wished an advance. Sickles and Couch were in favor 
of withdrawing. Reynolds went to sleep, saying his opinion would be the 
same as that of Meade. Meade at first opposed the crossing of the river 
mainly on the ground that the movement could not be effected in the pres- 
ence of an enemy flushed by success; he, however, ceased to press his ob- 
jections upon Hooker's confident assurance that the army could be with4 
drawn without loss. Hooker had no doubt that he could hold his position, 
and perhaps force the enemy to retire; but he urged that, as he would fall 
back toward Richmond, he would become constantly stronger, while we 
were growing weaker; he could be better assailed near Washington than 
at Richmond. So the order to cross the river was issued, and a new line of 
intrenchments was thrown up close by the United States Ford to cover the 
passage. When Sedgwick announced that he could hold his ground, Hook- 
er appears to have proposed to recross back again at Banks’s Ford, unite 
with Sedgwick, and give battle. But this purpose was frustrated by Sedg- 
wick’s movement.? 

Lee, leaving Early on the heights at Fredericksburg to prevent Sedgwick 
from recrossing, reunited his remaining force, now reduced to 40,000, before 
the position from which Hooker was preparing to retire. In the afternoon 
of Tuesday a fierce storm sprung up. The river rose rapidly, submerging 
the approaches to the bridges. One of these was taken down and used to 
piece out the others, over which the army retreated without being perceived 
by the enemy. The storm passed away during the night, and Lee had made 
preparations to attack the Federal works at daylight; but, upon advancing 
his skirmishers, he found that the great Union army was beyond the river.* 


The cavalry movement, upon’ which Hooker had relied for destroying the 
enemy by cutting his communications, proved equally fruitless. Stoneman 
divided his corps. Averill, in command of one column, ascended the Rap- 
idan some twenty miles. At Rapidan Station, on thé Orange Railroad, he 
came up, on Friday, with W. I. Lee, with 900. He reported the next day 
that he had been engaged with the cavalry of the enemy, and destroying 
communications. His loss in this “engagement” was one man killed and 
two wounded. On Sunday he retraced his steps, whereupon Hooker dis- 
placed him from command, and appointed Pleasonton in his place. But 
meanwhile the battles had been fought and lost. Stoneman, with the main 
cavalry column, pushed on farther southward. Arriving at a point thirty 
miles northwest of Richmond, he divided his force into six bodies. “We 
dropped,” he says, ‘‘like a shell in that region of country, intending to burst 
it in every direction, expecting each fragment would do as much harm and 
create nearly as much terror as would result from sending the whole shell. 
The result of this plan satisfied my most sanguine anticipations.” One reg- 
iment struck the James River Canal, and attempted ineffectually to destroy 
the aqueduct which spans the Rivanna River. They then returned to the 
main body. Four others were sent in various directions to break up the 
railroad from Richmond to Fredericksburg, which was the primary object 
ofthe whole movement. Davis, with one regiment, reached to within seven 


them, I would have re-enforced you with the whole army.’ I told him that if I had not received 
orders to go back to Banks’s Ford, I could have marched uninterruptedly to Fredericksburg 
Heights after 9 o’clock that night; for, after the fight we had had, the rebels abandoned the 
Heights, and there was nothing to be seen of them. There was a bright moon that night, and we 
could see an object of the size of a man or a horse at a great distance” (Jbid., 25).—“ The attack 
on Brooks was easily repulsed, chiefly by the skirmish line and the battery of the First Massachu- 
setts. ‘That on Howe was of a more determined character. It was gallantly resisted by our in- 
fantry by a counter-charge, while the artillery of the division played with fearful effect upon their 
advance. At length our line was forced back upon the left, and Howe directed his right to retire 
to a less advanced position. ‘The division reformed promptly, the batteries keeping up a most 
effective fire. ‘The advance of the enemy was checked, his troops were scattered and driven back 
with fearful loss, and the new position was easily maintained until nightfall. Several hundred 
prisoners, including one general officer and many others of rank, and three battle-flags, were cap- 
tured from the enemy in this engagement.” —Sedgwick, in Com. Rep., ii., 107. 

1 Sedgwick, in Com. Rep., ii., 97; Hooker, Zbid., 138. ; 

2 Early, who encountered only Sedgwick, reports his entire loss at 1474; McQTaws, 1889, the 
greater portion being in the action with Sedgwick; Anderson, 1445, probably half here. 

® Butterficld, in Com, Rep,, ii., 77; Hooker, Zbid., 135. * Lee's Rep., 18, 


500 


miles of Richmond, tore up a few rails, and destroyed some stores; captured 
a train filled with wounded, who were paroled ; then, finding himself likely 
to be cut off, he headed southeastwardly for Williamsburg, but, discovering 
Confederate cavalry in his way, turned northward, crossed the Mattapony, 
and, following down its bank, reached the Union outposts at Gloucester Point, 
opposite Yorktown. Kilpatrick, with another regiment, on Monday struck 
the railroad still nearer Richmond, destroyed the dépdts at Hungary Station, 
then rode to within two miles of the city, passing through the outer line of 
defenses. With his small force it was useless to attempt any thing farther ; 
so he turned eastward, passing the Chickahominy at Meadow Bridge, which 
he destroyed, and crossed the Mattapony without having encountered any 
opposition. Here he fell in with Davis, and both proceeded to Gloucester 
Point. Stoneman himself remained near the point where his divisions had 
separated, with only 700 men, which he kept as a nucleus around which the 
different parties could rally in case of need, having sent out three regiments 
to destroy the bridges in his vicinity. These reunited on Tuesday, and 
Stoneman set out on a rapid retreat to the Rapidan and Rappahannock, 
crossing the latter river at Kelly’s Ford on Thursday, the 8th. The alarm 
caused by the “explosion of the bomb” was great, but the injury inflicted 
was small. In three days the railroad to Fredericksburg was in running 
order. Had it been known that almost the whole transportation of the 
road was collected at Guinea’s Station, eighteen miles from Chancellorsville, 
where also were the main dépéts of supply, and that these were left wholly 
unguarded, a rapid dash made by half of the cavalry upon this point at any 
time during this eventful week would have changed the whole course of the 
campaign. 


The Federal loss in these operations at Chancellorsville was something 
more than 17,000, of whom 5000 were unwounded prisoners. They also 
lost 18 guns, some 20,000 muskets, and a considerable quantity of ammuni- 
tion and accoutrements. The Confederate loss was about 138,000, of whom 
1581 were killed, 8700 wounded, and about 8000 prisoners.? 

Hooker issued an order congratulating his army on its achievements. 
“Tf” said he, “it has not accomplished all that was expected, the reasons 
are well known to the army. It is sufficient to say that they were of a 
character not to be foreseen or prevented....... We have made long 
marches, crossed rivers, surprised the enemy in his intrenchments, and, 
wherever we have fought, have inflicted heavier blows than we have re- 
ceived have placed hors de combat 18,000 of his chosen troops, 
destroyed his stores and dépéts filled with vast amounts of stores, deranged 
his communications, captured prisoners within the fortifications of his capi- 
tal, and filled his country with fear and consternation.” But no dépdts were 
destroyed or communications deranged except by the cavalry; the stores 
destroyed were not sufficient to interfere with Lee’s scanty accumulations, 
and the interruptions to communications were so slight that they were re- 
stored in two or three days. Far more truthful was Lee’s statement to his 
army: “Under trying vicissitudes of heat and storm, you attacked the ene- 
my, strongly intrenched in the depths of a tangled wilderness, and again on 
the hills of Fredericksburg, fifteen miles distant, and, by the valor that has 
‘riumphed on so many fields, forced him once more to seek safety beyond 
the Rappahannock.” 

Hooker declared that when he returned from Chancellorsville he “ felt 
that he had fought no battle,” for the reason that he could not get his men 
into position to do so, though he had more men than he could use;? that he 
failed in his enterprise from causes “‘ of a character not to be foreseen or pre- 


CS. ate: Mie 


1 «General Lee had but two regiments of cavalry, under W. H. F. Lee, to oppose to the large 
force under Stoneman. ‘The whole country in the rear of the Confederate army, up to the very 
fortifications of Richmond, was open to the invader. Nearly all the transportation of that army 
was collected at Guinea’s Station, eighteen miles from Chancellorsville, with little or no guard, 
and might have been destroyed by one fourth of Stoneman’s force. Such was the condition of 
the railroads and the scarcity of supplies in the country, that the Confederate commander could 
never accumulate more than a few days’ rations ahead at Fredericksburg. ‘To have interrupted his 
communications for any length of time would have imperiled his army or forced him to retreat.” 
— Hotchkiss, 101-9. See also Hooker and Stoneman, in Com. Rep., 187-40. 

? The official report of Union losses is given by Hooker in Com. Rep., ii., 143; the Confederate 
in Lee’s Rep., 131-133. In the Union report, the respective numbers of killed, wounded, and 
missing are not given; but Lee (Rep., 15) states that he took ‘‘ about 5000 prisoners, exclusive of 
wounded.” ‘This statement has been adopted, and an attempt has been made to apportion the 
missing among the several corps, but the estimate is almost wholly conjectural. ‘The Confeder- 
ate report, while giving separately the killed and wounded in every regiment, makes no mention 
of the missing. But in their separate reports (in Lee’s Rep., 27, 33, 36, 117), Anderson, McLaws, 
Early, and Rodes give the missing in their respective divisions. Hill and Colston do not report 
their missing; but, as they were in the hottest of the fight on Saturday and Sunday, it is pre- 
sumed that their loss in missing was at least equal to the average of the others. From these data 
the following table has been constructed: 


Losses at Chancellorsville. 


Union. CONFEDERATE. 

Killed and | stissing. Killed and | Missing. | ‘Total. 
First Corps (Reynolds). . 192 100 Early's Division........ 1,351 
Second Corps (Couch)... 1,525 500 A. P. Hill's Division. ... 3,083 
Third Corps (Sickles)...| 3,439 600 Colston’s Division ...... 2,310 
Fifth Corps (Meade) .... 399 300 Rodes's Division........ 2,891 
Sixth Corps (Sedgwick) . 3,601 1000 Anderson's Division .... 1,390 
Eleventh Corps (Howard) 508 2000 McLaws’s Division ..... 1,760 
Twelfth Corps (Slocum). 2,383 500 Artillery and Cavalry... 
Cavalry, etc.........006 ZT I fc ae ieee SUS PR eee ee 13,030 

se BaR 12,197 : 


There is reason to suppose that the losses on each side were some hundreds greater than offi- 
cially given. Thus Sedgwick reports his loss to have been 4925 (Com. Rep., 107), and Sickles 
says (Ibid., 10) that on Sunday he ‘‘ lost 260 officers and about 4500 men in a couple of hours.” 
Such of the Confederate generals as gave their losses state them considerably above those put 
down in the general report. In four divisions, the excess is about 400 in killed and wounded. 
Then, as to the missing, Sedgwick states that he made about 1400 prisoners, while in the division 
opposed to him the Confederate reports acknowledge only 1090, and some of these must have been 
captured before they encountered Sedgwick. Still we must consider the final official reports on 
both sides as the highest authority attainable in this case. * Com. Rep., ii, 142. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1863. 


vented by human sagacity or resources.” A careful examination of all that 
was done, or left undone, evinces that every one of these circumstances was 
of a character which lay fairly within the limits of probability ; and that 
there was not, in fact, any moment between Thursday afternoon and Tues- 
day morning when success was not wholly within the grasp of the Union 
army. The movement by which Chancellorsville was reached, and the Con- 
federate position rendered worthless, was brilliantly conceived and admira- 
bly executed. The initial error, by which alone all else was rendered pos- 
sible, was that halt at Chancellorsville. Had the march been continued for 
an hour longer, or even been resumed early in the following morning, the 
army would have got clear of the Wilderness without meeting any great op- 
posing force, and then it would have been in a position where its great supe- 
riority of numbers would have told.!. The rout of Howard’s corps was pos- 
sible only from the grossest neglect of all military precautions. Jackson, 
after a toilsome march of ten hours, halted for three hours in open ground 
not two miles from the Union lines. A single picket, sent for a mile up a 
broad road, would have discovered the whole movement in ample time for 
Hooker to have strengthened his position, or to have withdrawn from it 
without loss. The blame of this surprise can not, however, fairly be laid 
upon Hooker. He had a right to presume that whoever was in command 
there would have so picketed his lines as to prevent the possibility of being 
surprised in broad daylight. But even as it was, the disaster to the Hlev- 
enth Corps should have had no serious effect upon the general result. That 
was fully remedied when the pursuit was checked. On Sunday morning 
Hooker was in a better position than he had been on the evening before. 
He had lost 8000 men and had been strengthened by 17,000, and now had 
78,000 to oppose to 47,000. The Confederate army was divided, and could 
reunite only by winning a battle or by a day’s march. The only thing 
which could have lost the battle of that day was the abandonment of the 
position at Hazle Grove, for from this alone was it possible to enfilade Slo- 
cum’s line. But surely it is within the limits of military forethought that a 
general who has occupied a position for two days and three nights should 
have discovered the very key to that position, when it lay within a mile of 
his own headquarters. The disabling of Hooker could not, indeed, have 
been foreseen ; but such an accident might happen to any commander upon 
any field, and there should have been somewhere some man with authority 
to have, within the space of three hours, brought into action some of the 
more than 80,000 men within sound, and almost sight, of the battle then 
raging. Sedgwick’s assault upon the heights of Fredericksburg was cer- 
tainly dilatory. He could not, indeed, have safely executed to the letter his 
orders, which involved a night assault upon the heights; but they could 
have been more easily stormed at 5 o’clock than at 11, and this would have 
brought him upon Lee’s rear by 9, when the action was going sorely against 
the Confederates. How the hours from Sunday noon till Monday night 
were wasted, has been shown. Hooker, indeed, reiterates that he could not 
assail the Confederate lines through the dense forests. But Lee broke 
through those very woods on Sunday, and was minded to attempt it again 
on Wednesday, when he found that the enemy had disappeared. The golden 
opportunity was lost never to be recovered, and the Confederate Army of 
Northern Virginia gained a new lease of life. 

If final success were a certain test of the merits of a military plan, we 
must accord the highest success to that of Lee. But it succeeded only 
through a series of accidents, any one of which failing would have involved 
ruin; and a general, save in the direst emergency, has no right to reckon 
upon the favors of fortune. His first movement, that of marching with the 
bulk of his army to confront Hooker at Chancellorsville, was wise, for he 
had good reason to suppose that then and there the force of the enemy was 
inferior to his own. He had no means of knowing that Sickles’s corps had 
come thither; and, at the worst, he could fall back if he found himself over- 
matched, and return to his former position, or retreat upon his communica- 
tions, and make a stand at any favorable point. But when, on the next 
morning, he divided his army, sending three fifths of it a day’s march away, 
he staked upon an unlikely chance every reasonable possibility of safety. 
He had no right to assume that the Union right would be surprised, or that 
Hooker would fail to fall with overwhelming force upon one part or the 
other of his divided army. So, on Sunday morning, he had no right to an- 
ticipate that an attack made by an inferior force upon lines strongly in- 
trenched could succeed, or that his opponent would meet him with only half 
of his force. How hardly, and by what accidents only, the battle of Sunday 
morning was won, has already been shown. He tempted fortune still more 
desperately when, on that afternoon and the next morning, he still farther 
divided his force. How could he suppose that Stuart’s 20,000 would for a 
long day hold in check Hooker's 70,000, while a great battle was being 
fought close by between forces so equally matched that a tenth of this idle 
force added to the enemy would assuredly turn the scale? To retreat 
promptly and rapidly upon and along the railroad was the only course 
which any man knowing what both commanders knew, and, still more, what 
we now know, would have pronounced safe for Lee, when he was startled 
by the tidings that Sedgwick had stormed the heights and was advancing 
upon his rear. Lee, reversing the words of Hooker, might have said, “ We 
succeeded only through circumstances of a character not to be foreseen or 
brought about by human sagacity or resources.” 


1 «A mile or more in advance of the position I then had would have placed me beyond the 
forest, where, with my superior force, the enemy would probably have been beaten.”—Hooker, in 
Com, Rep., ii., 142. 


May, 1863. ] THE INVASION 


_ 


GEORGE G. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.—GETTYSBURG. 

Hooker’s Plans.—The President’s Views.—Pleasonton’s Cavalry Reconnoissance.—Lee’s Plans. 
—Reasons for invading the North.—Elections at the North.—State of public Feeling. —Opin- 
ion of the British Minister.—Strength of the Confederate Army.—Route of Milroy.—The Ad- 
vance into Pennsylvania.—Cavalry Encounters.—Hooker’s Policy.—Halleck and Hooker.— 
Hooker resigns.—Meade appointed to the Command.—His Antecedents.—Lee’s Movements. 
—The President calls for Militia—The Armies concentrate toward Gettysburg.—Meade selects 
a Position on Pipe Creek.—Pleasonton marks Gettysburg as the Battle-field.—Battle of July 
1: Topography of Gettysburg.— Reynolds and Hill approach.— Reynolds killed.— Howard 
takes Command.—Meade sends Hancock to the Field.—The Federals driven back.—Hancock 
decides to accept Battle—The Position chosen.—Lee’s Dilemma.— Battle of July 2: Meade’s 
Line of Battle.—Sickles goes too far in advance.—Hood’s Attack upon Round Top.—The At- 
tack repulsed by Vincent. —Sickles and Hood wounded.—Birney attacked and driven back.— 
Crawford checks the Confederate Attack.—Humphreys assailed and falls back.—The Union 
Line re-formed.—The Confederates fall back.—Confederate Advantage on the Right.—The 
Situation at Night.—Battle of July 3: Lee’s Plan of Attack.—Ewell forced back on the Right. 
—The Cannonade on the Centre.—Pickett and Pettigrew advance.—Lieutenant Haskell.— 
The Confederate Rout.—Cavalry Attack.—Close of the Fight.—Order for Pursuit given and 
countermanded.—The third of July at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.—Meade holds a Council of 
War.—Lee retreats to the Potomac.—Meade slowly advances.—Lee recrosses the Potomac. 
—Losses at Gettysburg.—Criticism on the Battle. 


6L 


OF PENNSYLVANIA.—GETIYSBURG. 


501 


oa 
2252 


\ 
\ 


CY Lie 


MEADE, 


T\ROM Chancellorsville and the Wilderness both armies returned to their 

old positions on opposite banks of the Rappahannock.’ Hooker medi- 
tated repeating, with some modifications, the attempt in which Burnside had 
failed.2 He proposed to pass the river at Franklin’s Crossing, and assail the 
enemy’s intrenchments in front ; for he could not anticipate that with their 
inferior force they would come out of their strong works, and meet him on 


1 For this campaign and the ensuing ones in Virginia, the full reports of the Confederate Army 
of Northern Virginia are wanting. If they were ever made, I have not been able to gain access 
to them. I presume that they were among the lost archives of the Confederacy. General Lee, 
a few days after the battles of Gettysburg, made a Preliminary Report, which will be found in the 
Rebellion Record, vol. vii. Some months later he made a somewhat more detailed report. This, 
I believe, has never been printed. For a MS. copy of it I am indebted to Mr. William Swinton. 
It, however, adds little to the information contained in the earlier Report. I find no reports 
from corps, division, and brigade commanders. The testimony given before the Congressional 
Committee on the Conduct of the War is the best authority upon the Union side. This (cited as 
Com. Rep., ii.) will be found in the first volume of the second series of this Report. Not a few of 
the newspaper accounts of this battle, Northern and Southern, are very accurate. From these 
sources the following account has been mainly drawn. 

2 «¢ As soon as I heard that General Sedgwick had recrossed the river, seeing no object in main- 
taining my position where it was, and believing that it would be much more to my advantage to 
hazard an engagement with the enemy at Franklin’s Crossing, where I had elbow-room, than 
where I was, the army on the right was directed to recross the river.”— Hooker, in Com. Rep., ii. 
134. 


502 


This was an enterprise which he had before pronounced to 
be wholly impracticable. It is vain to inquire what had happened within 
the week to make the project more feasible. His army had been much re- 
duced by the departure of the nine-months’ and two-years’ men. On the 18th 
of May he informed the President that his ‘marching force of infantry was 
cut down to 80,000 men ;” he added, ‘‘I hope to commence my movement 
to-morrow; but this must not be spoken of to any one.” Lincoln replied 
that he did not think any thing was to be gained by an early renewal of the 
attempt to cross the Rappahannock ; still, if Hooker believed that he could 
renew the attack successfully, he would not restrain him.’ Whatever the 
proposed movement was, it was not attempted. 

The result at Chancellorsville had inspired the Confederates with the most 
unbounded confidence. There was a universal clamor that the invincible 
army of Virginia should assume the offensive, carry the war beyond the 
bounds of the Confederacy, and conquer a peace upon Federal soil. ‘To do 
this, it was necessary that the entire force, except what was engaged upon 
the Mississippi, should be concentrated in Northern Virginia. Before the 
close of May it became evident to Hooker that some great operation was in 
contemplation. Longstreet’s three divisions, which had been engaged south 
of Richmond, were brought up one by one toward the Rappahannock. 
During the month of April he had been besieging Peck at Suffolk. But on 
the 2d of May, the ominous tidings that Hooker had advanced upon Lee 
caused Longstreet to abandon the siege, and put his force upon the march 
northward. ‘The issue at Chancellorsville caused the movement to be sus- 
pended, and the force moved slowly by separate divisions. During the first 
week of June the whole army was concentrated near Culpepper, with the 
exception of A. P. Hill's division, which was left at Fredericksburg to mask 
the contemplated movement. Hooker, discovering that something was in 
progress, sent over on the 5th of June a part of Sedgwick’s corps for the 
purpose of observation. Hill made such a display of his troops as to con- 
vince Hooker that the force in his front was not seriously diminished. Pris- 
oners reported that the movements were merely a change of camps. Hooker 
indeed suspected that the van of the Confederate column would be heading 
toward the Potomac, while its rear was still left at Fredericksburg. He 
asked permission in that case to cross the river and fall upon their rear: this 
was refused, Halleck deeming that it would be perilous to permit the main 
force of Lee to move upon the Potomac, while the Union army was attack- 
ing a part of it in an intrenched position. The President concurred in this 
view, couching his opinion in his own quaint language.” But if it was 
Ilooker’s purpose to cross at Banks’s Ford or the United States Ford, instead 
of marching right upon the front of the Confederate intrenchments, one can 
hardly see how he could have failed to inflict serious damage upon their 
rear, which would be thus severed from the main body at Culpepper, sixty 
miles away. Hooker in the mean time had learned that the Confederate 
cavalry at least was concentrated at Culpepper, and, in order to break up 
their camps, sent Pleasonton with two brigades of cavalry and 8000 infantry 
in that direction. This force ascended the north bank of the Rappahannock 
on the 9th of June, and marched in two columns toward Culpepper. The 
columns soon found themselves in presence of the enemy in large force, both 
of cavalry and infantry. A succession of sharp skirmishes ensued, lasting 
from early morning until late in the afternoon. The loss was about equal, 
four or five hundred on each side; but Pleasonton, finding himself confront- 
ed by superior numbers of both arms, retreated. Lee claims to have taken 
400 prisoners; Pleasonton claims to have taken 200. This movement, and 
subsequent reconnoissances, which showed that the enemy were moving into 
and down the Valley of the Shenandoah, clearly indicated that they were 
bent either upon interposing between Hooker’s army and Washington, or 
crossing the Potomac and invading the North. 

Lee’s design was first to detach Hooker from his strong position at Freder- 
icksburg, then to free the Valley of the Shenandoah from the Union force 
which had occupied it during the winter and spring, ‘and, if practicable, to 
transfer the scene of hostilities north of the Potomac.” He also hoped that 
there would be an “‘ opportunity to strike a blow at the army commanded by 
Tooker ;” or, in any case, that “this army would be compelled to leave Vir- 
ginia, and perhaps would draw with it troops from other quarters; and so 
their plans of the campaign would be disarranged, and a part of the season 
for active operations would be consumed in forming new combinations.” 

Apart from these purely military reasons, there were grave political mo- 
tives for an invasion of the North. A numerous party, and one active even 
beyond its numerical strength, had bitterly opposed the war. The Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation had concentrated and intensified this opposition. During 
the hundred days which intervened between the announcement of Lincoln’s 
purpose to put forth this proclamation and its actual issue, elections had been 
held in ten of the states of the Union. In these states Mr. Lincoln had, in 
1860, a majority of more than 200,000; now the opposition majority was 
35,000. In 1860 these states had sent 78 Republican and 87 Democratic 
representatives to Congress; now they elected 51 Administration and 67 Op- 
position members. ‘This change was specially notable in the large states. 
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had sent 65 
Republicans and 84 Democrats, now returned 40 Administration and 59 Op- 
position members. In-Ohio Clement C. Vallandigham had been arrested on 
account of a speech in bitter denunciation of the war; had been tried by a 


the open plain. 


1 Com. Rep., ii., 105. 

* “In case you find Lee coming to the north of the Rappahannock, I would by no means cross 
to the south of it. If he should leave a rear force at Fredericksburg, tempting you to fall upon 
it, he would fight in intrenchments, and have you at disadvantage; and so, man for man, worst 
you at that point, while his main force would in some way be getting an advantage of you north- 
ward. In one word, I would not take any risk of being entangled up on the river, like an ox 
jumped half way over a fence and liable to be torn by dogs, front and rear, without a fair chance 
to gore one way or kick the other.” — Com. Rep., ii., 155. 3 Lee's Rep. 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JUNE, 1863. 


court-martial, and sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress until the close of 
the war. ‘This sentence was commuted by the President to banishment into 
the Confederacy. A great Democratic meeting was held at Albany, in which 
the leaders of the party in the State of New York inveighed bitterly against 
this proceeding; and at home Vallandigham was nominated by acclamation 
as the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio. At the time no one 
doubted that he would be elected. No one could dream that a state which 
had just sent to Congress 14 Opposition and but 5 Administration representa: 
tives would in a few months give a majority of a hundred thousand for the 
administration; nor could any one presume that a very large portion of the 
members of Congress elected as opposition would range themselves on the 
side of the administration in upholding the war. The draft, moreover, which 
was soon to go into effect, was vehemently denounced, declared to be uncon- 
stitutional, and threats were openly made that its enforcement would be vio- 
lently resisted. There was fair occasion for the South to be persuaded that 
any great success gained over the Union army would elicit such a feeling 
throughout the North that the government would be compelled to desist 
from the prosecution of the war. “It was hoped,” says Lee, “ that, in addi- 
tion to military advantages, other results might be attained by the success of 
our army.” Nor was this opinion that the people of the North were becom- 
ing weary of the war confined to those whose interests and feelings were so 
strongly enlisted. The British minister at Washington had six months before 
shared in this opinion, and so informed his government.! Since then an 
almost uninterrupted series of successes had been gained by the Confeder- 
ates. They had defeated Burnside at Fredericksburg, and foiled Hooker at 
Chancellorsville; Vicksburg and Charleston still held out against all the 
Federal assaults; none of the operations on the Lower Mississippi and the 
Gulf had succeeded; the capture of Galveston had given all Texas into the 
hands of the Confederates; the Alabama and the Florida had swept Ameri- 
can commerce from the high seas. Saving the few miles occupied by the 
main armies, the Union forces actually held no part of the Confederate ter- 
ritory of which they had taken possession. During the first six months of 
the year 1863 it seemed as though the tide of success had fully set in favor 
of the Confederacy, and it appeared that nothing but a successful invasion 
of the North was wanting to secure its final triumph, recognized by all the 
great powers of Kurope. 

The invasion once determined upon, the entire disposable strength of the 
Confederacy was placed at the disposal of Lee. Southern Virginia and North 
Carolina were almost stripped of troops, to augment the Army of Northern 
Virginia. By the middle of June, when the movement toward the North 
was fairly commenced, Lee found himself in command of a force of fully 
100,000 men of all arms.?- This was divided into three corps, commanded 
by Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Ewell, the cavalry being under Stuart. ‘The 
advance of this great army was made with a deliberation in strong contrast 
with the hurried invasion of Maryland the year before. 

Hooker, having learned of the advancing movement on the 12th of June, 
withdrew his army from opposite Fredericksburg, and moved northward so 


1 « The success of the Democratic—or, as it now styles itself, the Conservative party—has been 
so great as to manifest a change in public feeling among the most rapid and the most complete 
that has ever been witnessed even in this country. . . . The Conservative leaders seemed to be 
persuaded that the result of the elections would be accepted by the President as the will of the 
people ; that he would seek to terminate the war, not to push it to extremity; that he would en- 
deavor to effect a reconciliation with the South, and renounce the idea of subjecting or extermin- 
ating them.” (Dispatch of Lord Lyons, November 17, 1862. )—The minister indeed goes on to say 
that at that moment ‘‘the Conservative party were calling loudly for a more vigorous prosecution 
of the war;” but he adds, ‘‘I thought I perceived a desire to put an end to the war, even at the risk 
of losing the Southern States altogether.” He goes on to affirm that while they ‘‘ would, if possi- 
ble, obtain an armistice without the aid of foreign governments, they would be disposed to accept 
an offer of mediation, if it appeared to be the only means of putting a stop to hostilities.” 

* Pollard (Lost Cause, 402) gives the numbers as 75,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry. But as 
the Confederate government never published official returns of the strength of its armies, this state- 
ment must be conjectural. I think it fully 10,000 too low. The captured returns (Ante, p. 883) 
are wanting for Lee’s army for the month of June, which would have given its strength when this 
movement commenced. At the close of May the numbers of this army were 88,754 ‘‘ present,” 
of whom 68,352 were ‘‘ present for duty.” But it is clear that during the ensuing weeks it was 
considerably augmented. The statement in the text is based upon the following data: 

I. It has been shown that after the close of the actions at Chancellorsville, Lee had with him, ex- 
clusive of 9000 wounded, 47,000 infantry and artillery, and 3000 cavalry. It may be assumed that 
of the wounded 5000 would in the ensuing six weeks be able to return to duty. This would give 
him, apart from re-enforcements, 55,000 men. ‘The re-enforcements consisted mainly of Long- 
street’s three corps, which had been sent south of Richmond, and rejoined the Army of Northern 
Virginia late in May and early in June. ‘The captured returns show that in March there were 
under Longstreet “present for duty,” in the Department of North Carolina and South Virginia, 
45,103, and in the Department of Richmond, under Elzey, 5789. In June there were in these 
departments, that of North Carolina now being under D. H. Hill, 25,997, a diminution of almost 
25,000. These were all sent to Lee, and, added to his 55,000, would give him 80,000 infantry, 
apart from new levies raised in the interim, The number of these new levies was certainly very 
considerable, for we find that the cavalry, which at the close of April numbered less than 3000, 
had by the middle of June swelled, according to Pollard, to 15,000. It is certain, also, that under 
the stringent conscription laws very considerable accessions were made to the infantry. For ex- 
ample, we find it specially noted that Pettigrew’s entire division, which acted so important a part 
at Gettysburg, were ‘‘raw troops from North Carolina, who had never been under fire,” and con- 
sequently formed no part of the former Army of Northern Virginia, which had fought on the Pen- 
insula, at Groveton, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. If we allow only 10,000 for the absolute in- 
crease of infantry during May and early June, these, added to Lee’s 80,000 and the 10,000 new 
cavalry, would give a sum of 100,000, the number set down. ‘ 

TI. Longstreet (Swinton’s Army of the Potomac, 310) says that when the army was concentrated 
at Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, it numbered 67,000 ‘‘ bayonets,” that is, privates; adding to 
these the officers, there would be a total of fully 75,000 infantry and artillery, besides about 5000 
cavalry, the remaining 10,000 having been sent elsewhere. This would make the whole force 
which crossed the Potomac 90,000. As there was a long line, from the Rappahannock to the Po- 
tomac, to guard, a considerable number must have been left behind for that purpose. Estimating 
these at only 10,000, we have fully 100,000 as the original number. 

II. As the army passed through Hagerstown it was carefully counted. Of the results of this 
count we have two reports. Hooker says (Com. Rep., ii., 173): ‘‘ With regard to the enemy’s force 
LT had reliable information. Two Union men counted them as they passed through Hagerstown. 
In round numbers Lee had 91,000 infantry and 280 pieces of artillery ; marching with that column 
were about 6000 cavalry; a portion of the enemy’s cavalry crossed the Potomac below Edwards’s 
Ferry ; this column numbered about 5000 men.” Butterfield, now his chief of staff, as he had been 
of Hooker's, reported this to Meade (Jbid., 420), who seems to have adopted it as the basis of his 
estimate ([bid., 337) of the force opposed to him, although on the day after he took command he 
had telegraphed to Washington (Jbid., 479) that ‘‘ Mr. Logan, Register of Wills, and Mr. Preston, 
very fine men in Hagerstown, have taken pains to count the rebels, and could not make them over 
80,000; they counted the artillery, made it 275 guns; 2000 comprise the mounted artillery and 
cavalry.” These two counts, apparently independent of each other, confirm our estimate that the 
| Confederate force which entered Pennsylvania numbered of all arms fully 90,000 men. 


oo 


4 


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THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.—GETTYSBURG. 503 


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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


(JUNE, 1863. 


BURNING THE BRIDGE OVER THE SUSQUEHANNA, COLUMBIA, PENN. 


as to cover Washington. <A. P. Hill forthwith left Fredericksburg, and joined 
the main army at Culpepper. Lee then pushed forward his divisions one 
by one, and by different routes, all centring upon Winchester, the key of 
the lower valley of the Shenandoah. Milroy, with 7000 men, had been 
long lying at Winchester. On the 12th of June he began to get tidings 
that the enemy were pressing down upon him, in what force he could not 
learn; but on the next day his doubts were solved by authentic tidings 
that the Confederates were advancing in overwhelming force. Then was 
the time to retreat; but this was delayed until the 15th, when, before dawn, 
he destroyed what he could of his stores, spiked his guns, and started for 
Harper’s Ferry; the Confederates having in the mean while sent a strong 
force, which gained his rear, while he was also attacked in front. Mailroy’s 
whole force was dispersed, and 2800 of them were captured. The others 
made their way, utterly broken, to and across the Potomac; some of them 
never halted in their wild flight until they had reached Chambersburg, far 
into Pennsylvania. Evwell’s corps, which had gone on in advance, followed 
on and entered Maryland, the cavalry pushing as far as Chambersburg. 

Lee had supposed that this partial movement would cause Hooker to leave 
Virginia and cross the Potomac to defend the threatened North, rendering an 
attack upon Washington feasible. But Hooker was not entrapped by this 
manceuvre, and kept his army near the old battle-field of Manassas, effectually 
covering Washington. Lee now began to move the corps of Hill and Long- 
street down the Valley of the Shenandoah, along the west side of the Blue 
Ridge, Hooker being on the east side. The cavalry of each army, sent out 
as feelers, came into frequent collision, sometimes in considerable force, the 
advantage, on the whole, being with the Federals.? Lee hoped by all these 
movements to draw Hooker farther from Washington, which had now be- 
come his base, and even to induce him to pass the Blue Ridge and venture 
anattack. The opportunity seemed, indeed, a favorable one. For some days 
the Confederate army was stretched from Culpepper a hundred miles to the 
Potomac. ‘To strike that long line somewhere seemed feasible. So thought 
the President. “If,” he wrote to Hooker, “ the head of Lee’s army is at Mar- 
tinsburg, and the tail of it on the plank road between Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere; could you not 
break him?” But Hooker determined not to make the attempt. In his view, 
the wisest course was to move his army on a concentric but inner circle to 
that followed by the main body of the enemy, and thus be enabled to thwart 
his general design, whatever that should prove to be. Any slight advan- 
tages which he might hope to gain over portions of the hostile force would 
be more than counterbalanced by the necessity which would be involved of 
marching his army away from the point where it was most needed. Although 
the rear of the Confederate army was so far away from its front, it was mov- 
ing to unite, and there was no probability that a Union force could strike it 
strongly any where without encountering a superior force. For the time 


» “Tn a short time the whole infantry foree, amounting to more than 2300 men, with eleven 
stand of colors, surrendered, the cavalry alone escaping. These operations resulted in the expul- 
sion of the enemy from the Valley, the capture of 4000 prisoners with a corresponding number 
of small-arms, 28 pieces of superior artillery, about 300 wagons, and as many horses. Our entire 
loss was 47 killed, 219 wounded, and 3 missing.” —Lee’s Rep., MS. 

? “On the 17th the enemy’s cavalry encountered two brigades of ours under General Stuart, 
near Aldie, and was driven back with loss. The next day the engagement was renewed, the Fed- 
eral cavalry being strongly supported by infantry, and General Stuart was in turn compelled to 
retire.”’—Lee’s Rep. ‘‘On the 21st the enemy attacked with infantry and cavalry, and obliged 
General Stuart to fall back to the gaps of the mountains. In these engagements the cavalry sus- 
tained a loss of 510 killed, wounded, and missing.”—Jbid., MS. 

* Lincoln to Hooker, June 14th (Com. Rep., ii., 260). Two days later (Zbid., 160) Lincoln 
recurs to the same topic: ‘‘ Your idea may be right, probably is; still, it pains me to abandon the 
‘air chance presented of breaking the enemy’s lengthy and necessarily slow line, stretched now 
from the Rappahannock to Pennsylvania.” 


the true policy was that adopted by Hooker, and thereafter for a time by 
Meade, to be governed in his operations by those of the main body of the 
hostile army.! . 

Lee having failed in finding an opportunity to strike a blow at the Union 
army in Virginia, or inducing Hooker to assail him upon unfavorable terms, 
now resolved to transform the raiding operations in Pennsylvania into a 
serious invasion by his whole army. Longstreet’s and Hill’s corps pushed 
rapidly to the Potomac. On the 24th and 25th, the river, now so low as to 
be easily fordable, was passed at Williamsport and Shepherdstown, almost 
within sight of the battle-field of Antietam, and the columns, uniting at Ha- 
gerstown, pressed forward toward Chambersburg. Hooker’s course was now 
clear. On the 26th his army crossed the Potomac at Edwards’s Ferry, the 
point where Lee had crossed into Maryland nine months before, and headed 
toward Frederick City. Lee had advanced so far from the Potomac as to 
leave his base of communications and supply greatly exposed. Hooker’s 
plan was in the first place to assail these rather than to precipitate a battle; 
for every day would weaken the invaders, while it would give him new 
strength. He now, more urgently than ever, urged that every soldier with- 
in reach should be added to his available army. 

It so happened that there were 10,000 men at Harper’s Ferry, under 
French, who had not long before been put in command there. The place, 
as we have before seen, was utterly worthless for either side. For all mili- 
tary purposes, these men might as well have been a thousand miles away as 
at Harper's Ferry. The strength of the two opposed armies was so nearly 
equal that 10,000 men might make the difference between victory and de- 
feat. The force at Harper’s Ferry had been in a manner placed under the 
command of Hooker; but, in reply to an inquiry whether there was any 
reason why the place should not be abandoned, and the troops there brought 
into use, Halleck rejoined that much expense and labor had been incurred 
in fortifying the works there and thereabout, and he could not approve of 
their abandonment except in case of absolute necessity. Hooker thereupon 
sent back to Halleck two dispatches at the same time. One, which was to 
be shown to the President and the Secretary of War, briefly reiterated his 
views as to the retention of Harper’s Ferry ; the other contained his resigna- 
tion of the command of the Army of the Potomac,’ evidently intended to 
be acted upon in case the former should be unavailing. Halleck replied 
forthwith that Hooker had been appointed to the command by the Presi- 
dent, to whom the application for being relieved must be referred. Brief 
time was taken for consideration, for on that same day, already far advanced 
into the afternoon, Hooker's resignation had been accepted, and the com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac formally assigned to General Meade. 

Viewed simply as an isolated act, this sudden resignation of Hooker at a 
moment when the two armies were inevitably approaching a decisive con- 


' When A. P. Hill’s corps ‘‘took up its line of march, following those of Ewell and Longstreet, 
I was clearly of the opinion that it was my duty to be governed in my operations by those of the 
whole rebel army, and not a part of it, and accordingly I directed my marches with that view.”— 
Hooker, in Com. Rep., ii., 161. 

* These dispatches both bear date June 27,1 P.M. They were received almost at the same 
moment, 2.55 and 3 P.M. (See Com. Rep., ii., 174, 292.)—No. 1. “‘I have received your tele- 
gram in regard to Harper’s Ferry. I found 10,000 men here in condition to take the field. Here 
they are of no earthly account. They can not defend a ford of the river; and, as far as Harper's 
Ferry is concerned, there is nothing of it. As for the fortifications, the work of the troops, they 
remain when the troops are withdrawn. No enemy will ever take possession of them. This is 
my opinion. All the public property could have been secured to-night, and the troops marched 
to where they could have been of some service. Now they are but a bait for the rebels, should 
they return. I beg that this may be presented to the Secretary of War and his Excellency the 
President.” —No, 2. ‘“ My original instructions require me to cover Harper’s Ferry and Wash- 
ington. I have now imposed upon me, in addition, an enemy in my front of more than my num- 
ber. I beg to be understood that I am unable to comply with this condition with the means at 
my disposal, and earnestly request that I may at once be relieved from the position that I occupy-” 


June, 1863. ] 


flict would seem uncalled for and unjustifiable. The immediate occasion 
was not of sufficient consequence to warrant a step which involved such 
grave consequences, But the question now mooted as to the troops at Har- 
per’s Ferry was but the culminating point of a long course of discord. 
Hooker knew that Halleck had opposed and twice defeated his appointment 
to the command of the Army of the Potomac. He perceived, or thought 
he perceived, a fixed determination to thwart him in every way.! This ill 
feeling had by this time grown to such a height, and assumed a form so per- 
sonal, that it was clearly out of the question for the two men to act together 
in the positions which they occupied. Halleck took early occasion to vent 
his spite. There was an order prohibiting officers from visiting Washing- 
ton without permission. Hooker, four days after his supercedure, went to 
the capital. He had hardly left his carriage ten minutes when he was put 
under arrest by order of the general-in-chief. How many opportunities 
were lost, and how many lives sacrificed by the personal ill feeling and pro- 
fessional jealousy which had sprung up among officers high in rank in the 
army, it would be vain to inquire. 

The country and the army were astounded on the 28th of June by the 
announcement that the command of the Army of the Potomac had been re- 
linquished by Hooker and was conferred upon Meade. Despite the misad- 
venture at Chancellorsville, Hooker still retained the confidence of the sol- 
diers who served under him. There was a kind of self-assured confidence 
in the man which begat confidence in others. Of Meade, who was so sud- 
denly called upon to replace him, less had been heard than of almost any 
other corps commander in the army. Just a year before he had command- 
ed a brigade at Cold Harbor. Four days later his brigade made its mark 
at Frazier’s Farm. Glimpses were caught of him at South Mountain and 
Antietam. At Fredericksburg he won a partial success, but this was lost 
sight of in the disasters which accompanied and followed. At Chancellors- 
ville, his corps, through no fault of his, hardly touched the fight. He had 
little of that imposing personal presence to which McClellan owed all, and 
Hooker much of power. His aspect was that of a scholar rather than of a 
captain. ‘Those who knew him best could only say that wherever tried he 
had never been found wanting, but that he had never been subjected to a 
great trial. If the question had been simply whether Meade should replace 
Hooker, it would have been difficult to find a man to favor the change. But 
things had suddenly come to such a condition that a great change must be 
made at 4 critical moment. Hither Halleck must be displaced as general- 
in-chief, or Hooker must vacate the command of the Army of the Potomac. 
The smaller the change at the urgent crisis involved the less of apparent 
peril, and so Hooker's request to be released from command was promptly 
granted. What special reasons fixed the choice upon Meade as his success- 
or can only be conjectured. There were no open cliques of generals in his 
favor, and consequently no ostensible ones against him. Herein, perhaps, 
lies the secret.? 

No man in or out of the army could have been more surprised than was 
Meade when the tidings came that he was appointed to the command. He 
took upon himself his new duties in a quiet way, which strongly contrasted 
with the self-distrust of Burnside and the self-assertion of Hooker.. The 
movements planned by his predecessor were carried out by the same staff. 
Only that the orders were issued over a new name, the army would scarcely 
have known that it had a new commander. The only important changes 
made were that Hancock was placed in command of the Second Corps, va- 
cated by Couch’s appointment to the Department of the Susquehanna, and 
Sykes took the Fifth, formerly led by Meade. Reynolds retained the First 
Corps, Sickles the Third, Sedgwick the Sixth, Howard the Eleventh, and 
Slocum the Twelfth. 

Lee, having crossed the Potomac, pushed rapidly forward into Pennsyl- 
vania with his whole force. Cutting loose from its supplies, his army was 
to live upon the country. But Lee ordered that supplies should be extorted 
in an orderly manner, upon formal requisitions duly made, payment being 
tendered in Confederate notes; if these were declined, certificates were to 
be given showing the amount and value of the property thus taken. If the 
local authorities neglected to meet these requisitions, the required supplies 
were to be seized. These requisitions were frequently onerous. Thus the 
town of York, with but 7000 inhabitants, was called upon, among other 
things, for 165 barrels of flour, 83500 pounds of sugar, 82,000 pounds of 
beef, 2000 pairs of boots or shoes, and $100,000 in cash. Probably the 
whole borough did not contain this amount of stores and money. At all 
events, only a quarter of the money could be raised. 


* «Almost every request I made of General Halleck was refused. It was often remarked 

that it was of no use for me to make a request, as that of itself would be sufficient cause for Gen- 
eral Halleck to refuse it... .... I may add as my conviction that if the general-in-chief had 
been in the rebel interest, it would have been impossible for him, restrained as he was by the 
President and the Secretary of War, to have added to the embarrassment he caused me from the 
moment I took command of the Army of the Potomac to the time I surrendered it.”—Hooker, in 
Com. Rep., ii., 175. 
_ 2 “T have said that there were no “open” cliques in favor of Meade as opposed to Hooker. 
That there was some secret opposition to Hooker’s retention of the command soon after Chancel- 
lorsyille is clear. On the 14th of May the President writes to Hooker (Com. Rep., ii., 150): ‘1 
haye some painful intimations that some of your corps and division commanders are not giving 
you their entire confidence. This would be ruinous if true.”—General Couch was the ranking 
officer of the corps commanders. But early in June he was detached from the Army of the 
Potomac and placed in command of the ‘‘ Department of the Susquehanna,” that is, of Pennsyl- 
yania. This change seems to have been quite acceptable to Hooker: ‘‘I can give a command 
to General Couch,” telegraphed the Secretary of War to Hooker on the 9th of June; ‘‘I can 
spare General Couch,” returned Hooker at once (Com. Rep., ii., 252). Just after the battle of 
Gettysburg, Halleck notified Couch that Meade had the command of all the troops in the Depart- 
ment of the Susquehanna, and that his orders must be obeyed. To which Couch rejoined : 
‘*General Meade’s wishes, instructions, and recommendations have been carried out so far as 
practicable. As I prominently mentioned that officer for his present position, it may be inferred 
that I would show no lukewarmness in carrying out his orders” (Com. Rep., ii., 501).—Now, as 
there seems to have been no time between the resignation of Hooker and the appointment of 
Meade in which Couch, then in Pennsylvania, could have been consulted, it must be presumed 
that this “prominent mention” by Couch was made at an earlier day. 


6M 


THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.—GETTYSBURG. 505 


This formidable invasion aroused the most intense apprehension. Di- 
rectly after the rout of Milroy at Winchester, the President issued a proc- 
lamation calling for 100,000 militia from the nearest states. Of these, 
Pennsylvania was to furnish 50,000, Ohio 30,000, Maryland 10,000, West 
Virginia 10,000, These were called out for six months, unless sooner dis- 
charged. Besides these, the Governor of New York was asked to order out 
20,000. Within a few days New York sent nearly 16,000, of whom 14,000 
were from the Empire City. Their absence gave opportunity for the fear- 
ful riots which ensued in the city of New York about the middle of July. 
In Pennsylvania, which was immediately threatened, the President's call was 
slightly responded to. In that state the militia system was so imperfect 
that there was not a brigade or regimental organization in existence. The 
governor called for 60,000 volunteers, who would be “ mustered into the 
service of the state for ninety days, but would be required to serve only so 
much of the period of the muster as the safety of the people and the honor 
of the state should require.” About 25,000 in all responded to these calls 
from Pennsylvania, but so tardily that not a man of them ever came in 
sight of the enemy. The Pennsylvania militia did not fire a gun to relieve 
their state from invasion. Some of the New York regiments came up in 
time to touch the van of the enemy as they halted in their advance. In 
New Jersey a few thousand men were raised, and a few companies actually 
went as far as Harrisburg. About 2000 were furnished by Delaware to 
guard the railroads in Maryland. The other states which were called upon 
did absolutely nothing. Before, indeed, any of the militia could be brought 
up, the battle of Gettysburg had been fought, and the crisis was past; for 
events had been so shaping themselves as to render a great battle inevita- 
ble. The time and place of this was determined more by accident and the 
physical character of the region than by any purpose on the part of either 
commander. 

The South Mountain, a continuation of the Blue Ridge of Virginia, runs 
northward through a corner of Maryland far into Pennsylvania. Lee had 
crossed the Potomac on the west of this ridge, Hooker on the east. The 
line of march of the two armies was nearly parallel, the mountains between 
them, and each commander for a few days knew little of the movements of 
the other. Meade in the mean time followed out the plans conceived by 
Hooker. Lee, having some days the start, was considerably northward of 
Meade ; Ewell, in the advance, was as far as Carlisle, and preparing to move 
toward Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, while Longstreet and Hill 
halted at Chambersburg. Meade had gone about half as far from the Poto- 
mac, and was in such a position that, by a rapid march to the west through 
the unobstructed passes of the South Mountain, which his left column had 
almost reached, he could throw himself right in the rear of Lee, and effectu- 
ally cut him off from his supplies, wholly isolating him in a hostile country. 
Tidings of this movement reached Lee on the night of the 28thof June. He 
saw at once that the great invasion could be carried no farther, at least until 
he had destroyed the army which thus hung menacingly upon his flank and 
rear. The whole Confederate army was thereupon ordered to concentrate 
toward the enemy. The point of concentration was Gettysburg, beyond 
South Mountain. Thither Longstreet and Hill were to march eastward from 
Chambersburg, and Ewell southward from Carlisle.1 Now Meade’s left col- 
umn, consisting of the corps of Reynolds and Howard — Sickles’s corps, 
though not so far in advance, forming part thereof, with Buford’s cavalry, 
had advanced farther northward than the remainder of the army, and on the 
30th were close by Gettysburg. On that morning Meade learned that the 
enemy were moving against him. He thereupon resolved to concentrate 
his forces, which were now spread over many miles of country. The natural 
mode was to withdraw his advance, and bring up his centre and rear. His 
leading purposes were to compel the enemy to withdraw from the Susque- 
hanna, and then to give or receive battle at the first favorable opportunity. 
The position which he selected as most likely to be the scene of conflict was 
on Pipe Creek, a little stream fifteen miles southeast from Gettysburg. 

When Lee appointed Gettysburg as the place of rendezvous for his army, 
he knew nothing of its supreme strategical importance. Meade, also, knew 


1 «Preparations were made for the advance upon Harrisburg; but on the night of the 29th [so 
printed, but it should clearly be the night of the 28th; that is, the night before the 29th] informa- 
tion was received that the Federal army, having crossed the Potomac, was advancing northward, 
and that the head of the column had reached the South Mountain. As our communications with 
the Potomac were thus menaced, it was resolved to prevent his farther progress in that direction 
by concentrating our army on the east side of the mountains. Accordingly, Longstreet and Hill 
were directed to proceed from Chambersburg to Gettysburg, to which point Ewell was also in- 
structed to march from Carlisle.”"—Lee’s Rep. 

2 “*T determined to move my army as promptly as possible on the main line from Frederick to 
Harrisburg, extending my wings on both sides of that line as far as I could consistently with the 
safety and rapid concentration of that army, and to continue my movement until I either encoun- 
tered the enemy or had reason to believe that he was about to advance upon me; my object being, 
at all hazards, to force him to loose his hold on the Susquehanna, and meet me in battle at some 
point. It was my firm determination to give battle wherever and as soon as I could possibly find 
the enemy, modified, of course, by such considerations as must govern every general officer. On 
the night of the 30th I had become satisfied that the enemy was apprised of my movements; that 
he had relinquished his hold on the Susquehanna ; that he was concentrating his forces, and that 
I might expect to come in contact with him in a very short time—when and where I could not 
at that moment tell. I instructed my engineers to select some general ground, having reference 
to the existing position of the army, by which, in case the enemy should advance upon me across 
the South Mountain, I might be able, by rapid movement of concentration, to occupy this position, 
and be prepared to give him battle upon my own terms. The general line of Pipe Creek was se- 
lected, and a preliminary order issued notifying the corps commanders that such line might pos- 
sibly be adopted, and directing them how they might move their corps, and what their positions 
should be along this line. This order was issued on the night of the 30th of June, possibly on 
the morning of the Ist of July; certainly before any positive information had reached me that the 
enemy had crossed the mountain and were in conflict with any part of my force.” (Meade, in 
Com. Rep., ii., 330.)—This statement is given in full, as it sets at rest the assertion often made 
that Meade proposed to retreat before the enemy, and that he was forced to fight at Gettysburg by 
an unauthorized attack made by Reynolds. His purpose of assuming the line of Pipe Creck was 
contingent upon circumstances which might or might not arise. It was, as will be seen, accident, 
so far as any previous purpose on the part of either commander was concerned, that made Gettys- 
burg the scene of the conflict—the speedy occurrence of which, somewhere hard by, had become 
inevitable, unless, indeed, Lee should consent to retreat without having fairly attempted any thing 
—and this he was by no means inclined to do. 


506 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [Juny, 1863. 


quite as little thereof. ‘It was a place,” as he told the Congressional Com- 
mittee on the Conduct of the War, “ which I had never seen in my life, and 
had no more knowledge of than you have now.” Yet it would seem that a 
glance at a map should have revealed its importance. This little town occu- 
pies, as it were, the hub of a wheel, from which roads, or spokes, radiate in 
every direction: northwestward toward Chambersburg; northeastward to- 
ward Harrisburg and Philadelphia; southwestward toward the Potomac; 
southeastward toward Baltimore. Whosoever held Gettysburg, held, if he 
knew it, the key to a campaign. It so chanced that one soldier had hap- 
pened to study the topographical features of this region, and he had made 
up his mind that Gettysburg was the one spot whereat, if so it could be, to 
have a fight. And it so happened, also, that this man was the only one, 
who, as things stood, could have so ordered events that the fight should have 
happened just then and there. That man was Alfred Pleasonton, now com- 
manding the cavalry corps; the man to whom primarily it was owing that 
the fierce rush of Jackson had been stayed at Chancellorsville. In the dis- 
tribution of his troopers, he had sent the strongest division, that of Buford, 
to cover the left flank of the army, that is, Reynolds’s column, which was 
nearest the enemy. His order to Buford was to hold Gettysburg to the last 
extremity, until the army could be concentrated there.1 Buford reached 
Gettysburg early on the morning of the last day of June, in advance of the 
infantry of Reynolds’s column, whereof the First Corps, properly his own, 
but now under the immediate command of Doubleday, and the Eleventh, 
Howard’s, encamped that night four miles from Gettysburg. 


WEDNESDAY, JULY 1. 


On the morning of the 1st of July Buford pushed his troopers northwest- 
ward. At the same time the advance of the Confederate army was approach- 
ing from that direction. Lee had moved his force slowly from Chambersburg 
and Carlisle, not imagining that any considerable Union force was in the 
neighborhood of Gettysburg, for, as it chanced, Stuart, with his vigilant cav- 
alry, was far away. He had been left behind in Virginia to harass the Union 
rear, and was then to cross into Maryland. This crossing was made far to 
the south of the point where Hooker went over, so that Stuart found the 
whole Union army between him and Lee, and he could reach Carlisle, the 
place appointed for rendezvous, only by making a wide circuit. When he 
came there on the Ist of July, he found the place evacuated, and the army 
on the way to Gettysburg, whither he hastened, but not in time to take any 
part in the action of the first two days. Reynolds set his command in mo- 
tion toward Gettysburg. He had evidently discerned the supreme necessity 
of preventing the enemy from seizing this point.2, No one who looked upon 
the ground could fail to perceive this. 

The quiet town of Gettysburg nestles in a little hollow ten miles east 
of the South Mountain range. The surrounding country is rough and 
broken, granite ridges cropping up all around. This granite had been, in 
the formative period of the earth’s history, flung up through the soft shale, 
which, worn away by water-currents, left exposed the bare ridges of the 
harder stone. The general course of these ridges is north and south; they 
are not continuous for any great extent, and are not unfrequently cast into 
irregular forms. Looking westward from the town at a distance of half a 
mile, one sees a long, wooded height, its centre crowned by the buildings of 
a Theological Seminary, whence it receives the name of Seminary Ridge. 
Looking southward, at the distance of a mile, is the rounded extremity of 
another ridge, broken into several separate hills. Ascending the nearest of 
these, the ridge is seen falling away for a space, then, at the distance of three 
miles, rising again into a broken spur, closing in a rocky, wooded peak. 
This whole range bears the name of Cemetery Ridge, for upon it was the 
burying-ground where rest generations of the dwellers of the quiet town. 
But now, hard by is a great City of the Dead, made populous in three short 
| days. This ridge, running first northward, then, with a sharp curve, east- 

ward, then, again, bending to the south, is,in shape, not unlike a fish-hook. 
Each of the rugged hills which rise from the clearly-marked line of the 
crest bears its own name. ‘That at the extremity of the stem of the hook 
is Round Top, with Little Round Top its prolongation. Cemetery Hill is 
at the bend; Culp’s Hill forms the barb. These two ridges are now histor- 
ic, for on Cemetery Ridge the Union Army took its position, the Confeder- 
ate force being drawn up on Seminary Ridge. The valley between them, 
halfa mile wide at its narrowest point, near the town, then gradually spread- 
ing southward to twice that breadth, consists of cultivated fields, interspersed 
with patches of woodland. In these fields and woodlands, and up the rough 
slopes of Cemetery Ridge, was waged for two days the mightiest conflict of 
the war. 

On Wednesday morning, July 1, Hill, who, leading the Confederate ad- 
vance, had encamped the previous night half a dozen miles west of Gettys- 
burg, learned, to his surprise, that the town was occupied by the Union cav- 
alry. What force of infantry lay behind he could not know. He put his 
divisions in motion, and sent back to urge forward Longstreet’s corps, which 
was yet fifteen miles in the rear. Buford had meanwhile gone out two 


GETTYSBURG. 


' Pleasonton, in Com. Rep., ii., 359. 

? Otherwise we can not explain his conduct in acting in direct contradiction to the order 
which he had just received to fall back in the opposite direction to Pipe Creek. It was clearly one 
of those cases in which a subordinate commander was justified in disregarding a positive order, 
which he knew must have been given in ignorance of the real position of affairs. Sickles, later in 
the day, did precisely the same thing. He was some fourteen miles behind Reynolds, and had also 
been ordered to fall back; but, learning that an action was going on at Gettysburg, he marched. 
directly thither. ‘I assumed,” he says, ‘‘that this new fact [the action then going on] was not 
known to General Meade when the order to retreat was issued. The emergency did not admit of 
the delay that would have been required to communicate with General Meade, who was ten miles: 
distant. I moved to Gettysburg on my own responsibility. As soon as I had determined to. do 
that, I sent to General Meade informing him of what I had done, and expressed my anxiety to 
have his sanction of it. I received a commnnication from him informing me that he approved of 
my conrse.”— Com, Rep., ii., 296. 


Wil 


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Juxy, 1863. ] 


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JOUN BUFORD, 


miles in that direction, crossing Seminary Ridge. At nine o’clock Hill’s 
leading division, that of Heth, came upon Buford, who, knowing that Rey- 
nolds was on the march, resolved to contest the Confederate advance. Un- 
limbering the guns of his horse artillery, and deploying his troopers, he held 
the enemy briefly in check, but was soon forced back to the crest of the 
ridge. The sound of his guns quickened the march of Reynolds, whose 
leading division, under Wadsworth, 4000 strong, was now within a mile of 
Gettysburg. ‘These were soon formed, under fire, in line of battle. The 
action had scarcely opened when Reynolds fell dead, shot through the head 
by a rifle-ball. There were but few men who could not have been better 
spared. There were not wanting those who had begun to look upon him 
as the most promising general in the Union army. Doubleday, who had 
come up, now took command; but he brought no re-enforcements to Wads- 
worth, for the other divisions of Reynolds’s corps, and the whole of How- 
ard’s, were yet two hours’ march behind. For two hours this one division 
maintained the fight, and then began slowly to give way. The enemy 
pressed on, a part of Archer’s brigade so eagerly that they were isolated. 
Meredith swung round his “Iron Brigade,” and captured 800 men, includ- 


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THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.—GETTYSBURG. 507 


THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, GETTYSBURG. 


ing their commander, Cutler’s brigade of this division was now sorely 
pressed, and fell back; but two regiments of the Confederates, advancing 
along a deep cutting for an unfinished railway, were swept upon by a flank 
movement, and, shut up in this gorge, were forced to surrender. Thus far 
the contest had been waged between a single division on each side. The 
balance of success was against the Confederates. The two remaining divi- 
sions of Reynolds's corps now came up, closely followed by Howard’s corps. 
Howard assumed command of the field. 

But still heavier re-enforcements were coming up to the aid of Heth. 
First came Pender’s division of Hill’s corps, northwestward from toward 
Chambersburg; then from the north, Ewell from toward Carlisle, pressing 
down upon the Union right. They struck Robinson’s division of Reynolds’s 
corps. Their first blow was unsuccessful, and three North Carolina Tregi- 
ments were captured. Howard, leaving Steinwehr’s division of his corps 
in reserve on the Cemetery Ridge behind Gettysburg, pushed Schurz and 
Barlow forward to meet the advance of Ewell. The roads by which the 
Federal troops had advanced diverge from Gettysburg like the spokes of a 
wheel, so that at each step the line grew thinner and thinner; while the 
Confederates, coming to the centre along these same spokes, were concen- 
trating at every moment. As the afternoon wore away, Ewell’s whole corps, 
and two thirds of that of Hill, fully 50,000 strong, were steadily pressing 
down upon the two corps of Reynolds and Howard, numbering at the out- 
set not more than 21,000 men, including the division of 4000 left in reserve, 
which was not brought forward.!| Howard now sent back to Sickles, a 
dozen miles away to the south, urging him to come up to his relief. Sickles 


* “T do not believe that our force actually etigaged, belonging to the two corps, amounted to 
over 14,000 men. There was a reserve of 3000 or 4000 of the Eleventh Corps, which did not join 
actively in the fight. It fired some shots from Cemetery Hill, but the most of them fell short 
into our own front line.” (Doubleday, in Com. Rep., ii., 809.)—Doubleday adds: ‘* According to 
the reports rendered to me, we [i. e., apparently Reynolds’s corps] entered the fight with 8500 
men, and came out with 2450.” I suspect that there is here some error in the printing of these 
figures ; for Wadsworth states that in his division ‘‘about 4000 men went into action,” and that 
of these, on the next morning, he had but about 1600 men to answer to their names. It is hardly 


to be supposed that the two remaining divisions of this corps were so greatly inferior in numbers 
to any of the others. 
two corps at 3500 each. 


I think it safer, on many grounds, to estimate the six divisions of these 


14. Unknown. 
. Maine 


1. Unknown 
Illinois. 15 


2. 

3. Virginia. 16. Michigan, 

4. Delaware. 17. New York, 

5. Rhode Island 18. Pennsylvania. 

6. New Hampshire, 19 Massachusetts. 

7. Vermont. 20. Ohio. 

8, New Jersey. 21. Indiana 

9. Wisconsin. 22. Unknown 

10. Connecticut. 23. Fing-staff and Observatory. 


11. Minnesota 24. 
12. Maryland. 25. 
13. United States Regulars. 


Gate-house. 
Monument. 


» 


PLAN OF THE BULDILKS OEMETLRY AT GETTYSLURG, 


508 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


(JULY, 1863. 


put jis corps in motion, but a forced march only enabled him to reach Get- 
tysburg after the action was over. 

At an hour past noon, Meade, who, with his column of the centre, was at 
Taneytown, fourteen miles southeast of Gettysburg, learned that a fight was 
going on, and that Reynolds had fallen. He perceived “that the matter 
was being precipitated very heavily upon him.” Of Gettysburg himself he 
knew nothing, and the first thing to be done was to ascertain whether it 
was a place whereat to give or receive battle. Calling to Hancock, the 
corps commander in whom he most confided, he ordered him to hurry to 
the field and take command there. Hancock was outranked by Howard, 
who was there, and by Sickles, who might be there; but it was no time to 
regard the niceties of military etiquette. Hancock sprang into an ambu- 
lance, that he might study the maps on his way, and in two hours was on 
the field, in time to see a lost battle, which, indeed, bore the aspect of a 
rout ;! for Rodes’s division of Ewell’s corps had thrust itself right into a 
wide gap between the right of the First and the left of the Eleventh Union 
Corps, folding completely around the right of the First, pressing it back to- 
ward the Seminary. Here, behind a slight rail intrenchment, a stand was 
made long enough to permit the trains and ambulances to get off. Double- 
day threw his personal guard of twoscore men into the Seminary building, 
whose quiet walls had never before witnessed any thing more stirring than 
debates upon points of theological controversy. But by this time the whole 
region was filled with the advancing lines of the enemy, double, sometimes 
triple. When the remnants of this gallant corps finally abandoned their 
position, they fell back to Gettysburg, right between two lines of the ene- 
my. The Eleventh Corps at the same time was driven back to the same 
point, and the two retreating columns became entangled in the streets. The 
First Corps, being a little in advance, got well through. - The Eleventh was 
struck heavily by Ewell’s advance, and three fourths of the survivors of its 
two divisions engaged were made prisoners.2 This battle cost the two 
Union corps not less than 10,000 men, of whom half were killed or wound- 
ed. Well-nigh half of the killed and wounded fell upon Wadsworth’s divi- 
sion of 4000, which had for six hours withstood the enemy. The loss of 
the Confederates was very heavy. Wadsworth thought that his division 
inflicted more injury than it received. 


1 «T arrived on the ground not later than half past three o’clock. I found that, practically, the 
fight was then over. ‘The rear of our column, with the enemy in pursuit, was then coming through 
the town of Gettysburg. General Howard was on Cemetery Hill, and there had evidently been 
an attempt on his part to stop and form some of his troops there.”—Hancock,in Com. Rep.,ii.,405. 

2 Lee claims to have taken here 5000 prisoners; these must have been mainly from the Eley- 
enth, for Wadsworth says (Com. Rep., ii., 413): ‘‘ Very few of my division were taken prisoners ; 
but a great many prisoners were taken on the right from the Eleventh Corps, and from one di- 
vision of the First Corps that went into position on the right.” 

* “T am sure that the slaughter on the side of the enemy was greater than on our own side on 


THE WUEAT-FLELD WHiike KEYNOLDB FELL, 


When Hancock rode up to Gettysburg, he bore with him the responsibili 
ty of all that was to follow; for he was charged not only to take the com: 
mand of whatever force he should find there, but to decide whether that 
force should fall back, or whether the whole army should be brought for- 
ward and concentrated there. In a brief interval, what remained of the 
First and Eleventh Corps were assembled on the rocky ridge fronting Get- 
tysburg, and presented so imposing an appearance as to cause Lee to hesi- 
tate to assail them. Looking back in the light of what is now known, the 
decision of the Confederate commander was most erroneous; but for one 
knowing only what he could then have known, it was the only safe one. 
Of his three corps only two had come up—Longstreet’s, the strongest of all, 
was still behind. What part of the Union force lay upon and behind that 
rugged ridge he could not know. So the attack was suspended, and the 
Confederate army paused, waiting to see what the next day should bring ~ 
forth. Hancock sent back to Meade such a report as to determine him to 
fight at Gettysburg, and during the night all the army was set in motion 
for that point. Sickles had already arrived two hours before night set in. 
Hancock’s corps, and Slocum’s, with that of Meade, now commanded by 
Sykes, came up in the morning. Sedgwick’s did not reach the ground till 
afternoon, after a fatiguing march of thirty-five miles. 

When the Federal army was finally posted, Slocum was on the extreme 
right, on Culp’s Hill, the barb of the fish-hook; next was the remnant of 
Wadsworth’s division, Howard’s corps, on Cemetery Hill; then, along the 
stem of the hook, the corps of Hancock and Sickles, with Sykes’s and Sedg- 
wick’s on the extreme left, behind the rocky rampart of the Round Tops. 
Reynolds's corps, to the command of which Newton had now been appoint- 
ed, was in reserve behind the centre of the whole line, which was three 
miles in extent, measured along the ridge; but, owing to its curving form, 
no part of it was an hour’s march from any other. As the line was intend- 
ed by Meade, two thirds of the entire force could in half an hour have been 
concentrated upon any point; but by a misapprehension, arising from the 
nature of the ground, Sickles took a position considerably in advance, and 
upon this movement hinged the battle of the day. The bulk of the Con: 
federate force was drawn up upon the opposite Seminary Ridge, Longstreet’s 
corps on the right, then Hill’s in the centre, that of Ewell on the extreme 
left, being at the foot of Culp’s Hill. This line, forming an exterior curve, 
was fully five miles long, there being, however, an interval of a mile be- 
tween Ewell’s right and Hill’s left. The forces were about equal, each 
numbering from 70,000 to 80,000 infantry and artillery.’ The Federal po- 


the first day. I know that we almost annihilated one or two brigades that came against us.” 
(Com. Rep., ii., 415.)—More than 2000 prisoners are claimed to have been taken from the Con- 
federates. 

1 Meade (in Com. Rep., ii., 337) says: ‘‘Including all arms of the service, my strength was 


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sition was very strong, its chief disadvantage being that a great portion of 
it was so broken and rocky as to allow not more than a third of the artillery 
to be brought into position. But this was counterbalanced by the advan- 
tage which it gave for infantry. 

It was evident that Lee could not, for any time, retain his present position. 
He was far from his base of supply, and the country around would not long 
subsist his great army, even could he forage at will, as he had done in the 
fertile valley of the Cumberland; and, moreover, his foraging parties would 
be likely to be cut off in the mountain passes.!| He was then shut up toa 
choice of one of three things. He must attack the enemy in their strong 
position, or he must draw them from it by continuing his march, and threat- 
ening Washington and Baltimore, or he must retreat to Virginia. The third 
course would be a complete abandonment of the enterprise which had been 
so deliberately undertaken; the second was strongly urged by Hood, but it 
would only be prolonging the suspense, for an action must soon take place 
somewhere, and the enemy would, beyond all doubt, become stronger every 
day.? He decided upon the first. The controlling reason is doubtless to be 
found in the temper of his army. They had won a series of great victories; 
among these they even counted Antietam. At Fredericksburg, with but a 
fraction of their available force, they had beaten Burnside, though here they 
had position in their favor. At Chancellorsyille, with two thirds of their 
present numbers, they had foiled and driven off Hooker, whose force was 
known to be much larger than that now led by Meade. There they had suc- 
cessfully attacked the enemy in his intrenchments; why should they not do 
so now with equal success? Besides, it would seem that Lee, not without 
reason, greatly under-estimated the numbers in his front. The force which 
he had driven back the day before was certainly small, and there was noth- 
ing to indicate the great army which had been concentrated during the night, 
and now lay hidden behind that rocky crest.2 So Longstreet was ordered 
to assail the extreme Federal left, while Ewell was at the same time to make 


about 95,000.” This I understand to be the entire force at the commencement of operations; 
but the losses on the previous day reduced this number by 10,000; the cavalry numbered about 
10,000, but these took no part in the action of this day. Longstreet (see ante, p. 502) states 
that when the three Confederate corps were concentrated at Chambersburg, ‘‘ the morning reports 
showed 67,000 bayonets,” equivalent to about 75,000 officers and men; they had lost on the pre- 
vious day not far from 5000. The Confederate artillery formed a separate corps, probably 5000 
strong. Iam not certain whether these are to be included in the 67,000 ‘‘bayonets.” If they 
are not, then Lee’s infantry and artillery would nnmber about 75,000. Some thousands on each 
side were left behind with the trains. Thus, of the Confederates, Pickett’s division was in the 
rear, and was not brought upon the field until the next day. : * Lee's Rep. 

2 “The enemy are here,” said Lee to Hood, ‘‘and if we do not whip him he will whip us.” 
Longstreet was opposed to making an attack this day; he wished to wait until Pickett’s division 
should come up. ‘‘He did not want to walk with one boot off.”—These facts were narrated after | 
the close of the war by General Hood to General Crawford, from whom I receive them. 


* We infer that Lee under-estimated the force of Meade, not only from the fact that he nowhere 
speaks of the ‘‘superior numbers of the enemy,” but also from the nature of the attacks which he 
made on this and the following day. 

6N 


THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.—GETTYSBURG. 509 


a “demonstration on the right, to be converted into a real attack should op- 
portunity offer.” The points of attack were fully five miles apart. 

Meade had intended, and so ordered, that his line should occupy the ridge 
directly between Cemetery Hill and Round Top; and from the point where 
he was, the course of this ridge was plain enough; but this crest, at its centre, 
where Sickles was to take position, is low, and, sinking down into a valley 
in front, rises at a few hundred yards into another wooded ridge, running 
diagonally to the one in its rear. To Sickles this seemed the position con- 
templated in the order, so he marched out upon it. This movement left a 
wide gap between him and Hancock, who was to have connected with his 
right. But he was also to rest his left upon Round Top. Now, as the course 
of this ridge is such that its extremity is a mile in advance of this hill, Sick- 
les could only fulfill this condition by bending his left back, so that his line 
described two sides of a triangle. Birney’s division formed the left, facing 
southwestward; Humphreys’s division the right, facing northwestward. The 
Confederate right overlapped the Union left, and, swinging round to attack, 
completely enveloped it. At four o’clock, Meade, coming to the front, saw 
the perilous position in which Sickles had placed his corps, and commenced 
an order to withdraw, but before the sentence was completed the Confeder- 
ates opened the attack, and it was thought that it was too late for any change 
of position. Meade determined to support Sickles, even at the hazard of 
disarranging all his carefully-formed plans. Troops were hurried up from 
every part of the field: from Slocum on the extreme right, Hancock in the 
centre, Sykes on the left; Sedgwick, whose corps, wearied by their long 
march of twenty hours, had been halted in the rear. Hood, in the mean time, 
had swung round his overlapping right, and penetrated the interval which 
separated Birney’s extreme left from Little Round Top. This steep, rocky 
ridge, strangely enough, was not occupied. It was the key to the whole po- 
sition; for, if the enemy could gain it, they could hold it, and a few guns 
planted there would enfilade the whole line? as far as Cemetery Hill. It 
was to Gettysburg what Hazle Grove was to Chancellorsville. They com- 
menced scaling its rugged sides, for a time meeting no opposition except 
from its steep ascent. But it so happened that Warren, who, with no troops, 
had gone out as engineer to survey the field, reached the summit just in 
time to take in the peril of the situation. Hurrying back, he encountered 
Barnes’s division of Sykes’s corps marching out to the aid of Sickles. From 
this, Vincent’s brigade and a single regiment of Ayres’s were directed to 
scale the ridge on the side opposite to that up which the Confederates were 
climbing, The crest was reached from each side almost at once, the Fed- 
erals a moment in advance. A fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued among the 
gray granite boulders piled up in wild confusion. The Confederates were 
flung back from the face of the hill, but, working around through the ravine 
at its base, some of them penetrated between the two Round Tops. Vincent’s 
ammunition was exhausted, but the enemy were driven back by a bayonet 
charge, and, as darkness began to close in, this vital point was safe. Regi- 
ments from the astern, the Western, and the Central States were among the 
little band who, on this barren cliff, rendered possible the victory which was 
finally to crown the heights of Gettysburg.® 


1 Lee's Rep. 

* “The enemy threw immense masses upon General Sickles’s corps, which, advanced and iso- 
lated in this way, it was not in my power to support promptly. At the same time that they threw 
these immense masses upon General Sickles, a heavy column was thrown upon the Round Top 
Mountain, which was the key-point of my whole position. If they had succeeded in occupying 
that, it would have prevented me from holding any of the ground which I subsequently held to the 
last. Immediately upon the batteries opening I sent several staff officers to hurry up the column 
under General Sykes, of the Fifth Corps, then on its way, and which I had expected would have 
been there by that time. This column advanced, reached the ground in a short time, and fortu- 
nately General Sickles was enabled, by throwing a strong force upon Round Top Mountain, where a 
most desperate and bloody struggle ensued, to drive the enemy from it, and secure our foothold 
upon that important position.” (Meade, in Com. Rep., 332.)—‘‘T went to what is called Bald Top, 
and from that point I could see the enemy’s line of battle. I sent word to General Meade that 
we would at once have to occupy that place very strongly. He sent, as quickly as possible, « di- 
vision of General Sykes’s corps; but, before they arrived, the enemy’s line of battle, I should think 
a mile and a half long, began to advance. The troops under General Sykes arrived barely in time 
to save Round Top Hill, and they had a very desperate fight to hold it.’—Warren, [bid.,377.) See 
also Crawford, Zbid., 470. 

* The regiments which repelled the attack here were the 16th Michigan, the 44th and 140th 
New York, the 83d Pennsylvania, and the 20th Maine. Vincent was mortally wounded. Early next 
morning Meade telegraphed to Halleck: ‘I would respectfully request that Colonel Strong Vincent, 
33d Pennsylvania Regiment, be made a brigadier general of volunteers for his gallant conduct on 
the field yesterday. He is mortally wounded, and it would gratify his friends as well as myself. It 
Was my intention to have recommended him with others, should he live.” The Secretary of War 
replied: “ According to your request, Colonel Vincent has been appointed brigadier general for 
gallant conduct on the field.”— Com. Lep., ii., 492. 


> = — 
Ss a —— 


BREABTWORK IN THE Woops. 


510 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ JULY, 1863. 


rahi 


UNLON POSITION NEAR THE CENTRE— 


Juny, 1863.] 


THE INVASION OF 


PENNSYLVANIA.—GETTYSBURG. 


51] 


EL 


ZZ 


BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, JULY 2, 


Be 


512 


Longstreet, with the remainder of Hood's division, soon joined by that of 
McLaws, was pressing fiercely upon Birney’s division. Sickles was borne 
from the field with his right leg shattered. Hood was also wounded, losing 
an arm. Birney’s line was so thin that when the enemy attacked any point 
he was forced to draw regiments thither from other places. Caldwell and 
Ayres, of Sykes’s corps, were sent to his support. They held the ground 
stubbornly, but were forced back, and their retreat soon became almost a 
rout.2 Crawford, with the Pennsylvania Reserves, was now coming up. 
He ordered a charge with his whole division, himself leading. The color- 
bearer of his leading regiment had been shot down; Crawford leaned from 
his horse, snatched the flag, and, waving it over his head, shouting “ For- 
ward, Reserves!” dashed down the slope, and met the enemy’s skirmishers 
advancing through the open wheat-field. They recoiled, and then fled back 
to their line of battle, posted behind a stone wall. Here they made a brief 
stand, but were driven back, with heavy loss, to a ridge in their rear. Craw- 
ford, having advanced without supports, halted, and took position behind the 
stone wall, the enemy holding the ridge in front and the woods on his left. 
It was now dusk, and the action closed upon the extreme left. ; 

For a time Humphreys, whose division had formed Sickles’s extreme 
right, had hardly been molested, but in front of him lay Hill’s whole corps, 
ready to be launched upon him at any moment. When Birney found that 
he could no longer hold his ground, he ordered Humphreys to change front, 
so as to join with him upon a new line, or rather upon that from which the 
corps had originally advanced. Just then the enemy, who had opened a 
sharp artillery fire, pressed down upon his front and both flanks. Hum- 
phreys fell back deliberately, although suffering fearfully. In a few min- 
utes he lost 2000 out of his 5000 men. By the time he reached the crest 
of the Cemetery Ridge the enemy were close upon him, Birney’s broken 
force streamed beyond the crest. But the line had now been formed, patch- 
ed up, indeed, by brigades from almost every corps. Some of these, as well 
as Birney’s, had been fearfully cut up. The Confederates surged up against 
this line, but were encountered with a fire so fierce that they halted, then 
recoiled. Hancock now ordered a counter-charge. Humphreys’s men, who 
had never broken, turned and joined in the charge. The enemy had ex- 
hausted the impulse of their onset, and were driven back to the position 
where they had fallen upon Sickles. 

Ewell’s demonstration on the right was delayed until the fight on the left 
was drawing to a close. Most of Slocum’s corps had been brought away 
from Culp’s Hill, and the Confederates succeeded in effecting a lodgment 
within the exterior intrenchments of the extreme Union right. Elsewhere 
the assault was repelled. 

The Federal losses on this day were fully 10,000 men, of which three 
fifths fell upon Sickles’s corps, which lost fully half its numbers.? The Con- 
federate loss could not have been less, and was probably somewhat greater. 
The action of this day had decided nothing as to the ultimate issue. Lee in- 
deed held the advanced line from which Sickles had been driven, but it was 
a line which Meade had never intended to occupy, and from which he would 
gladly have receded without a fight. Ewell’s foothold upon the left had no 
significance unless it could be extended. Cemetery Ridge, from Round Top 
to Culp’s Hill, remained intact. Still these ‘partial successes” encouraged 
Lee to hope that a stronger assault the next day might prove successful.* 


FRIDAY, JULY 3. 

Lee’s general plan of attack was the same as that on the preceding day. 
Ewell was to press his advantage on the extreme right, while the main as- 
sault was to be upon the centre. But at daybreak Meade assumed the of- 
fensive against Ewell, and after a sharp contest, which lasted all the morn- 
ing, drove him from the foothold which he had won within the Federal in- 
trenchments on the extreme right. Now this point was fully two miles 
from the Seminary, where Lee had taken his post, and wholly hidden from 
it by the intervening heights. By some strange accident he received no 
tidings of the mishap which had befallen Ewell, and which, in the result, 
neutralized that third of the Confederate army on their left, leaving Meade 
at liberty to use almost his whole force, if need were, at any point. Suppos- 
ing that Ewell would be able to aid by a strong demonstration, if not by a 
direct attack, upon the Union right, Lee resolved to assail the left centre, 
which held the low ridge between Cemetery Hill and Round Top. 

All the morning was spent in preparation. The Confederate line along 
Seminary Ridge afforded an admirable position for artillery. Here, directly 
in front of the Union centre, at the distance of a mile, were concentrated a 
hundred and twenty guns. <A great part of the Union line was so rugged 
that artillery could not be brought upon it, so that, although Meade had 
three hundred guns, he could reply with only about eighty at the same 
time. At an hour past noon the Confederates opened with all their bat- 
teries. For two hours, from a space of less than two miles, there was an 
incessant cannonade from two hundred guns. Upon no battle-field in the 


1 Tt must be borne in mind that a ‘‘ division” in the Confederate army corresponded nearly to 
a “corps” in the Federal army. 

2 <<] heard the cheers of the enemy, and looking in front across a low ground, I saw our men 
retreating in confusion; fugitives were flying across in every direction; some of them rushed 
through my lines. The plain in front was covered with the flying men. A wheat-field lay be- 
tween two masses of wood directly in my front. The enemy in masses were coming across this 
field, driving every thing before them.”—Crawford, in Com. Rep., ii., 470. 

3 On the 10th of June this corps numbered 11,898; on the 4th of July there were but 5766, a 
loss of 6132. It took no active part in the action of July 3.—Com. Rep., ii., 428. 

4 “<Tn front of General Longstreet the enemy held [that is, on Thursday] a position from which, 
if he could be driven, it was thought that our army could be used to advantage in assailing the 
more elevated ground beyond, and thus enable us to reach the crest of the ridge. After a severe 
struggle Longstreet succeeded in getting possession of and holding the desired ground. Ewell 
also earried some of the strong positions which he assailed, and the result was such as to lead to 
the belief that he would ultimately be able to dislodge the enemy. These partial successes de- 
termined me to continue the assault the next day.”—Lee’s Rep. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[JULY, 18638. 


world’s history had such a bombardment been witnessed. The Confederate 
fire told fearfully upon the Federal guns; many were disabled, but their 
place, as well as that of those which had expended their ammunition, was 
supplied by others brought up from the rear. The infantry, sheltered be- 
hind the crests, suffered little. The contest was not to be decided by artil- 
lery. At length Hunt, the chief of artillery, ordered the fire to be slowly 
slackened, partly “to see what the enemy were going to do, and also to 
make sure that there should be a sufficient supply of ammunition to meet 
the attack,” of which this cannonade was the sure prelude. 

It was now three o'clock. Lee, supposing that the Federal batteries had 
been silenced and the infantry disordered, now slackened his fire, and at the 
instant his infantry columns emerged from the woods which crown Seminary 
Hill and advanced down its slope. Pickett’s strong division of Longstreet’s 
corps had early that morning come upon the field. They were veteran Vir- 
ginians, and had not been engaged. To them, supported by Wilcox, was as- 
signed the right of the attacking force; Heth’s division, supported by two 
brigades, had the left.2_ Lee had proposed to advance his artillery to the sup- 
port of his infantry, but found too late that it had expended its ammunition.? 
In all, the attacking columns numbered about 18,000 men. They marched 
down the slope and across the plain in compact order and swiftly, but not 
with the fierce rush and wild yells which were wont to mark the Confederate 
onset. Never upon any stricken field since when, at Wagram, Massena 
wedged his column between the Austrian lines, was a more imposing spec- 
tacle than that now presented to friend and foe, watching from opposite 
crests, as this great column pressed on. All the Federal batteries from Round 
Top to Cemetery Hill opened upon them. Great gaps were plowed in their 
lines only to be closed again. At first the column headed for the left of 
the Union centre. Here Doubleday was posted. Tis division, which had 
suffered fearfully on the first day, had been strengthened by Stannard’s Ver- 
mont brigade, and now numbered 2500 men. They were in lines five deep, 
and well strengthened by hasty intrenchments of rails and stones. ‘The Con- 
federates turned a little to their left, where Hancock’s corps lay only two lines 
deep. In making this movement, Pickett’s right wing, bending to his left, 
exposed his centre to a flank fire from Stannard, which threw it into some 
confusion,‘ and was the first of the disasters crowded into the space of a few 
minutes. Still the column pressed on, galled by artillery in front, and ob- 
liquely from batteries on Round Top and Cemetery Hill. Hancock’s infantry 
withheld their fire until the enemy were within three hundred yards, and 
then poured in volley after volley. Pettigrew’s division, on the left, first 
meet this sheet of flame, melted away before it like a snow-bank, and in five 
minutes were streaming back in wild confusion, leaving, besides their dead, 
a third of their numbers prisoners. Wilcox, meanwhile, had not advanced, 
and, Pettigrew being routed, Pickett’s division was left alone, but undaunted. 
Their fierce onset struck first upon Webb’s brigade, which, posted behind a 
low stone wall, occupied Gibbon’s front line. They broke this, and charged 
right among the batteries, where a fierce hand-to-hand struggle took place. 
The officers on each side fought pistol to pistol, the men with clubbed mus- 
kets. Gibbon, as it chanced, was a little to the right, urging the regiments 
there to follow Pettigrew’s routed troops, and was struck down. Webb’s 
brigade fell back from the stone wall over which the assailants were surg- 
ing, but only to the second line behind the crest. Gibbon had a little before 
sent Lieutenant Haskell to Meade with tidings that the enemy were upon 
him. He was returning, and had just reached the brow of the hill, when he 
met Webb’s brigade falling back. Without waiting to find Gibbon, Haskell 
rode to the left, and ordered the whole division to the right to meet the ad- 
vancing foe. At that critical moment the virtual command was exercised 
by this young lieutenant. The troops “came up helter-skelter, every body 
for himself, their officers among them,” the only thought being to throw 
themselves into the breach. All that mortal men could do to wia victory 
was done by Pickett’s veterans in the five or ten immortal minutes which 
followed the instant when their battle-flags flaunted above the stone wall. 
Of his three brigade commanders, Garnet lay dead and Armistead fatally 
wounded within the Union lines, and Kemper was borne off to die; of fifteen 
field officers but one was unhurt. But all was vain; they were checked in 
front, and a murderous fire was poured into their flank. To advance, stand, 
or retreat was impossible; they flung themselves upon the ground with 
hands uplifted in token of surrender. Of that gallant band not one in four 
escaped ; the others were dead or prisoners. 

The few shattered remains of Pickett’s and Pettigrew’s commands were 
flying wildly to the rear, pelted by the Federal artillery and by that of the 
Confederates, who opened fire from all their batteries.? Wilcox, who had 

1 Hunt, in Com. Rep., ii., 451. ? Heth’s division was now commanded by Pettigrew. 

3 «The enemy’s fire slackening, Longstreet ordered forward the column of attack, consisting 
of Pickett’s and Heth’s divisions in two lines, Pickett’s division on the right; Wilcox’s brigade 
marched in rear of Pickett’s right to guard that flank, and Heth’s was supported by Lane’s and 
Sceale’s brigades, under General Trimble. . . Our batteries, having nearly exhausted their 
ammunition in the protracted cannonade that preceded the advance of the infantry, were unable 
to reply, or render the necessary support to the attacking party. This fact was unknown to me 
when the assault took place.” —Lee’s Rep., MS. ; 

* «The prisoners state that what ruined them was Stannard’s brigade on their flank, as they 
found it impossible to contend with them in that position, and they drew off all in a huddle to get 
away from it.”—Doubleday, in Com. Rep., ii., 310. 

5 Hancock in this action took charge of the whole line of battle, leaving Gibbon in command 
of the Second Corps. 

®° “There was one young man on my staff who has been in every battle with me, and who did 
more than any other one man to repulse that last assault at Gettysburg, and he did the part of a 
general there, yet he has been [April, 1864] only a first lieutenant until within a few weeks. I 
have now succeeded in getting the Governor of Wisconsin to appoint him to a colonelcy, and I 
have no doubt he will before long come before the Senate for a star.”—Gibbon, in Com. Rep., ii., 
445.—He never came before the Senate for a star; among the killed at Cold Harbor not two 
months later we read the name of the gallant Colonel Franklin A. Haskell, 836th Wisconsin. 

7 « As soon as that attack was over, and the enemy saw that their men had given up, they 


opened their batteries at once, upon their own men and ours at the same time, and after that can- 
nonade they formed another column of attack, which advanced, but more upon our left.””—Hunt, 


| in Com. Rep., ii., 451. 


’ + eal 
ee ee eee 


=. + 


a alee i a ade 


Juty, 1863.] 


not advanced, moved forward as if to renew the assault. But he was checked 
by a hot artillery fire, and never came within musket-shot of the Union line. 
To Stannard, who had struck the first sharp blow in this fight, it was re- 
served to strike the last. He launched two regiments upon the retreating 
force, and cut off some hundreds from its rear. 

Meanwhile Ewell on the Confederate left, and Hood and MeLaws upon 
the right, lay wholly inactive. Hood had been held in check by Kilpat- 
rick’s cavalry upon his rear, and by Crawford upon what was now his 
flank. he cavalry had indeed made a sharp attack upon Hood, which, 
though disastrous to them, had much to do with the fortune of the day. 
Farnsworth’s brigade leaped a fence and charged up to the very muzzles 
of a Confederate battery, from which they were repulsed with heavy loss, 
their commander being among the killed.’ : 

After the decisive repulse of the Confederate assault there were yet three 
hours of daylight. Meade rode to the left of his line and ordered Sykes to 
advance his corps. Crawford, who had held the position which he had won 
the night before, pushed a few regiments into the wood in his front. They 
struck Iood’s foremost brigade, which broke and fled, running over another 
brigade which had thrown up strong intrenchments. These also fled with- 
out firing a shot, and Hood’s whole division fell back a mile, leaving two or 
three hundred prisoners and 7000 stand of arms. Many of these had been 
flung away the previous day by Sickles’s corps; these were piled up in 
heaps in order to be burnt.’ But before the widely-seattered corps could 
be coneentrated night was approaching, and the order for pursuit was coun- 
termanded. 

Another scene in the great drama of the war was being enacted twelve 
hundred miles away. At the very moment when the Confederate column 
started upon its march to death two guns were fired from the confronting 
lines at Vicksburg. They were the signal that Grant and Pemberton were 
approaching to confer upon the terms of surrender for that strong-hold. 
During that hour in which two armies were struggling upon the heights of 
Gettysburg, those two men, seated apart in the shade of a great oak, were 
debating upon the conditions upon which the great Western prize should 
pass from the hands of those who had so long and stoutly held it into the 
hands of those who had so long and stoutly sought to win it. At the mo- 
ment when the fragments of the Southern army streamed back in wild rout 
from the Northern cliffs, the great river of the West was permitted to run 
unvexed to the sea. The same shadow on the dial marked the time of the 
defeat at Gettysburg and the virtual surrender of Vicksburg. 

When the Confederate army had, apparently, firmly established itself in 
Pennsylvania, it was thought that a favorable opportunity was presented to 
open negotiations with the Federal government. Alexander H. Stephens, 
the Vice-President, had offered to proceed to Washington as a military com- 
missioner. On this 3d of July he set out, bearing a letter signed by Jeffer- 
son Davis as Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate forces, addressed to 
Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the 
United States. In case the President should refuse to receive a letter thus 
addressed, Mr. Stephens was to procure a duplicate of it, addressed to Lin- 
coln as President of the United States, and signed by Davis as President of 
the Confederacy. Apparently there was no political purpose involved in 
this mission. Its ostensible object was to enter into stipulations by which 
the rigors of war might be mitigated; but it can not be doubted that it was 
undertaken just at this time in the confident persuasion that Lee had met 
with such success in the invasion of Pennsylvania as would dispose the 
Federal government to consent to negotiations of wider scope. But, while 
Stephens was awaiting permission to pass the Union lines, tidings came of 
the great victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and the government re- 
fused to receive the commissioner, declaring that “the customary agents 
and channels are adequate for all needed communications and conference 
between the United States forces and the insurgents.” 

When Lee saw the remnants of Pickett and Pettigrew rushing back from 
their fruitless assault, he perceived that all hope of successful offensive 
operations had vanished. “We can not expect always to win great victo- 
ries,” he said. He could only hope to avoid a total rout. He contracted 
his lines from the right and left toward the centre, expecting and perhaps 
hoping to be attacked in turn. 

When morning broke it became a matter of grave doubt with Meade what 
course to pursue. That the enemy had suffered severely was certain, but 
how severely could not be known. His own losses were great, and were 
supposed to be greater than they were. The corps commanders made hur- 
ried estimates of their remaining force. These summed up only 51,514 in- 
fantry.2 A council of war was held, to which Meade propounded four ques- 


1 “Thave always been of the opinion,” says Pleasonton (Com. Rep., ii., 360), ‘that the demon- 
stration of cavalry on our left materially checked the attack of the enemy on the 3d of July, for 
General Hood was attempting to turn our flank when he met Farnsworth’s and Merritt’s brigades 
of cavalry ; and the officers reported to me that at least two divisions of infantry and a number 
of batteries were held back, expecting an attack from us on that flank.”—Gregg, also on the 
right, engaged Stuart's troopers, who had now, afier a wide detour, come upon the field in that 
quarter. In modern warfare, the great results of a campaign, when brought to an issue upon a 
stricken field, are decided by the shock of infantry and artillery—the hands of an army; the ser- 
vices of cavalry—its eyes, being mainly preliminary. If, in narrating a great campaign, the his- 
torian could detail every striking episode, he would find in this eampaign nearly a score of cavalry 
encounters, any one of which in the earlier stages of the war would have ranked as a battle. 

2 Crawford, in Com. Rep., ii., 471, and private statement. 

4 First Corps, 5000; Second, 5000; Third, 5676; Fifth, 10,000 ; Sixth, 12,500; Eleventh, 
5500; ‘I'welfth, 7838. These corps had marched from the Rappahanock 78,245 strong (Butter- 
field, in Com. Rep., ii., 428), and had been re-enforced by fully 6000. This would give a loss of 
fully 33,000, besides that of the cavalry, which had been considerable, Buford’s division having 
been so severely cut up on the first day that it had been sent.to Westminster, twenty miles to the 
rear, to protect the trains and to recruit. (Pleasonton, Tbid., 359.)—This estimated loss was, 
however, half greater than it actually proved to be. “This,” says Batterfield (/bid., 427), ‘‘is 
always the case after a battle. A great many commanders come in and say that half their force 
is gone; the colonel reports that half his regiment is gone ; that is reported to the brigade com- 
mander, who reports that half his brigade is gone, and so on,” 


6 O. 


THE INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA.—GETTYSBURG. 


513 


tions: Shall the army remain at Gettysburg? If we remain, shall we re- 
sume the offensive? Shall we move upon him by way of Emmettsburg ? 
If the enemy is retreating, shall we pursue on his direct line of retreat? 
The decision was to remain.!’ During the day a heavy rain set in, and at 
nightfall Lee, finding that an attack would not be ventured upon his posi- 
tion, began his retreat to the Potomac. This having been discovered on 
the morning of the 5th, Sedgwick’s corps, which had not been engaged, was 
dispatched to follow him up and ascertain his whereabouts. After a march 
of eight miles he found their rear-guard strongly posted in the mountain 
passes, where a small force could hold him in check for a long time, and 
thought it unadvisable to pursue upon that road. Meade thereupon de- 
cided, on the 6th, to follow Lee by a flank movement, by way of Frederick 
and Boonesboro, involving a march of cighty miles, to Williamsport, on the 
Potomac, whither Lee was clearly heading. Lee, having but forty miles to 
march, reached the river on the 7th. But the stream which he had crossed 
almost dry-shod a fortnight before had been swollen by the heavy rain, and 
was unfordable. A bridge which he had flung across had been destroyed 
by a sudden cavalry dash made by French from Harper's Ferry, and Lee 
had no alternative but to intrench himself, with his back to the river, and 
await an attack. 

Meade marched slowly, feeling the way with his cavalry, but on the 12th 
his army came in front of the Confederate lines. He had been strengthened 
by French with 8000 men from Harper's Ferry ; Couch had sent 5000 militia, 
under W. F. Smith, from Carlisle, and, moreover, considerable numbers were 
close at hand from Baltimore and elsewhere; but these were nine months’ 
men, just brought from North Carolina and the Peninsula, who had only 
one or two days more to serve. Meade judged that these would add noth- 
ing to the real strength of his army for attack, and left them behind. Still 
his actual numbers exceeded those of the enemy by quite a half. Meade, 
although he supposed the enemy to be nearly of his own strength, was dis- 
posed to attack at once, but submitted the question to his seven corps com- 
manders. Wadsworth and Howard were in favor of attack, the other five 
were opposed to it until after farther examination of the position, Meade 
yielded his opinion, and the next day was spent in reconnoissances. ‘The 
result was that in the evening an order was issued for an advance of the 
whole army at daylight. But when morning broke the enemy had disap- 
peared. Lee had succeeded in patching up a bridge, and the river had fall- 
en so that it was barely fordable at a single point. Ewell crossed by the 
ford, Hill and Longstreet by the bridge. The Confederate army stood once 
more in Virginia, and the invasion of Pennsylvania, upon which so much 
had been staked, was at an end. 

The Federal loss at Gettysburg was 23,190, of whom 2884 were killed, 
13,733 wounded, and 6648 missing. The Confederate loss was about 86,000, 
of whom 13,733, wounded and unwounded, remained as prisoners. The en- 
tire loss to this army during the six weeks from the middle of June, when 
it set forth from Culpepper to invade the North, to the close of July, when 
it returned to the starting-point, was about 60,000.? 

The Confederates were slow to admit the great disaster at Gettysburg. 
Three weeks after the battle Alexander H. Stephens, in a speech at Char- 
lotte, N. C., declared that ‘(General Lee’s army had whipped the enemy on 
their own soil, and obtained vast supplies for our own men, and was now 
ready to again meet the enemy on a new ficld. Whatever might be the 
movements and objects of General Lee, he had entire confidence in his abil- 
ity to accomplish what he undertook. He would come out all right in the 
end. The loss of Vicksburg was not an occurrence to cause discouragement 
or gloom. It was not as severe a blow as the loss of Fort Pillow, Island 
No. 10, or New Orleans. The Confederacy had survived the loss of these 
points, and would survive the loss of Port Hudson and other places. If 
we were to lose Mobile, Charleston, and Richmond, it would not affect the 
heart of the Confederacy. After two years’ war the enemy had utterly 
failed, and if the war continued two years longer they would fail. So far 
they had not broken the shell of the Confederacy.” 


Meade, having determined ‘“‘to act on the defensive, and receive the at- 
tack of the enemy, if practicable,” his dispositions for the battle were to be 
mainly determined by the movements of the enemy. He must place his 
force so as to meet the assault, at whatever point it should be made, only, 
of course, holding the strong points of his position. It is incomprehensible, 
therefore, why, during all the day of July 2, the Round Tops were left whol- 
ly unguarded; for this, as Meade clearly states, was “the key-point of my 
whole position. If the enemy had succeeded in occupying that, it would 


1 Birney, Sedgwick, Sykes, Hays, and Warren were for remaining for a day, and await the de- 
velopment of the enemy’s plans; Slocum and Pleasonton were for a direct pursuit of the enemy, 
if he were retreating ; Newton would move by way of Emmettsburg; Howard was doubtful.— 
See Butterfield, in Com. Rep., ii., 427; Birney, Lbid., 368. 

2 The statement of the Union loss and of the number of Confederate prisoners is unquestion- 
able, being given in Meade’s official report. Of the Confederate losses no reports were published, 
and probably none were ever rendered, for Lee, in his report, says that he is not able to give 
them. Recourse must therefore be had to collateral evidence. The only point absolutely fixed is 
the report of numbers on July 31 (ante, p. 383), which shows that on July 31 there were ‘‘ present 
for duty 41,000 men.” If we accept Pollard’s statement that this army set out 90,000 strong, the 
loss would be nearly 49,000. If our estimate of 100,000 as the original strength be accepted, 
the loss will be 60,000. ‘This includes not only the losses at Gettysburg, but those incurred by 
casualty and wastage in the march from Culpepper to Gettysburg and back, which must have 
amounted to many thousands. Lee especially notes that the cavalry suffered severely from toil 
and privation. Farther, if we accept the estimate of the forces actually present at Gettysburg, 
based upon Longstreet’s statement (ante, p. 502), at 80,000, the losses of all kinds from July 1 to 
31 would be 39,000, including those incurred from wastage and skirmishes on the way back from 
the Potomac to the Rappahannock ; allowing 3000 for these, there remain 36,000 for Gettysburg 
and the days immediately following. Of this 14,000 prisoners, we judge from various indicia 
that 8000 were unwounded—1500 captured on the field on the Ist of July, 5000 on the 2d, and 
1500 in the pursuit. This leaves 28,000 for killed and wounded. Apportioning these in the 
same ratio as in the Union loss, there will be about 5000 killed and 23,000 wounded of the Con- 
federate army. + Richmond Dispatch, June 25. 


( JuLy, 1868. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


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have prevented me from holding any of the ground which I subsequently 
held to the last ;” and it was only “ fortunately that General Sykes was en- 
abled, by throwing a strong foree upon Round Top Mountain, where a 
most desperate and bloody struggle ensued, to drive the enemy from it, 
and secure our foothold upon that important position.”! It was, indeed, a 
fortunate accident that a division of Sykes’s corps, who were marching in 
quite a different direction, happened to be near enough to reach the sum- 
mit of Round Top as the enemy were on the point of gaining it. “They 
arrived barely in time to save it, and they had a very desperate fight to 
hold it.” Again, if the advanced position taken by Sickles was as disad- 
vantageous as it seemed to Meade, one may wonder why he was not with- 
drawn. The enemy were indeed advancing to the attack, but there was as 
yet some space between, and it would seem to have been easier to withdraw 
from an untenable position than to be driven from it. It is not easy to 
comprehend why Sedgwick’s corps, stronger by half than any other one in 
the army, took no active part in the action of cither day,* or, at least, was 
not held in such a position that, when the enemy broke and fled at the close 
of the action, it could have been launched in pursuit,° for there was yet 
three hours of daylight. 

But, granting that it was not advisable to pursue and assail the enemy in 
the position of unknown strength which he occupied on the evening of the 
3d, there can be little hesitancy in condemning Meade’s failure to follow 
when it had been ascertained that Lee was in full retreat toward the Poto- 
mac. ‘To make a wide detour with the expectation of striking him on the 
flank was equivalent to declining a battle; for Lee had so far the start that 
he reached the river at the same time that Meade began his flank march of 
eighty miles. He would have crossed at once, had he been able; but the 
stream, swollen by rains, was not fordable, and his only bridge had been de- 
stroyed. ‘Tle Confederate army was in bad plight, and looked eagerly for 
the falling of the waters. When, upon the 12th, Meade came up with the 
enemy, he had every chance in his favor. He was in superior force; his 
army was in excellent condition and in high spirits ; the enemy could not be 
other than wearied and disheartened. Ifthe attack was unsuccessful, it could 
amount to no more than a check, for he could fall back to the South Moun- 
tain, where he would be unassailable; but if the assault was successful, the 
Confederates would be ruined, for they had at their back a swollen river, 
which they had no means of crossing. Meade was minded to fight; he had 
come for that purpose; but, unfortunately, he submitted the question to a 
council of war. He had been hardly a fortnight in command, and would 
not assume the responsibility of acting in opposition to the views of his 
corps commanders, so he yielded his opinion to theirs;7 unwisely as it seems 
to us, wisely as he was himself afterward convinced.* When, after spend- 
ing a day or two in reconnoitring, he ordered the attack to be made at 
daybreak on the 14th, he was too late. The enemy had crossed, and the 
swollen Potomac lay between. ‘The fruit was so ripe, so ready for pluck- 
ing,” said Lincoln, ‘ that it was very hard to lose it.” The President, indeed, 
expressed himself in terms of censure so sharp that Meade asked to be re- 
lieved from the command of the army.® ‘The request was refused. 


1 Meade, in Com. Rep., ii., 332. 

2 Warren, in Com. Rep., ii., 377. See also Crawford, [bid., 469 

3 Sickles indeed affirms that the position which he took was a good one. He says (Com. Rep., 
ii., 298): “I took up that line, because it enabled me to hold commanding ground, which, if the 
enemy had been allowed to take—as they would have taken it if I had not occupied it in force— 
would have rendered our position on the left untenable, and, in my judgment, would have turned 
the fortunes of the day hopelessly against us.’ But the enemy did actually take the position 
held for a time by Sickles at the cost of half his corps, and were only repelled from the very line 
which Meade had proposed to hold. 

4 “My corps did not take any important part in the battle of Gettysburg. It was frequently 
sent to different parts of the ficld to re-enforce and support other troops that were more vigor- 
ously engaged.” —Sedgwick, in Com. Rep., ii., 460. 

5 <¢T think that our lines should have advanced immediately, and I believe that we should have 
won a great victory. I was very confident that the attack would be made. General Meade told 
me before the fight that, if the enemy attacked me, he intended to put the Fifth and Sixth Corps 
on the enemy’s flank. I therefore, when I was wounded, and lying down in my ambulance, and 
about leaving the field, dictated a note to General Meade, and told him if he would put in the 
Fifth and Sixth Corps, I believed he would win a great victory. I asked him afterward, when I 
returned to the army, what he had done in the premises. He said he had ordered the movement, 
but the troops were slow in collecting, and moved so slowly that nothing was done before night, 
except that some of the Pennsylvania Reserves went out and met Hood’s division, and actually 
overthrew it. ‘here were only two divisions of the enemy on our extreme left, opposite Round 
‘Top, and there was a gap of one mile that their assault had left; and I believe that if our whole 
line had advanced with spirit, it is not unlikely that we should have taken all their artillery at 
that point. I think that we should have pushed the enemy there, for we do not often catch them 
in that position ; and the rule is, and it is natural, that when you defeat and repulse an enemy, 
you should pursue him.”—Hancock, in Com. Rep., ii., 408. 

6 “lhe Potomac was found to be so much swollen by the recent rains as to be unfordable. Our 
communications with the south side were thus interrupted, and it was difficult to procure either 
ammunition or subsistence. The enemy had not yet made his appearance, but, as he was in con- 
dition to obtain large re-enforcements, and our situation, for the reasons above mentioned, was 
becoming daily more embarrassing, it was deemed advisable to recross the river. Part of the 
pontoon bridge was recovered, and new boats built. Our preparations being completed, and the 
river, though still deep, being pronounced fordable, the army commenced to withdraw to the 
south side on the night of the 13th.”—Lee’s Rep. 

” The objections of the council were not to fighting, but to attacking them. ‘‘ We all,” says 
Pleasonton (Com. Rep., ii., 361), ‘‘ wanted to fight There was one general, General French, I 
think, who remarked, after General Meade declared that he would not order an attack against 
the vote of the council, ‘Why, it does not make any difference what our opinions are. If you 
give the order to attack, we will fight just as well under it as if our opinions were not against it.’” 

8 Testimony, in Com. Rep., ii., 336. 

° Halleck to Meade, July 14: ‘‘I need hardly say to you that the escape of Lee’s army without 
another battle has created great dissatisfaction in the mind of the President, and it will require 
an active and energetic pursuit on your part to remove the impression that it has not been suffi- 
ciently active heretofore.” Meade to Halleck: ‘‘ Having performed my duty conscientiously and 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JULY, 1868, 


The operations of Lee at Gettysburg can be justified, or even explained, 
only upon the supposition that he was wholly deceived as to the strength of 
the enemy in his front. He had, indeed, very good reasons to suppose him- 
self to be in greatly superior force. On Wednesday, when he had won a 
decided advantage, he had clearly two to one on the field. On Thursday 
morning he was, after his losses, stronger by more than half, and there was 
nothing in the operations of that day to evinee that the Federals had been 
greatly strengthened. He had, indeed, gained important apparent advan- 
tages at two points. Ewell had effected a lodgment within the intrench- 
ments on the Union right. On their left, the Federals had been driven back 
from what seemed to be a strong part of their chosen line; and though the 
attack had been finally repelled, still the ground contended for had been 
won, and was held. Owing to two accidents—the temporary withdrawa) 
of Slocum’s corps on the right, and the advance of Sickles on the left be- 
yond the main lines—the Confederates had seen only a force inferior to 
their own, and it was reasonable to infer that this formed all which could 
have been brought into action by the enemy. On Friday, every thing, up 
to the moment of the final charge, confirmed this impression. Lee was ig- 
norant that by noon Ewell had been driven out of the intrenchments which 
he had won the night before. The fierce cannonade, which was opened an 
hour after noon, was replied to by little more than half the number of guns, 
and of these the fire was slackened in such a way as to indicate that the 
Union batteries were effectually silenced. ‘To suppose that Lee assailed 
the heights of Gettysburg knowing, or imagining that they were held by an 
army fully equal in numbers to his own, is to attribute to him a degree of 
rashness which is belied by his whole military career. 

Lee’s attack on the last day has been subjected to grave censure. If it 
was made with a knowledge of the numbers opposed to him, it was wholly 
indefensible. But it must be judged in the light of what he knew at the 
time. He was under no necessity of giving or even of receiving battle. The 
main object of the invasion had indeed failed. There was no chance that 
he could seize Baltimore or Philadelphia; none, indeed, that he could hold 
his position in Pennsylvania. But the way of return to Virginia was open 
to him. He was in a position where a battle which should be less than a 
victory so great as to involve the destruction of the army opposed to him 
would have been useless, while a defeat could hardly be other than ruinous. 
Having decided to attack, the assault should have been made with his whole 
force. After all his losses he had certainly 60,000 men; his plan of attack 
involved the use of hardly half of these, including Ewell’s proposed demon- 
stration. The main assault was committed to only 18,000.1_ What, asked 
Longstreet, would have been the result if the assault had been made by 
30,000 men instead of 15,000? There can be no doubt that if this attack 
was to be made, it should have been made by twice the force. Yet, in the 
light of what we now know, it was well that this was not done. If twice as 
many men had been sent in they must have equally failed, and with twice 
the loss. The Confederates only just succeeded in touching the Union line 
of defense, and from this they were repelled in utter rout by less than a fifth 
of the force which could have been brought there in another twenty min- 
utes. Only two divisions of Hancock’s corps, with a single other brigade, 
were really engaged.2 The other division of that corps, together with the 
corps of Howard, Reynolds, and Sickles, which had been badly cut up dur- 
ing the two previous days, were at hand; Slocum’s corps had cleared itself 
from Ewell at Culp’s Hill, on the right, and could have been brought into 
action on the left; moreover, there was Sedewick’s whole corps, which had 
not. yet even touched the fight. Meade, while holding his right and left, 
could easily, if need were, have brought 50,000 men to the defense of his 
centre. What with his artillery, which swept the approach, it is safe to say 
that no 50,000 or 80,000 men, if they could have been hurled at once upon 
the Cemetery Ridge, could ever have carried it. “The conduct of the 
troops,” says Lee, “ was all that I could desire or expect, and they deserved 
success so far as it can be deserved by heroic valor and fortitude. More 
may have been required of them than they were able to perform, but my 
admiration of their noble qualities, and confidence in their ability to cope 
successfully with the enemy, has suffered no abatement from the issue of 
this protracted and sanguinary conflict.” This task, “more than they were 
able to perform,” was imposed upon his votaries by Lee. Upon him, there- 
fore, must rest the blame for the failure to execute it. 


to the best of my ability, the censure of the President is in my judgment so undeserved that I fee 
compelled most respectfully to ask to be immediately relieved from the command of this army.” 
Halleck to Meade: ‘‘My telegram stating the disappointment of the President at the escape of 
Lee’s army was not intended as a censure, but as a stimulus to an active pursuit. It is not deemed 
a sufficient cause for your application to be relieved.” 

1 It is indeed said that McLaws and Hood, with some 15,000 more, were to have taken part, 
and that Lee was bitterly indignant at the ‘‘slow-footed McLaws” for not coming up. But there 
is in his report no indication that such was any part of his plan. The wording of it, indeed, seems 
to exclude any such purpose, and implies that the carrying of Cemetery Heights was intrusted to 
Pickett and Pettigrew. 

2 «The shock of the assault fell upon the second and third divisions of the Second Corps, and 
these were the troops, together with the artillery of our line, which fired from Round 'Top to Cem- 
etery Hill at the enemy as they advanced, whenever they had the opportunity. Those were the 
troops that really met the assault. No doubt there were other troops that fired a little, but these 
were the troops that really withstood the shock of the assault and repulsed it. The attack of the 
enemy was met by about six small brigades of our troops, and was finally repulsed after a very 
terrific contest at very close quarters.”—Hancock, in Com. Rep., ii., 408. 


Jury, 1863. ] 


a 
\\ 


MEADE’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


IN OAMP. 


CHAPTER XXX. 
MEADE'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


The Armies.—Meade’s Advance into Virginia.—Lece’s Retreat.—The Armies on the Rappahan- 
nock.—Both Armies reduced.—Cessation of Operations. —Appeals of Davis and Lee.—Lee ad- 
vances and Meade retreats.—Fight at Bristoe.—Meade falls back to Centreville. —Lee returns 
to the Rappahannock. —Meade slowly follows. —Stuart in Peril. —Imboden’s Dash upon Charles- 
town.—Cavalry Fight near Warrenton.—Meade proposes to go to Fredericksburg.—Capture 
of Rappahannock Station.—The Mine Run Attempt.—Butler’s Movement toward Richmond. 
—Kilpatrick and Dahlgren’s Raid.—The Army in Winter-quarters. 


N a year and a week, from the beginning of the Seven Days before Rich- 
mond to the close of the battle at Gettysburg, the Union Army of the 
Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had encountered 
in six desperate struggles, each lasting for days. In four—on the Peninsu- 
la, at Groveton, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville—the Confederates won 
the honors and advantages of victory; in two—at Antietam and Gettys- 
burg—they had been defeated. Besides these great conflicts, there had 
been many minor engagements. The losses upon each side had been singu- 
larly alike. In killed, wounded, and prisoners, each had lost about 110,000. 
If to these are added the scores of thousands who died from disease in pes- 
tilential camps, and upon the long and weary marches, each army lost more 
than its muster-rolls embraced when at the fullest.) During nine months 
they were to confront each other, neither striking or hardly attempting a 
blow; aud then to enter upon that terrible campaign of eleven months, 
which resulted in the annihilation of the Confederate army, and the over- 
throw of the cause which it had so long and valiantly upheld. Of that nine 
months’ indecisive campaign in Virginia I am now to write. 
When Lee, after Gettysburg, had succeeded in making good his escape 


1 In the following table an attempt is made to give as nearly as possible in round numbers the 
losses in the two armies during the period of a year and a week, commencing with the battle of 
Mechanicsville, June 26, 1862, and ending with that of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. The number 
of killed and wounded can be very closely ascertained. The errors in one case will be about bal- 
anced by contrary ones in another. The number of prisoners is much less certain. Very many 
prisoners claimed on both sides were also wounded, and entered on the lists as such. I have en- 
deavored to distinguish between the wounded and unwounded prisoners, giving as ‘‘ prisoners” only 
those not left wounded on the field. In the list of prisoners taken by the Confederates I have not 
included the 11,000 captured by Jackson at Harper’s Ferry, for they were paroled at once, and 
were never actually in the hands of the enemy. 1 have, however, included the 2500 captured from 
Milroy at Winchester, for they were actually held. The ‘‘ prisoners’ ” column is therefore to be 
taken mercly as a rough estimate. Only the losses in the great actions have been given. Some 
thousands besides these fell or were captured in minor engagements, bringing the numbers fully 
up to those given in the text. Of the losses from disease no eyen approximate estimate can be 
formed. Fifty thousand upon each side would certainly be a moderate estimate. 


UNION. CONFEDERATE. 2S 
Batten. Killed and Wounded. | Prisoners. Killed and Wounded. | Prisoners. 

The Seven Days on the Peninsula. . 10,000 5,000 18,000 1,000 
Pope's Campaign .............--++ 14,000 7,000 11,000 1,000 
RMNPRORANIL, GEOL Boe ap ov sie vice ecise ss 14,000 1,000 12,000 5,000 

\ Fredericksburg. ........... bee 10,000 1,000 4,500 500 
Chancellorsville........... aaah 12,000 5,000 10,000 2,500 
MEOREPEUOT Ea pace ved ecb eth cs cen. 16,500 5,000 28,000 8,000 
HS bee oc rece ete ae SS 76,500 25,000 83,500 18,000 


6-2 


| across the Potomac, he took up the same position which he had, after Antie- 
tam, assumed ten months before.’ T’o Meade was presented the same ques- 
tion which had been offered to McClellan after Antietam. In what manner 
should he, with his superior force, assail the enemy? The decision was 
promptly made. It was the same to which McClellan came after long hes- 
itation and delay. Instead of following directly upon Lee’s rear, on the 
west side of the Blue Ridge, he would threaten his flank and menace his 
communications by advancing along the east side of this mountain chain. 
This decision was based upon the admitted impossibility of supplying his 
great army by the single line of railroad which traversed the Valley of the 
Shenandoah. Lee would be compelled, as he had before been compelled, to 
retreat up the valley. Meade moreover hoped, having the shorter line, to 
be able to throw a heavy column through some gap of the Blue Ridge, and 
assail the flank of Lee’s long line as it passed in its retreat.2 On the 17th 
and 18th the Potomac was crossed, and the army commenced its march. 
Some slight changes were made in the commands. Butterfield had been 
hurt at Gettysburg, and Humphreys was appointed chief of staff, a position 
which Meade had urged upon him when he took command. Sickles and 
Hancock had been severely wounded. fF rench’s division, from Harper’s 
Ferry, bad been added to Sickles’s corps, which had suffered so terribly, 
and French was put at its head. Warren, who had long been chief engi- 
neer of the army, was a little after placed in command of Hancock’s corps. 

As soon as he discovered the Federal advance, Lee broke up his camps 
near Winchester, and commenced a rapid retreat up the Valley of the She- 
nandoah, hoping to pass from it into the Valley of the Rappahannock, and 
so reach the railroad leading to Richmond in advance of Meade. Thus the 
two armies were moving rapidly in parallel lines, but with the Blue Ridge 
between, shutting each from all information as to the movements and posi- 
tions of the other, except such as could be gained by scouts posted at some 
commanding point of observation. 

On the 22d, when the Union army had reached Manassas Gap, Meade 
learned that the enemy were marching right opposite to him. This seemed 
the desired opportunity to throw a column through the gap, and fall upon 
the centre of his line. French pushed his corps through, meeting with 
slight opposition, and next morning saw the Confederates drawn up at 


1 Lee seems to have had in mind some offensive operation when he crossed the Potomac. In 
his report he says: ‘‘ Owing to the swollen condition of the Shenandoah River, the plan of oper- 
ations which had been contemplated when we recrossed the Potomac could not be put in execu- 
tion, and before the waters had subsided the movements of the enemy induced me to cross the 
Blue Ridge, and take position south of the Rappahannock.”—We can only conjecture that this 
contemplated plan was to march down the south side of the Potomac, and strike a blow at Wash- 
ington. If this was the plan, it must have been based on the supposition that Meade would loiter 
upon the north bank of the Potomac, as McClellan had done after Antietam. 

2 *¢Tt was impracticable to pursue the enemy in the Valley of Virginia, because of the difficulty 
of supplying an army in that valley with a single-track railroad in very bad order. I therefore 
determined to adopt the same plan of movement as that adopted the preceding year, which was 
to move upon the enemy’s flank through Loudon Valley.” —Meade, in Com. Rep., ii., 339. 


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Front Royal in what seemed to be a strong line of battle. Meade now 
made dispositions for a fight the next day, for he believed that he had in- 
terrupted Lee’s retreat, and that he would be compelled to fight in order to 
secure his trains. But when morning dawned the enemy had vanished. 
The seeming strong line of battle was but a rear-guard; the main army 
had been all the time swiftly marching by roads farther to the west. Lee, 
having thus eluded the threatened attack, pressed on, passed through a low- 
er gap out of the Valley of the Shenandoah into that of the Rappahannock, 
and at length halted at Culpepper, the goal of the retreat, the point where 
he had six weeks before reviewed the great army with which he had set 
out for the invasion of the North. Meade, having missed his blow, withdrew 
his forces from the Manassas Gap, and marched leisurely on toward the Rap- 
pahannock.’? 

On the last day of July the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia 
numbered only 41,000 men “‘present for duty.” Besides these there were 
12,500 “present,” a few more than the wounded whom they had brought 
away from Gettysburg. Through all the week during which Lee had been 
detained by the swollen Potomac, he had been sending his wounded across 
in boats, so that he had gained a full fortnight in which to transport them 
to Culpepper and beyond without molestation. The Union army could not 
have numbered less than 75,000, probably more. Meade knew that he was 
greatly superior, how greatly he most likely did not suspect. He wisely 
resolved to advance upon Lee, but unwisely consulted the authorities at 
Washington. The movement was forbidden. He might only “take up a 
threatening attitude upon the Rappahannock.”? What any attitude upon 
the Rappahannock which did not involve the passage of that stream could 
threaten, is hard to see. Certainly not the Confederate army which lay be- 
yond; not its communications or sources of supply ; not Richmond, or any 
one of its connections with any part of the Confederacy. 

Lee’s army was strengthened from day to day. On the 31st of August 
it numbered 56,000 present for duty. This increase was the first, and, in- 
deed, the only fruit of Jefferson Davis’s earnest appeal, issued on the 15th 
of July, to those “ now absent from the army without leave,” in which he 
promised amnesty and pardon to all who should “with the least possible 
delay return to their posts of duty ;” but this period of grace was limited 
to twenty days.* Meade’s army was in the mean while considerably dimin- 


' Meade, in Com. Rep., ii., 339.—Lee (ALS. Rep.) thus describes these operations: ‘‘ As the 
Federals continued to advance along the eastern slope of the mountains, apparently with the 
purpose of cutting us off from the railroad, Longstreet was ordered, on the 19th of July, to pro- 
ceed to Culpepper Court-house by way of Front Royal. He sneceeded in passing part of his 
command over the Shenandoah in time to prevent the occupation of Manassas and Chester Gaps 
by the enemy. As soon as a pontoon bridge could be laid down, the rest of his corps crossed, 
and marched through Chester Gap to Culpepper, where they arrived on the 24th. He was fol- 
lowed by Hill’s corps. Ewell reached Front Royal the 23d, and encamped near Madison Court- 
house on the 29th.” 

2 «Upon my arrival at the Rappahannock, which was toward the close of July, I communi- 
cated my views to the government, in which I expressed the opinion that the farther pursuit of 
General Lee should be continued at that time, inasmuch as I believed that our relative forces 
were more favorable at that time than they would be at any subsequent time, if we gave him time 
to recuperate. It was thought proper, however, by the general-in-chief to direct me to take up 
a threatening attitude upon the Rappahannock, but not to advance.’’—Meade, in Com. Rep., ii., 
340, 

3 July 26. Lee issued the following General Order to the Army of Northern Virginia: ‘ All 
officers and soldiers now absent from this army, who are able to do duty, and are not detached 
on special service, are ordered to return immediately. The commanding general calls upon all 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| 


[AuGuUST, 1868. 


ished. A division was sent to South Carolina to aid in the siege of Charles- 
ton. The draft riots in New York, which broke out the very day upon 
which Lee recrossed the Potomac, had indeed been suppressed, but the op- 
position to the draft was still so strenuous that military aid was deemed 
necessary to enforce it, and a large body of troops were taken from the 
Army of the Potomac and sent to New York for that purpose. During the 
first days of September Lee’s force was fully equal to that of Meade. But, 
in the mean time, Bragg, in Tennessee, was hardly pressed by Rosecrans, 
and Longstreet, with his corps, was sent to his aid. Meade was soon aware 
of this diminution of the force opposed to him, and this time, without wait- 
ing for instructions, moved his army across the Rappahannock, and estab- 
lished himself at Culpepper, while Lee fell back beyond the Rapidan, and 
took a position strong by nature and strongly fortified. 

Meade was now in a region of which he knew nothing, and could learn 
nothing except by sending his cavalry in every direction to reconnoitre. 
This took time, and he had just decided upon a plan of operations when he 
was told that his army must be reduced. Things had gone badly at the 
West. Rosecrans had been defeated at Chickamauga, and Meade must 
spare a quarter of his army to restore the balance in Tennessee. The corps 
of Slocum and Howard were chosen. Thereafter these corps ceased to form 
a part of the Army of the Potomac, and belong to that of the West. The 
command of these two corps was given to Hooker, who had never lost the 
confidence of the President and the Secretary of War. He had, indeed, 
soldiers to return to their respective regiments at once. 'To remain at home in this, the hour of 
our country’s need, is unworthy of the manhood of a Southern soldier. . . . . The commanding 
general appeals to the people of the states to send forth every man able to bear arms to aid the 
brave soldiers who have so often beaten back our foes.”—The following are passages from the 
address of Jefferson Davis: ‘* You know too well what the enemy mean by success. Their ma- 
lignant rage aims at nothing less than the extermination of yourselves, your wives, and children. 


They propose, as the spoils of success, that your homes shall be partitioned among the wretches 
whose atrocious cruelties have stamped infamy on their government. . . . . . No alternative is 


| left you but victory or subjugation, slavery, and the utter ruin of yourselves, your families, and your 


country. The victory is within your reach. The men now absent from their posts would, if 
present in the field, suffice to create numerical equality between our force and that of the inyva- 
der:, Sick toes I call upon you, then, to hasten to your camps, in obedience to the dictates of honor 
and of duty, and summon those who have absented themselves without leave to repair without de- 
lay to their respective commands; and I do hereby declare that I grant a general pardon and 
amnesty to all officers and men within the Confederacy, now absent without leave, who shall, 
with the least possible delay, return to their posts of duty ; but no excuse will be received for any 
delay beyond twenty days after the first publication of this proclamation in any state in which 
the absentee may be at the date of the publication. This amnesty shall extend to all who have 
been accused, or who are undergoing sentence for absence without leave or desertion, except only 
those who have been twice convicted of desertion.’’ 


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OcroseER, 1863. ] MEADE’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 519 


wished to receive the command of a corps under Meade, but one can easily 
understand that this proposition could not be acceptable to that general.’ 
Whatever honor Hooker lost at Chancellorsville was abundantly regained 
at Lookout Mountain. 

The armies in Virginia, thus again brought to an equality, remained in- 
active until early in October. By that time the troops sent to New York 
at er | had returned, diminished in number by a third; the draft also furnished 
as CAA ABR ANN) =| Some accessions, but of a character which added little real strength. Still, 
“A sn Sa EM NTR according to his own estimate, Meade had well-nigh 70,000 effective men. 
if ". Git i The force of the enemy he thought to be considerably less.2- Now occurred 
i Meade’s retreat to Centreville, which, with McClellan’s flight to Malvern 
Hill, Hooker’s abandonment of Chancellorsville, and Butler’s “bottling up” 
at Bermuda Hundreds, yet to take place, must stand as the inexplicable in- 
cidents of the war. 

Karly in October there appeared a very evident diminution of the Con- 
federate forces along the Rapidan, while cavalry and some infantry were 
seen moving toward Meade’s right flank. These operations were suscepti- 
ble of two interpretations. Lee might be falling back still farther, in which 
case the movements observed on the Union right were simply a demonstra- 
tion to throw the enemy off the track while the Confederate army was with- 
drawing; or it might be the purpose of Lee to gain the rear of the Union 
army, and fall upon its communications, which were kept up mainly by the 
single line of railroad from Alexandria southward. Meade, coming to the 
front, was satisfied that the former was the design of his opponent, and 
made preparations to throw his cavalry and two of his five infantry corps 
across the Rapidan. But before this was done he became satisfied that the 
enemy, instead of retreating, was in full advance. He could not believe that 
with his inferior force Lee would venture to assail him at Culpepper, and 
therefore the movement must be to turn his right flank and assume a posi- 
tion in his rear which would compel him to attack at disadvantage. THe 
thereupon, on the morning of the 11th, withdrew his whole army across the 
Rappahannock. Hardly had this been done, when he learned that the Con- 
federate force had actually moved upon Culpepper, as if with the design of 
offering battle in the very position which he himself had chosen. Now 
Meade had no desire to avoid a battle, if he could fight upon his own terms, 
and so he directed three of his corps to recross the Rappahannock and move 
toward Culpepper. Hardly had this been done, when Gregg, whose caval- 
ry had been thrown out to the right, came in with reports that he had been 
attacked and driven back by a heavy force of all arms, and that the whole 
Confederate army, after the delay of a day at Culpepper, was on the march 
to gain the Union rear. 

The information proved true in the main. Lee, knowing how ereatly the 
Union army had been depleted a few weeks before, but ignorant of the 
strong accessions which it had received within a few days, meditated a repe- 
tition of the movement by which he had a year before defeated Pope; only 
instead of, as Meade supposed, marching west of the Bull Run Mountains, 
and crossing them at Thoroughfare Gap, he designed to skirt the southern 
extremity of this range, and gain a position just in the Union rear, upon the 
railroad. Meade’s communications being thus interrupted, he would be 
forced to attack upon the ground which the enemy should select. Lee rea- 
soned that Meade, forced to withdraw from the Rappahannock, would not be 
able to resume offensive operations that season. Meade presumed that Lee’s 
design was to occupy the strong position at Centreville, and saw nothing to 
be done but to retreat with all speed upon that point, hoping to reach it in 
advance of the enemy. But, as it happened, Lee, instead of aiming at Cen- 
treville, directed his march upon Bristoe. He moved also with much less 
than his wonted celerity, delaying, indeed, for a whole day, the 18th, at War- 
renton, in order to supply his troops with provisions. Thus it happened 
that when the head of Lee’s columns, moving eastward, came on the 14th 
near Bristoe, Meade’s whole army, moving northward, had passed that point, 
with the exception of Warren’s corps, which was bringing up the rear. Had 
Meade known that the army were behind instead of before him, he would, 
as he avers, have paused and given battle;* but, misinformed of the true 
position, he continued his retreat, crossed Bull Run, and took position at 
Centreville. 


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THE BLUE RIDGE, 


CAMP AT THE FOOT OF 


1 «When I came to Washington, the Secretary of War informed me that he very much re- 
gretted the step that I had taken [in resigning the command of the Army of the Potomac]; that 
it was the intention of the President to give me the command of all the troops I had asked for ; 
but that fact had never been communicated to me, nor had I any intimation of it before. I in- 
quired of the President why he had not given me a corps in that army after he had relieved me, 
and he said it was for the reason that he thought it would not be agreeable to me or to General 
Meade. Subsequently he communicated his desire to this effect to General Meade, which was 
acceded to by the latter first, and afterward objected to by General Meade.”—Hooker, in Com. 
Rep, ii., 178. 

* Meade (Com. Rep., ii., 343) testified: ‘*As near as I can judge, my army contained of effi- 
cient men, equipped and armed such as I could bring into battle, between 60,000 and 70,000 
men. I think the enemy had about 60,000. I thought I was probably from 8000 to 10,000 his 
superior.”—General Howe (Jbid., 318) relates a conversation which he had with Meade at this 
| very time. He says: ‘*General Meade remarked that our strength was 74,000 men, and of that 
| number he said that 68,000 were armed and in a condition to fight. Then he spoke of the 
strength of Lee’s army. He ran over the data that he had obtained from divers and sundry 
sources, and made out that Lee could not have over 45,000 men. He referred to the different 
corps and divisions of the rebel army; to the movements that had been made, with which he 
seemed to be familiar; and, as I remember, he stated that Lee’s army could not be over 45,000 
men, showing that we had such a preponderance of force that with any thing like a fair ordinary 
chance we could have our own way. That was on Friday” [October 9].—This estimate of 45,000 
was singularly accurate, for on the last day of September Lee’s muster-rolls showed 44,367, and 

on the last day of October 45,614, present for duty. 
a | 4% TY said to General Meade, ‘I do not see but one thing that Lee can do with advantage with 
iia al WH his army, and that is to throw himself suddenly upon our rear.’ General Meade replied, ‘Oh, he 
a ANA) can not do that; he would not think of doing such a thing as that.’”—Howe, in Com. Rep., ii., 
i il | 318.—General Meade, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War (Report, 
| Hi i | | ii., 340-342), gives a very full account of his movements at this time, and of the reasons which 
ii} | | [ | mM governed them. 
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4 “Notwithstanding my losing a day, I had moved with more celerity than the enemy, and 
was a little in his advance. If I had known this at the time, I would have given the enemy battle 
the next day in the position that I had occupied at Auburn and Greenwich.” — Com. Rep, ii., 341. 


520 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


——————_— 


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IN CAMP AT WARRENTON SPRINGS, 


[ OCTOBER, 1863. 


Warren had in the mean while been delayed at Auburn by a rencounter 
with a portion of Ewell’s corps. This, after some skirmishing, drew off, and 
Warren followed on after the rest of the army, between which and him 
there was now a considerable interval. When the head of Lee’s army came 
in the afternoon to Bristoe, they saw Sykes’s corps marching out. Hill 
made some dispositions to assail the rear of Sykes, when he became aware 
of the approach of Warren from the opposite direction. Hill turned to as- 
sail Warren, while Sykes, strangely enough, kept on his retreat for a space.? 
Warren’s position was perilous. His single corps was isolated from the re- 
mainder of the army, while the whole force of the enemy was coming up 
right upon his flank. Only a part of it was actually up, and on the next 
few minutes every thing depended. With quick decision, Warren sent his 
two leading divisions, which were a mile in advance of the other, to seize 
upon a deep cutting in the railroad. They dashed forward at a run, and 
were just in time to gain the position when Hill’s advancing line of battle 
came up. They were received with so hot a fire that they fell back with 
considerable loss. Heth’s division—the same which, under Pettigrew, who 
had been mortally wounded at Williamsport, had suffered so severely at 
Gettysburg—made a feeble attack upon the right flank, when it encoun- 
tered Webb’s division, the same which it had met on Cemetery Ridge; they 
again retreated in confusion. In all, the Confederates lost 400 killed and 
wounded and 450 prisoners—the entire Union loss being about 200. Hill 
had been checked, but Warren was far from being free from peril, for Ew- 
cll’s corps and the remainder of Hill’s were rapidly approaching, while the 
other Union corps, apparently ignorant of what was going on, had kept up 
the retreat, and were now miles away. Warren could not hope, with his 
single corps, long to withstand the whole Confederate army, nor while day- 
light lasted could he safely abandon his strong position and pursue his 
march. But night was approaching, and before Lee could make the neces- 
sary dispositions for attack, darkness closed in, and under its thrice welcome 
cover Warren marched on, and rejoined the main army at Centreville. 

Ilad Meade on that day known the position of the enemy, he would cer- 
tainly never have crossed Bull Run. He would most likely have marched 
back to Bristoe, before it had been abandoned by Warren, where there can 
be little doubt that a battle would have taken place, under such advantages 
that victory would have been certain.? But so erroneous was Meade’s in- 
formation that even on the next day Birney’s division was ordered to march 
on to Fairfax Station, half way between Centreville and Washington, to hold 
that point against an expected attack. Had Lee really purposed to throw 
his army through Thoroughfare Gap, Meade should have welcomed such a 
movement. The Confederate army, wholly cut off from its sources of sup- 
ply, would have been hemmed in between Meade’s superior forces and the 
defenses of Washington. It could have neither food nor ammunition ex- 
cept what it bore with it. It could neither hold its position, nor advance 
nor retreat without winning a battle, against greatly superior forces. The 
case was widely different from what existed a year before, when Lee, fully 
twice as strong, had made the same flank march against Pope’s disjointed 
and dispirited army. . 

After a couple of days’ repose at Centreville, Meade perceived that Lee 
was not minded to follow him any farther, and he resolved to retrace his 
steps. But now a storm set in and swelled the little stream of Bull Run 
into a foaming torrent, which could be crossed only by pontoons. ‘These 
had been left ten miles behind, and so for two days the army could not 
move a mile. Lee pushed a few troops as far as Bull Run, and on the 18th 
commenced his retreat toward the Rappahannock, marching along the rail- 
road, which he thoroughly destroyed behind him. The next day, the Run 
having fallen, Meade began his advance. He moved slowly, for there was 
nothing to be gained by haste. More than a week was occupied in the 
twenty miles’ march back to Warrenton, and ten more days were lost in re- 
pairing the road so that supplies could be kept up. 

Besides Warren’s stand at Auburn and his fight at Bristoe, there had been 
no fighting except by the cavalry, who were flung out from either army. 
On the 13th Stuart was near coming to grief hard by Catlett’s Station, 
where he had last year performed good though accidental service by the 
capture of Pope’s dispatch-book. He had pushed forward quite in advance 
of the infantry, and, coming upon the head of the leading Federal column, 
had fallen back toward Catlett’s, where he bivouacked in a low spot among 
a dense pine thicket. Meantime the other Federal column had moved by a 
parallel road, and Stuart was hemmed in between the two, not two miles 
from Meade’s head-quarters, and within less than a quarter of a mile from a 
ridge whereon Warren had pitched his camp. Stuart was hidden from ob- 
servation by the thicket and by the heavy night mist, while the enemy on 
the hill-tops was in plain view. His destruction was inevitable should he 
be discovered. Sending two or three soldiers disguised in Federal uniforms 
to creep through the hostile lines and notify Lee of his peril, he waited till 
morning was beginning to dawn, and then opened a sudden artillery fire 
upon Warren. So unexpected was the attack that the troops upon whom 


1 «When I began the fight, the last of General Sykes’s corps was moving off. I do not sup- — 
pose that he got more than three or four miles away, and a part of his corps did come back just 
before dark. I think the orders were to concentrate at Centreville that night; but when I was 
engaged in battle, it seemed to me plain enough that he ought to have helped me without solicit- — 
ation or orders.”—Warren, in Com. Rep., ii., 384. 

2 << Under the conviction that the enemy was moving on, and had moved on, I that night [of 
the 13th] gave orders for a further retrograde movement, until I occupied the line of Centreville 
and Bulli Run. In performing this movement the next day, I ascertained, when too late to take 
advantage of it, that the enemy had not moved on the pike [leading through Thoroughfare Gap — 
to Centreville], but that he had moved across, with the expectation of falling upon my flank and 
rear, and that his advance had encountered my rear-guard, under the command of General War- 
ren, and had been severely handled.”—(Meade, in Com. Rep., ii., 341.)—Warren says (Jbid., 
387): ‘We lost another opportunity when the enemy attacked me at Bristoe; perhaps not at 
that point exactly, but during that movement we missed an opportunity that we should be very 
glad to have again.” 


OcronEr, 1863. ] 


MEADE'’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


idl 


a 
| 


DEPOT OF SUPPLIES ON THE RAILROAD, 


it fell were thrown into momentary confusion, and moved across the crest 
to escape the cannonade. Stuart sprang to horse, and passing safely with 
all his men, rode clear around the Union rear. The scouts whom he had 
sent out had in the mean time succeeded in reaching Ewell, who set his col- 
umn in motion, and it was the head of this which encountered Warren at 
Auburn. 

While Meade was resting at Centreville, Imboden, with a division of Con- 
federate cavalry, was stationed in the Valley of the Shenandoah. From 
Winchester, on the 16th, he made a sudden dash down to Charlestown, close 
by Harper’s Ferry, where he captured more than 400 prisoners, and secured 
a large quantity of supplies, and then, upon the approach of a superior force 
from the Ferry, he fell back, preserving all his spoils. On the 19th Kailpat- 
rick, with his cavalry division, having crossed Bull Run, pressed on toward 
Warrenton. When within a few miles of that place he encountered Hamp- 
ton’s troopers, who were covering the Confederate rear. Hampton fell back 
for a space until joined by Stuart and Fitz Lee. Kilpatrick was in turn 
driven back, not without confusion, losing 200 prisoners. What with Im- 
boden’s captures at Charlestown, the Confederates had made, during these 
five days, about 2500 prisoners, and had lost not more than a quarter as 
many. In killed and wounded the losses were about equal, not far from 
500 on each side. Lee had, however, succeeded in his chief purpose, that 
of securing himself against any probable attack during the few remaining 
weeks of the autumn. 

While, however, Meade was waiting at Warrenton for the repair of the 
railroad, he meditated an indirect offensive movement, being nothing other 
than a repetition of Burnside’s, entered upon just a year before. He pro- 
posed to march rapidly to Fredericksburg, cross there and seize the heights, 
and thus transfer his base of operations from the Orange and Alexandria to 
the Fredericksburg Railroad. He argued that this movement would be a 
complete surprise to the enemy; that the heights of Fredericksburg could 
be seized before Lee could get down there; and then, he says, “if Lee fol- 
lowed me down there, it would be just what I wanted ; if he did not, then I 
could take up my position there, open my communications, and then ad- 
vance upon him or threaten Richmond.” But Halleck refused his consent 
to this plan ; he was opposed to any change of base—a phrase which indeed 
had come to have an ominous sound. If Meade chose to make any move- 
ment against Lee, he was at liberty to do so, but there must be no change 
of base.1_ Why, in November, Halleck should sanction the very operation 
which he had positively forbidden in July, is inconceivable. Lee’s army 
was somewhat stronger now than then ;? Meade’s was considerably weaker. 
Then there were four months of favorable weather; now there was no like- 
lihood of as many weeks. Then the Union army was flushed by the great 
victory, and the Confederate dispirited by the great defeat of Gettysburg ; 


ss ee 
? Com. Rep., ii., 342. 
* Confederate returns: July 31, 41,135; October 31, 45,614 ; November 20, 48,269. 


6Q 


now the Confederates were inspirited, and the Federals dispirited by the re- 
sult of the subsequent operations. 

The Confederate army lay meanwhile behind the Rappahannock, widely 
scattered. 'T'wo brigades were on the north bank, occupying intrenchments 
at Rappahannock Station which had been thrown up by the Federals. On 
the 7th of November Meade put his army in motion. It was formed into 
two columns—the First, Second, and Third Corps under French; the Fifth 
and Sixth under Sedgwick. In the early morning Birney’s division of 
French’s corps waded across the river at Kelly’s Ford, captured 500 prison- 
ers, and prevented any supports from coming up to Rappahannock Station 
where Sedgwick’s corps was to cross. Sedgwick was delayed until after- 
noon before the works on the north bank. Russell, who led the first divi- 
sion, just at sunset reported that he would with his 8000 men undertake to 
storm the intrenchments. He charged upon them with fixed bayonets with- 
out firing a shot. He met a fire so fierce that in ten minutes his leading 
regiment, the Fifth Maine, lost 16 out of its 23 officers, and 123 out of 850 
men; but the works were carried. At the same moment the One Hundred 
and 'T'wenty-first New York and the Fifth Maine, firing but a single volley, 
swept through the rifle-pits and gained the pontoon bridge, cutting off the 
retreat of the garrison. A few escaped by swimming, but 1600 out of 2000 
surrendered. This brilliant achievement redressed the balance of losses in 
this campaign. 

It was now dark. Birney, in command of the Third Corps, sent word 
to French, across the river, that he would advance at daylight. He began 
to move, but was checked by an order from Meade. In the afternoon, hav- 
ing been joined by Sedgwick’s corps, he advanced to Brandy Station, half 
way to Culpepper, whither Lee had fallen back, with some 30,000 men, be- 
ing all that he could then concentrate from his widely-scattered canton- 
ments. Birney was eager to follow, confident that he could strike a telling 
blow. But Meade, cautious every where except upon the actual battle-field, 
would not consent. He brought up his whole army to the Station, and Lee, 


availing himself of the hesitation, recrossed the Rapidan. Meade pushed his 
advance posts to Culpepper and beyond, and for nearly three weeks lay in- 
active.’ It is difficult to understand why the signal advantage which had 
been gained was not followed up, and the whole day of the 8th wasted in 
uncertain movements. But the golden opportunity of falling with his whole 
force upon a portion of the Confederate army was lost; and when Lee had 
fallen back behind the Rapidan, it was hazardous to follow until the railroad 


tappahannock, and placed in position between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, somewhere 

near its former position, but not quite so far to the front as before, because I had not my commu- 
nications open. Here a farther delay was rendered necessary until the railroad could be completed 
from Warrenton Junction and the Rappahannock, and my communications opened.”—Meade, in 
Com. Rep., ii., 842. 


4 


529 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ NOVEMBER, 1863. 


MINE RUN.—WARREN’S LAST POSITION. 


NE RUN -RECROSSING AT GERMANIA FORD. 


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Novemper, 1863.] 


As November drew near a close, Lee evidently supposed that active op- 
erations for the season were over. He therefore scattered his troops in win- 
ter quarters over a wide extent of country. Evwell’s corps, on the right, rest- 
ed upon Mine Run, a mere brook, with a depth of water of from a few inches 
to two feet, creeping through swamps and dense undergrowth. It runs along 
the western margin of the Wilderness, and empties into the Rapidan a dozen 
miles west of Chancellorsville. Along this stream intrenchments had been 
formed and abatis constructed. These were not very strongly held; and all 
the lower fords of the Rapidan were left wholly unguarded. The Confed- 
erate army was somewhat stronger than at any period since Longstreet’s de- 
parture for the West. The returns of November 20 showed 56,000 men, of 
whom 48,000 were present for duty; but it was widely scattered. Ewell’s 
corps was posted along Mine Run, thence stretching southward as far as Or- 
ange Court-house, a distance of fully fifteen miles. Still farther lay Hill’s 
corps, its extremity being at Charlottesville, thirty miles farther. The dis- 
tance from the extreme right to the extreme left was forty-five miles, and 
there was an interval of some miles between Ewell and Hill. Meade had in 
all about 70,000 men, closely concentrated within a few miles of Lee’s right 
at Mine Run; of these, about 60,000 were brought forward in aid of the op- 
eration which was now to be undertaken.’ 

It seemed to Meade that by suddenly crossing the Rapidan at the fords 
where Hooker had before crossed, then striking the plank road and turnpike 
leading westward toward Orange Court-house, he would, by a rapid march 
of barely twenty miles, fall upon Ewell’s corps, crush that before Hill could 
come up, and then turn upon that corps, drive it back, and thus gain an ef- 
fective lodgment at Orange Court-house and Gordonsville. The movement 
was undoubtedly a feasible one, provided no mischance occurred, and every 
part of it was conducted precisely as planned ; but its success depended upon 
the contingencies of time, space, and weather. 

The 24th of November was the time set for the movement; but, as if by 
way of premonition, a furious storm arose, which delayed every thing for 
two days. On the 26th the march was begun. The several corps marched 
in two separate columns, by several different roads. It was supposed that 
all would reach their points of concentration beyond what had been ascer- 
tained to be the extremity of the Confederate intrenchments on Mine Run 
by noon of the 27th. Warren reached the Rapidan at Germania Ford at 
the time appointed; but French, who was to cross hard by, was three hours 
behind time, and thus the passage was delayed, for Meade would not send 
one corps over alone. Then, again, somebody had blundered in measuring 
the width of the stream; every pontoon bridge was just one boat too short, 
and the difficulty had to be supplied by bridging. Thus almost a day was 
lost in taking the first step, the passage of the Rapidan, which was not ef 
fected until the 27th. Warren then pushed on rapidly. He had, indeed, a 
good road from the Rapidan southward, and within an hour of the appoint- 
ed time was at the point where he was to be joined by the Third Corps. 
But French got entangled in the labyrinth of paths, and halted four miles 
short of the place for junction, where he was held in check by a body of the 
enemy who had been pushed forward in advance of their line of intrench- 
ments. These two corps, with the First, which was to follow, formed the 
left column; the right—the First and Fifth Corps—had not got within com- 
municating distance, and till this was effected Meade would not venture an 
advance. Next morning this was made, but the enemy had fallen back to 
his intrenched position, and all that day and the next were spent in recon- 
noitring the position and fixing upon some point for attack. As Sunday, 
the 29th, drew to a close, Sedgwick, on the right, and Warren, on the left, 
reported that an attack was feasible on their fronts. Warren indeed, at 9 
o'clock, assured Meade that he was confident that the enemy would not be 
found before him in the morning? French was opposed to attacking on his 
own front, in the centre, so it was resolved to attack on the left and right, 
Warren being strengthened by two of French’s divisions, giving him a force 
of 26,000. Sedgwick opened fire with his artillery, and was just about ad- 
vancing to the assault, when an aid came from Warren with a dispatch stat- 
ing that he had suspended his assault, finding that the enemy was in great 
force on his front. There had been ample time to bring up the bulk of the 
Confederate army, and Warren had the day before demonstrated so ostenta- 
tiously that Lee’s attention was strongly directed to that part of his line, 
which he had strengthened by weakening the others.? Meade rode over to 
Warren’s position, and was reluctantly obliged to acknowledge that he had 
done wisely in not making the attack. Sedgwick now reported that the 
enemy had strengthened himself also in his front; se the order to attack was 
reversed, and Birney, who had actually begun a strong demonstration upon 
the centre, was surprised by being ordered to fall back again. Meade was 
indeed half-minded to accede to Warren’s suggestion—to keep on until he 
had passed beyond the extremity of the Confederate works, and assail them 


1 Meade mentions incidentally that in the course of these operations Warren had about 25,000 
or 26,000 men, and that this was ‘‘nearly half” of his whole army.—See Com, Rep., ii., 845, 6. 

2 So Meade testifies (Com. Rep., ii., 345, 6), and that Warren the next day wrote that he had 
suspended the attack which he had been directed to make, because the order had been based upon 
his judgment, and he found the enemy had been largely re-enforced. But Warren affirms (7id., 
386, 7): ‘*L wish it to be distinctly understood that it was no scheme of mine at all to attack at 
this piace: ... . My idea was that, as we had plenty of provisions, we should keep on until we 
had passed their left and their intrenchments there, and attack the enemy where he had not any 
PDL. >, « That the plan of the fight did not depend upon any thing that I said that night is 
apparent from the fact that the troops on the right were already in position for the attack before 
I got to General Meade. I put the best face that I could on it then,” 

3 My movement had been apparent to the enemy, for I had made all the fires I could; my ob- 
ject being to make a demonstration as of a heavy force. The enemy saw also other troops moy- 
ing, and during the night concentrated a large force there also. . . . . In one space, where there 


was not a gun before, we could then count seventeen guns in a commanding position.” (Warren, | 


in Com. Rep., ii., 386, 7.)—Birney says (/bid., 873): “I think Warren’s plan failed because it was 
attended with too much reconnoitring, fire-building, and delay, all of which fully advertised the 
movement to the watchful enemy, and prevented a surprise. When Warren was ready to attack 
he fewnd the enemy ready to receive him. 1 think that in extending their right they had weak- 
ened their centre,” 


MEADE'’S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. 


523 


in some position where they would not have time to intrench themselves be: 
fore the attack could be made. But it was now winter, and favorable weath- 
er could not be anticipated from day to day; any sudden storm would pre- 
vent the bringing forward of supplies, and of those which had been brought 
half were exhausted.1_ So Meade concluded that, under the circumstances, 
nothing more—and nothing more was equivalent to nothing at all—could 
be done. He withdrew his army to its former position. 

With the Mine Run attempt—an enterprise which could have been suc- 
cessful only in case that out of a score of untoward circumstances, all of 
which were probable, and some of which were almost certain—the closing 
campaign of 1863 in Virginia came to an end, and both armies retired to 
winter quarters to await the opening spring. 


That during the autumn and winter Richmond had been left almost 
wholly without troops, was ascertained from sure sources. Between Octo- 
ber, 18638, and March, 1864, there were there at no time more than 7000 ef: 
fective troops, while fully 10,000 Union prisoners were known to be con- 
fined in the military prisons. Several plans were formed of making a sud- 
den dash upon the Confederate capital, and at all events liberating these 
prisoners. arly in February, General Butler, now in command at Fortress 
Monroe, sent a considerable body of cavalry, supported by infantry, from 
Yorktown toward Richmond. The cavalry reached Bottom’s Bridge, on 
the Chickahominy, on the 7th; but tidings of the expedition had somehow 
preceded them, and the roads were so thoroughly obstructed as to be im- 
passable for cavalry, and the expedition returned, having effected nothing. 

At the close of the month a more formidable expedition was fitted out 
from the Army of the Potomac for the same purpose. Kilpatrick, with 
4000 cavalry, crossed the Rapidan, and passed Spottsylvania Court-house, and 
pushed rapidly on toward Richmond. On the first of March he had reached 
within less than four miles of the city, penetrating the two outer lines of 
defenses; but, being stopped at the third, he fell back, and the next day, 
concluding that the enterprise was not feasible, retreated to Yorktown. 
Meanwhile, at Spottsylvania Court-house, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, with a 
picked body of 400 cavalry, had been detached to the right, with the view 
of skirting to the south, and assailing Richmond in that direction. His 
guide had led him out of the way. Dahlgren, believing that this was done 
treacherously, hung him on the spot, and rode on his way till he reached 
the inner line of defenses. Here he was repulsed, as Kilpatrick had been 
on the other side. Endeavoring to make his way eastward, he encountered 
a body of militia, and was shot dead, his command dispersing, a third of 
them being made prisoners. The Confederates assert that on his body were 
found an address to his men, and orders and instructions, declaring his ob- 
ject to be to “destroy and burn the hateful city, and not to allow the rebel 
leader Davis and his traitorous crew to escape. .. Once in the city, it 
must be destroyed, and Davis and his cabinet killed.” The genuineness of 
these papers has been strenuously denied ; and, apart from the intrinsic im- 
probability, the account given of the transaction is so suspicious as to leave 
little doubt that these papers were either absolute forgeries or grossly in- 
terpolated. Dahlgren’s body,’after having been interred, was dug up and 
buried again secretly, and with every indignity, as that of an outlaw. 

With this unfortunate enterprise closed Meade’s campaign in Virginia. 
On the day when Kilpatrick came within sight of Richmond, Ulysses S. 
Grant was commissioned Lieutenant General of the Armies of the United 
States. The campaign soon to be opened, lasting a year lacking a month, 
was conducted by Grant. 


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and urged the retention of Buell. 


OcroseEr, 1862. ] 


CHAPTER XXXI. 
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


J. THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND. 

The Beginnings of the Army.—Roussean’s Command at Camp Joe Holt, 1861.—Creation of the 
Department of the Cumberland; it includes Kentucky and Tennessee ; General Robert Ander- 
son its first Commander.—General W. T. Sherman succeeds Anderson, October, 1861.—Is suc- 
ceeded by Buell in November.—The Department of the Cumberland becomes the Department 
of the Ohio, ineluding Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.—Kentucky and Tennessee soon absorbed 
by Halleck’s Department of the Missouri.—Buell’s Command styled ‘‘ the District of the Ohio.” 
—Rosecrans succeeds Buell, October 30, 1862, and the Department of the Cumberland is re- 
vived.—The Fourteenth Army Corps.—General Buell’s Record.—Estimate of Rosecrans’s Mili- 
tary Career; his Disadvantages ; his subordinate Commanders, Generals Thomas, McCook, 
Crittenden, and Stanley.—The Organization of the Army.—Deficiency in Cavalry.—The Battle 
of Stone River undecisive.—Fortification of Murfreesborough.—Confederate Attack on Fort 
Donelson.—Actions at Spring Hill and Franklin.—Capture of MceMinnville.—Colonel Strcight’s 
Raid; his Capture and Escape.—Rosecrans urged to Advance.—Decision of his War Council. 
—Waiting for Grant. 

rPXUE campaign for the possession of Chattanooga began with Rosecrans’s 

advance from Murfreesborough on the 24th of June, 1868, and termi- 
nated with General Bragg’s defeat on the 25th of November, just five months 
and one day afterward. The secure tenure of Chattanooga cost two great 
battles, involving a loss on both sides—if we include the killed and wound- 
ed in these battles and during the siege of Knoxville—of over 50,000 men. 

This campaign had two well-defined periods. With the first of these, which 

closed when General Rosecrans was relieved of his command (October 19th, 

1863), the Army of the Cumberland is alone directly connected. 

The organization of this army had its beginning in a little band of Ken- 
tuckians, summoned to Camp Joe Holt, near Louisville, early in 1861. This 
body of volunteers was commanded by Colonel, afterward Major General 
Lovell H. Rousseau, who, understanding that war must for a time silence 
statesmanship, had left his seat in the Kentucky Senate, and rallied about 
him the loyalists of his State. His eloquence, courage, and patriotism found 
a clear and positive utterance in this unsettled period, when Kentuckians 
were wavering between secession and loyalty, bound on one side by the ties 
of kindred and association, on the other by a strong sentiment in favor of 
the Union. Under the influence of the words and examples of such men 
as Rousseau and Anderson, this sentiment became dominant over sectional 
interests, and was ardently espoused by the greater portion of the state. 
In answer to Rousseau’s call, a force of nearly 2000 men was soon assem- 
bled in his encampment. At Camp Dick Robinson there was a similar 
force under General Nelson, and on the 15th of August, 1861, Kentucky and 
Tennessee were constituted a separate military district, known as the Depart- 
ment of the Cumberland. General Robert Anderson, the hero of Fort 
Sumter, was the first commander of this department, General W. T. Sher- 
man being second in command. Sherman succeeded Anderson in October, 
1861, and established his camp on Muldraugh’s Hill, about 40 miles south 
of Louisville. Here he awaited the arrival of troops from the states north 
of the Ohio. These came promptly forward, so that before the close of 
the year there was assembled an army of 70,000 men, over 20,000 of whom 
were Kentuckians. 

In November Sherman was succeeded by Buell. With this change of 
command the Department of the Cumberland became the Department of the 
Ohio—Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio being added to its content, while that 
portion of Kentucky lying west of the Cumberland River was transferred to 
the Department of the Missouri, then commanded by General Halleck. Sub- 
sequently (in March, 1862), Halleck’s department was extended eastward to 
a north and south line passing through Knoxville, and was designated the 
Department of the Mississippi; three months later it included all of Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, Buell’s command being then known as the “ District 
of the Ohio.” When Rosecrans succeeded Buell (October 80, 1862), the title 
of his command was again changed, the Department of the Cumberland be- 
ing revived, including all of Tennessee and Kentucky east of the Tennessee 
River, and such parts of Northern Alabama and Georgia as should be con- 
quered by the United States troops. At the same time, the Department of 
the Tennessee, General Grant’s command, comprised Cairo, Forts Henry and 
Donelson, and all of Kentucky and Tennessee west of the Tennessee River. 
Grant’s troops were designated the Thirteenth, and those of Rosecrans the 
Fourteenth Army Corps. 

The army which thus came under Rosecrans’s command had an unstained 
record. Under Anderson and Sherman it had been but the nucleus of an 
army. Buell made it formidable in numbers, and perfect in organization 
and discipline; he created the Army of the Cumberland. Portions of it 
fought at Piketon, Prestonburg, Middle Creek, Pound Gap, and Mill Spring, 
but the whole army was engaged in battle for the first time at Shiloh, where, 
on the second day, it went into the fight in as perfect order as if it had 
fought a score of battles. 

The supersedure of Buell by Rosecrans was owing to a general lack of 
confidence in the former commander. - During the space of nearly a year he 
had organized and disciplined a great army, but he had done little with it; 
he had gained no grand, positive success The defeat of Bragg in Kentucky 
would have made Buell the great military hero of 1862. But Bragg es- 


_ eaped, after having compelled the Federal army to abandon its advanced 


position—escaped without a battle, except that of Perryville, which was pre- 
cipitated by General McCook’s disobedience of orders. The people were 
disappointed. Halleck had become dissatisfied with General Buell. Noth- 
ing but Thomas’s urgent remonstrance had prevented him from making a 
change in the command when the Federal army reached Louisville, in the 
fall of 1862. Thomas declined the command which was then offered him, 
After Bragg’s retreat, Buell was court- 
6R 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


525 


martialed for the affair at Perryville, but was acquitted and restored to the 
command. But scarcely had this been done when he was again removed, 
and ordered to relieve General Banks in the Department of the Gulf. Learn- 
ing that the change had been made by the President immediately on the 
receipt of a protest from Andrew Johnson, then Military Governor of Ten- 
nessee, he very properly declined to accept the new appointment. The 
command of the Army of the Cumberland should have naturally devolved 
upon General Thomas after Buell’s removal, but it so happened that just at 
this time it had become impossible for General Rosecrans to remain any 
longer in the same military department with General Grant, and Halleck 
gave him the Army of the Cumberland. General Buell in some respects 
bore a remarkable resemblance to General Thomas. In temperament they 
were alike. Both were cool in the presence of danger. Both were perfect 
soldiers in bearing, courage, and honor. It is impossible fairly to criticise 
Buell’s military career, because it was so soon concluded. If he had any 
great military fault, it was an excessive regard for regularity. This was of 
great value in the discipline of a large army, but might easily prove an im- 
pediment in the conduct of a campaign. He was a good tactician; he was 
a general of extraordinary energy; yet he lacked dash and brilliancy of 
movement. Ife excited no enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the element upon 
which a volunteer army mainly lives and moves. If he lacked some of the 
excellencies which characterized our more brilliant leaders, he was also free 
from many of their prominent weaknesses. He was never petulant or im- 
patient, and never lost his dignity. He was incapable of dishonor, and the 
charges which were made against him in 1862, impeaching his patriotism, 
were unjust, and, on the part of those who ought to have known him better, 
were malicious. 

No general could have been more widely different to Buell than his suc- 
cessor, General Rosecrans. Personally, and as regards physical tempera- 
ment, they were as far apart as the antipodes. Nature had done little to fit 
Rosecrans for the highest requirements of generalship. He was too cour- 
ageous to avoid danger or responsibility, yet the most critical moment of a 
battle would sometimes find him beside himself with nervous excitement. 
To such a temperament, in any large field of human effort, the highest or- 
der of achievements is denied. Other things being equal, the best general 
is he who has the most self-control at the decisive moment, whose powers 
are in most instant command, and to whom the hour of embarrassment or 
of peril comes, not fraught with confusion, but pregnant with suggestion. 
It is in such hours that battles are lost or won—lost, in nearly every in- 
stance, by the over-excitable general; and, in nearly every instance, won by 
the cool, self-possessed commander, who, seeing only the chances of success, 
is blind to the tokens of possible defeat. Rosecrans fought unequally. His 
early campaigns in West Virginia were in every particular admirably con- 
ducted. He very soon had the mortification of seeing other officers, who 
had effected less, absorb his command, and other and less promising plans 
adopted in preference to his own. After assuming command of the Army 
of the Mississippi (June 27, 1862), he fought well at Iuka and Corinth. He 
had never lost a battle before he took the Army of the Cumberland. His 
military career had been so successful as to command popular confidence, 
and great expectations were entertained of him, which were not fully real- 
ized. 

Rosecrans was a general of more than ordinary ability. His plans were 
often brilliant, and led often to successful results. Then, again, they would 
be elaborate to an almost absurd degree, and so faulty as to embarrass him- 
self rather than the enemy. His strategy at one time excites our admira- 
tion, and at another appals us with its manifest weakness. Now we feel 
that he is conducting a magnificent campaign, and the next moment he 
seems to be playing with his army. After weeks of steady and almost 
sleepless activity in preparing for movement, we behold him advancing, and 
at length—after a series of manceuyres, some of them admirable, and some 
of them, as likely as not, desperately short-sighted—in the presence of the 
enemy, we find him in a state of undue excitement, without any definite 
plan, knowing nothing about the hostile army, and incompetent to take his 
proper place as a commander on the field. Military critics will differ widely 
in their estimate of General Rosecrans; but he must be unjust who can not 
find much in him to admire, and he must be a very partial judge indeed 
who, after a mature consideration of Rosecrans’s campaigns from Novem- 
ber, 1862, to October, 1863, can pronounce him fully equal to his duties as a 
commander. At the same time it must be remembered that Rosecrans la- 
bored under great disadvantages, both from the difficult nature of the coun- 
try through which he moved, and from the inadequate support which he re- 
ceived from the War Department. And so much is due to accident, or to 
favoring circumstances, in the final estimate which is made of public men, 
that probably Rosecrans, if he had had competent subordinates, and had out- 
numbered the enemy in his later campaigns, instead of being himself out- 
numbered, would to-day rank among the first generals of the war, and his 
faults have all been forgotten. Faults, so easily forgiven in those who suc- 
ceed (upon whatsoever their success may have depended), fall with crushing 
weight upon those who fail. 

The army which Rosecrans received from Buell was not what it had 
been. The ardor with which its soldiers had enlisted had been quenched 
by a year of fruitless labor. Over one third of the army (83,000 men) were 
in hospitals, on furlough, or numbered among the deserters. Every stage 
of Rosecrans’s advance called for a strong detail of men for garrison duty. 
The cavalry arm of the service was far inferior to that of the enemy, and 
long lines of communication had to be guarded with extreme caution. The 
enemy, on the other hand, operating in a friendly country, could make his 
entire force effective against Rosecrans. 


526 


Very little alteration was made in the organization of the Army of the 
Cumberland on the change of its commanders. Its composition remained 
the same. It consisted, in about equal proportions, of veterans and raw re- 
eruits—the latter, of course, destitute of discipline, and the former poorly 
clothed and equipped. Thomas was given an active command, and Briga- 
dier General Gilbert was relieved, and detailed for the protection of the rail- 
road north of Bowling Green. 

Major General George H. Thomas, commanding the centre of the army, 
consisting of Fry's, Rousseau’s, Negley’s, Dumont’s, and Palmer’s divisions, 
was Rosecrans’s best general. He was now forty-six years of age. He had 
received a thorough military education, and acquired considerable military 
experience in the Florida and Mexican campaigns. At the beginning of 
the civil war he fought in Virginia, under Patterson and Banks, and re- 
ceived his appointment as brigadier general of volunteers August 17, 1861, 
when he was removed from Virginia to General Anderson’s command. 
Here, early in 1862, he fought the battle of Mill Spring. From March of 
that year until the advance upon Corinth, his division, located at Nashville, 
constituted the reserve of Buell’s army. He was, on the 25th of April, 1862, 
appointed major general of volunteers. A week later his division was trans- 
ferred to the Army of the Tennessee, and he was assigned by General Hal- 
leck to the command of the right wing of that army. In June his com- 
mand rejoined Buell. Upon the retreat of the latter to Louisville, Thomas 
was appointed his second in command. After the battle of Stone River, 
the Army of the Cumberland, under Rosecrans, was divided into three corps 
—the Fourteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-first—General Thomas command- 
ing the Fourteenth, which consisted of five divisions, under Rousseau, Neg- 
ley, J. J. Reynolds, Fry, and R. B. Mitchell. 

Major General Alexander McDowell McCook, who commanded the Twen- 
tieth Corps of Rosecrans’s army, was a native of Ohio, and about thirty 
years of age. He was a graduate of West Point, and in 1858 had been as- 
signed to that institution as instructor in tactics and in the art of war. He 
was relieved from this position at the opening of the war, and appointed 
colonel of the First Ohio Regiment. With this regiment he fought at Bull 
Run. On the 3d of September, 1861, he was made a brigadier general of 
volunteers, and given a command in Kentucky. In his camp on Green 
River he organized the Second Division, with which he fought at Shiloh on 
the second day of that battle. In the movement on Corinth he commanded 
the advance of Buell’s army. He fought the battle of Perryville against 
orders, but with determined bravery. He commanded the right wing of 
Rosecrans’s army at Stone River, where he was driven back by the over- 
whelming forces of the enemy. Although a brave soldier, he was better 
fitted for a division than a corps commander. 

The same judgment may be passed upon Major General Crittenden, com- 
manding the Twenty-first Corps. Before the war his military education 
and experience had been confined to his service in the Mexican War as aid- 
de-camp to General Taylor. Ie was a Kentuckian, being the second son of 
Hon. John J. Crittenden. His elder brother George was in the Confederate 
army. He was of about the same age as General Thomas. If Generals 
McCook and Crittenden, who may be termed two of Rosecrans’s “ disad- 
vantages,” had been displaced by more competent officers, the history of 
the Army of the Cumberland would have been materially changed. 

Major General David S. Stanley, who had been, at Rosecrans’s request, 
transferred from the Army of the Mississippi to take the command of the 
cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland, was an officer whose great worth 
Rosecrans had already learned to appreciate. He graduated at West Point 
in the class of 1852, which numbered among its members McCook, Hartsuff, 
Slocum, and Sheridan. At the beginning of the war he was stationed at 
Fort Smith, in Arkansas. He fought under Lyon at Dug Springs and 
Wilson’s Creek, and afterward joined Fremont in the movement on Spring- 
field. He was appointed brigadier general of volunteers September 28th, 
1861. Early in 1862 he joined General Pope’s command, and his division 
was the first to occupy the trenches before New Madrid. In the advance 
on Corinth he commanded the Second Division of the Army of the Missis- 
sippi. In the battle of Corinth this division especially distinguished itself, 
holding the left centre, supporting Battery Robinette. Stanley joined Rose- 
crans at Nashville in November, 1862, and devoted himself to the reorgani- 
zation of the cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland. 

The departments of no army were ever more completely organized or 
more efficient in their operation than those of Rosecrans’s. Take the matter 
of supplies for an example. No general ever was beset by greater difficul- 
ties in this respect. He was in a barren and hostile country, and the entire 
subsistence of his army must be transported over a distance of from one to 
more than two hundred miles, either by a railroad exposed at many points 
to interruption from the enemy’s cavalry, or by the Cumberland River, 
which, during a considerable portion of the year, was too low for navigation. 
Yet the soldiers never wanteel food. In other respects they were equally 
well provided for. To facilitate the advance of the army, a Pioneer brigade 
was organized, consisting of about 8000 men, commanded by James St. Clair 
Morton. Every measure was taken to learn the plans and forces of the 
enemy ; the secret service of the Army of the Cumberland was one of its 
characteristic excellencies, and well repaid the $10,000 per month which it 
cost the government. It was a service to which Rosecrans was very partial. 
He was the most Jesuitical of generals, and would himself have made a capi- 
tal spy. It was in appreciation, probably, of his abundant mental resources 
in this direction that the title of “the wily Dutchman” was given him, both 
by ourselves and the enemy. 

Before and for a long time after the battle of Stone River the enemy’s su- 
perior cavalry force was a source of great anxiety and embarrassment to 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JANUARY, 1863. 


Rosecrans. He fought stubbornly with the War Department for the means 
of increasing the numbers and efficiency of this arm of the service. He 
wanted good horses, saddles, and revolving carbines, and his importunity in 
asking for them seems to have only had the effect of vexing General Hal- 
leck. His requests were always urgent, but respectful. ‘“I must have,” he 
writes, January 14, 1868, “cavalry or mounted infantry. I could mount in- 
fantry had I horses and saddles. . . . . With mounted infantry I can drive 
the rebel cavalry to the wall, and keep the roads open in my rear. Not so 
now. . . . Will you authorize the purchase of saddles and horses for mount- 
ing, when requisite, 5000 more infantry?” “ Why,” he asks, two weeks 
later, ‘should the rebels command the country which, with its resources, 
would belong to our army, because they can muster the small percentage of 
six or eight thousand more cavalry than we?” ‘Toward the close of March 
he again reminds the general-in-chief of his need. ‘ Let it be clearly un- 
derstood,” he writes, “that the enemy have five to our one, and can, there- 
fore, command the resources of the country and the services of the inhabit- 
ants.” By this time he had gained permission to mount 5000 infantry, and 
had sueceeded in mounting 2000. But he was unable to mass his cavalry 
for expeditions, because they were occupied on picket duty. General Rous- 
seau offered to raise 8000 or 10,000 infantry to increase the cavalry force 
if the government would mount and arm them, but he seems to have re- 
ceived no assurance that this would be done until the middle of summer. 
Of the cavalry force in hand, only forty per cent. was available for want 
of horses. This deficiency was repeatedly urged, but the horses were not 
furnished.? 

Let us do Rosecrans ample justice in this matter. We can not over-esti- 
mate his embarrassment arising from a deficient cavalry force. What was 
done for Grant by the gun-boats could be done for Rosecrans only by a 
large and well-equipped force of cavalry or mounted infantry. It is proba- 
ble that his urgent representations at length opened the eyes of the War De- 


Report of Congressional Committee on Rosecrans’s Campaigns, p. 39. 

2 The two following letters to General Meigs and Secretary Stanton indicate Rosecrans’s situ- 
ation in respect of cavalry : 

‘* Murfreesborough, May 10, 1863. 

‘¢GpnerRAL,—Your letter of the Ist instant, on the subject of cavalry horses, was yesterday re- 
ceived and carefully considered. I thank you for taking pains to write so fully. I will explain 
to you, with equal care, the true state of the case in this army, for I find you have fallen into quite 
a number of errors on the subject. 

“Ist. It is a fact that up to the Ist instant our total supply of cavalry horses was as follows : 


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Mounted infamtryisecncsmaseuss se pacencstices helices t cates asthe ches teen rane asbee eee 1938 

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‘‘But when these troops are called out, we have at no time been able to turn out more than 
5000 for active duty. The other cavalry horses, reported by Colonel Taylor, were: 

Hscoris and, On derliess sacra. sesasisinseiesoeeesss scree otueseogeaaccecnsenensitaede: aueun tats 2028 
Unserviceable in’ Nashvillevii vec. stecoclsesicss bes deatusstased@eelratesousenesicsmeteeseensee 975 
3003 

‘¢You will thus see that we have not the cavalry you suppose. We are using the most strenu- 
ous and unremitting efforts to increase in care of horses and the efficiency of this arm. 

«©9d. But I must call your attention to the fact that this small cavalry force, effectively not half 
that is required for a permanent garrison of infantry equal to that of this army, have to furnish pick- 
ets, scouts, and couriers for Fort Donelson, Clarksville, Nashville, Gallatin, Carthage, and the front 
of this army from Franklin to this place, twenty-eight miles. You may thus form some idea of 
the labor imposed on our cavalry, and how our horses are worn out so rapidly. 

‘¢3d, As to the actual work of this arm, besides the routine labor, you will find it has some ex- 
pedition or fight in mass nearly every week, and as yet without a single failure. 

‘«4th. As to expeditions, we have not a sufficiently strong cavalry force to drive that of the en- 
emy to the wall, or to risk detachments for the enterprises of which you speak to the rear of the 
rebels. The one which I did send out under Colonel Streight, in spite of our precautions, was 
captured by the superior cavalry force of the enemy, detached from Granger’s front at Franklin, 
where Van Dorn has still left about four to our one. 

‘5th. As to forage, our want is for long forage, and is owing to the impossibility of getting 
transportation either by water or rai]. You must remember we are 220 miles from our base of 
supplies at Louisville. You may rely on it, I am fully alive to all you have suggested, and ask for 
nothing which I am not fully satisfied will be an ample economy to the service. Had we a cav- 
alry force equal to that of the enemy, we would have commanded all the forage of the country— 
commanded information of its inhabitants, upon whose fears we, instead of they, would thus be able 
to operate. 

‘© As to the comparative number of cavalry in our and other armies, I am sure you are mistaken 
as to Russia at least, which has 80,000 regular cavalry, while all the outpost, picket, and courier 
duty is done by irregular cavalry. But, even were it otherwise, I know what cavalry would do for 
us here. Iam not mistaken in saying that this great army would gain more from 10,000 effect- 


ive cavalry than from 20,000 infantry. W.S. Rosecrans, Major General Commanding, 
‘¢ Brigadier General M. C. Mrias, Quarter-master General, U. 8S. Army, Washington, D, C.” 


** Winchester, July 26, 1862. 
“Ton. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War: 

‘As you approve of General Rousseau’s suggestions and views as to the advantage of raising 
an additional amount of force of 10,000 men to operate against the rebels from this direction, I 
have sent him to Washington with letters to yourself and General Halleck, and directed him to 
lay before you the plan which he has of obtaining from the disciplined troops recently mustered 
out of service in the East such a mounted force as would enable us to command the country south 
of us, and control its resources, cut off the enemy’s means of drawing supplies from the country, 
destroy his lines of communication, and restore law and order to the entire country from which we 
have expelled the insurgents—a thing now impossible, because no one desires to ayow his senti- 
ments for fear the rebel cavalry or guerrillas will wreak vengeance on him. At the expense of 
repeating what I have so often laid before the War Department when urging the necessity of 
cavalry arms for the force we actually had in pay, but badly armed and mounted, I beg leave to 
state : 

‘Ist. An adequate cavalry force would have given us control of all Middle Tennessee, with all 
its forage, horses, cattle, and mules, and driven the enemy from it without the battle of Stone Riv- 
er, and re-established civil order. 

“9d. It would save us 5000 infantry now guarding our lines of communication, and the attend- 
ant expense. 

“3d. We could have destroyed the enemy’s lines of communication, and compelled him to re. 
linquish East Tennessee and Chattanooga, and return to Atlanta. 

“4th. We could have developed, by giving protection to the Union sentiment, which does not 
manifest itself much beyond the kimits of our infantry lines, for fear of calling down the vengeance 
of the rebel cavalry and guerrillas, whose superior numbers and knowledge of the country have 
hitherto given almost exclusive control of it. As we advance we shall have the same condition 
of things renewed on our front, and must take with us a superior cavalry force to insure success. 
We should, moreover, require additional mounted force to control the country, protect the roads 
in our rear, exterminate guerrillas, and give confidence to the population, who will then readily 
furnish us with supplies, and give us information that will aid us to put down brigandage, and 
thus relieve us from the necessities of detachments of infantry at many points where otherwise 
they will be indispensable. The importance of General Rousseau’s mission may be inferred from 
the value I attach to cavalry force to operate in connection with this army. To all these uses of 
cavalry [ will add another no less important. Should we succeed in disorganizing the enemy’s 
foree, a powerful cavalry force will enable us to harass and destroy his communications, and thus 
make him an easy prey. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

‘©W.S. Rosecrans, Major General.” 


Ee 


Frsrvary, 1863. ] 


partment for the first time to the incalculable value of well-mounted caval- 
ry. We find, at any rate, that after this period the Federal cavalry force 
was gradually increased and improved; but the change came too late to 
very materially assist Rosecrans, who, of all our commanders, was in most 
need of it. 

Just before the battle of Stone River the Army of the Cumberland num- 
bered 47,000 men, of whom little more than 3000 were cavalry. We have 
already, in a previous chapter, brought down the military operations of this 
army to the conclusion of the battle of Stone River. Before this battle Rose- 
erans had for some time been pressed to advance, but he found it hazardous 
to do so until Bragg had sent away his cavalry on distant expeditions. Yet 
so little were his real difficulties appreciated at Washington, that Halleck, in 
a long letter of instructions, had directed him to march to Kast Tennessee, a 
distance of over 240 miles, through a barren and mountainous region, and 
at the beginning of the most inclement season of the yeay ven if the ad- 
vance had been possible, Rosecrans’s cavalry would have been ludicrously 
incompetent to protect his long line of communications, thus leaving the 
way open for Bragg to Nashville and the Ohio River. 

The battle of Stone River was not decisive. Rosecrans inflicted upon 
Bragg greater damage than he received, and drove him from the field. It 
is a fact which can not be disputed, that the enemy had the advantage of 
superior numbers. The Federal army went into the battle 43,000 strong, 
and when it occupied Murfreesborough, January 5, numbered little more 
than 30,000. Neither army was in a condition, after the battle, to resume 
the offensive. The Army of the Cumberland had lost some of its bravest 
officers. Among these were its youngest brigadier general, J. W. Sill, who 
had been one of the first to join Sherman at Muldraugh’s Hill in 1861; Col- 
onel J. P. Garesché, chief of staff to General Rosecrans, whose head was 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


527 


blown away by a cannon ball while he was riding over the field in execu- 
tion of a special mission for his commander; and Colonels Roberts, Milli- 
ken, Shaeffer, McKee, Reed, Forman, Jones, Hawkins, and Kell. Brigadier 
General James A. Garfield, the hero of Middle Oreek, succeeded Garesché as 
Rosecrans'’s chief of staff. This officer's skill and bravery on the battle-field 
was only equaled by the talent and uncompromising patriotism which he 
afterward displayed in the political arena. 

After its occupation by the Army of the Cumberland, Murfreesborough 
was fortified and made a dépdét of supplies. Here the army remained en- 
camped for six months, while General Grant was conducting the Vicksburg 
campaign, ‘The rainy season soon began, but, while interfering with offen- 
sive operations, it swelled the waters of the Cumberland, and facilitated the 
accumulation of supplies. The monotony of camp life was relieved only by 
foraging excursions and encounters with the Confederate cavalry. These 
were conducted at some risk. Not unfrequently the men and wagons were 
picked up by the enemy, who succeeded sometimes, also, in capturing and 
burning a transport on the river. 

An attempt was made by the Confederates, early in February, to obstruct 
the navigation of the Cumberland by the recapture of Fort Donelson. On 
the third of that month, Forrest, Wheeler, and Wharton advanced upon the 
fort from above and below, with eleven regiments of cavalry and nine guns. 
The garrison defending Fort Donelson at this time consisted of nine compa- 
mes of the Eighty-third Illinois, with a battalion of the Fifth Iowa cavalry, 
and numbered less than 800 men, under the command of Colonel A. C. Hard- 
ing. ‘The only artillery defense was a battery of four rifled pieces and asin- 
gle 82-pounder siege gun. A little after noon Harding was summoned to 
surrender, and promptly refused. The attack was then commenced. The 
defense was gallantly conducted, and after repeated charges, which cost them 


MS sil 
YS x\ NAY 


VN 


Fenn Wy 
\\ 


PACK-MULES IN THE MOUNTAINS, 


528 


upward of 1000 men, the Confederates retired. Harding’s loss was 16 kill- 
ed, 60 wounded, and 50 prisoners. 

On the 5th of March a Federal brigade, numbering 1806 men, under Col- 
onel John Coburn, was surrounded and captured by Forrest’s and Van 
Dorn’s cavalry near Spring Hill. The cavalry and artillery of the com- 
mand escaped. The Confederate force consisted of six brigades, under Gen- 
erals Van Dorn, French, Armstrong, Crosby, Martin, and Jackson. 

A fortnight later, Colonel A. 8. Hall, with about 1400 men, encountered 
the Confederate General John Morgan at Milton, twelve miles northeast of 
Murfreesborough. Morgan attacked with a force numbering nearly 2000 
men, and, after a fight of three and a half hours, withdrew from the field, 
defeated. The Confederate loss was about 400. Hall lost 60, killed, wound- 
ed, and missing. 

About the middle of April, Van Dorn, with 9000 men, attacked General 
Gordon Granger's force at Franklin, consisting of Baird’s and Gilbert’s divi- 
sions, 1600 men and 16 guns, and Generals Smith’s and Stanley’s cavalry 
brigades of 2700 men, with four guns. The defense was materially assisted 
by an uncompleted fort, mounting two siege and two rifled guns, and com- 
manding the northern approaches to Franklin. The attack was repulsed, 
the enemy losing about 300 men, and General Granger 87. 

McMinnville, a few miles southeast of Murfreesborough, was captured on 
the 21st of April by General Reynolds’s division, Colonel Wilder’s mounted 
brigade, and a cavalry force under Colonel Minty, 1700 strong. About 
700 Confederates were dispersed, and a few wagons taken. 

In the mean time Colonel A. D. Streight had been given the command 
of an independent provisional brigade, consisting of his own regiment (the 
Fifty-first Indiana), the Hightieth Illinois, and portions of two Ohio regi- 
ments, numbering all together about 1800 men. Colonel Streight early in 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ APRIL, 18638. 


April received instructions to proceed to Northern Georgia, to cut the rail- 
roads in Brage’s rear, and destroy all dépéts of supplies, manufactories of 
arms, clothing, etc.’ 


1 The following is a copy of the instructions given to Colonel Streight : 

‘Headquarters, Department of the Cumberland, Murfreesborough , April 8, 1863. 
Colonel A. D. Stretaur, Vifty-first Indiana Volunteers : 

‘“‘By Special Field Orders No. 94, Paragraph VIII., you have been assigned to the command 
of an independent provisional brigade for temporary purposes. After fitting out your command 
with equipments and supplies, as you have already been directed in the verbal instructions of the 
general commanding this department, you will proceed, by a route of which you will be advised by 
telegraph, to some good steamboat-landing on the Tennessee River, not far above Fort Henry, 
where you will embark your command and proceed up the river. At Hamburg you will commu- 
nicate with Brigadier General Dodge, who will probably have a messenger there awaiting your 
arrival. If it should then appear unsafe to move farther up the river, you will debark at Ham- 
burg, and without delay join the force of General Dodge, which will then be en route for Iuka, 
Mississippi. If, however, it should be deemed safe, you will land at Eastport and form a junec- 
tion with General Dodge. From that point you will then march in conjunction with him to 
menace Tuscumbia; but you will not wait to join in the attack unless it should be necessary for 
the safety of General Dodge’s command or your own, or unless some considerable advantage can 

e gained over the enegny without interfering with the general object of your expedition. After 
haying marched long enough with General Dodge to create a general impression that you are a 
part of his expedition, you will push to the southward, and reach Russelville or Moulton. From 
there your route will be governed by circumstances; but you will, with all reasonable dispatch, push 
on to Western Georgia and cut the railroads which supply the rebel army by way of Chattanoo- 
ga. ‘To accomplish this is the chief object of your expedition, and you must not allow collateral 
or incidental schemes, even though promising great results, to delay you so as to endanger your 
return. Your quarter-master has been furnished with funds sufficient for the necessary expenses 
of your command. You will draw your supplies and keep your command well mounted from the 
country through which you pass. For all property taken for the legitimate use of your command, 
you will make cash payments in full to men of undoubted loyalty; give the usual conditional re- 
ceipts to men whose loyalty is doubtful; but to rebels nothing. You are particularly commanded to 
restrain your command from pillage and marauding. You will destroy all dépots of supplies for 
the rebel army, all manufactories of guns, ammunition, equipments, and clothing for their use, 
which you can, without delaying you so as to endanger your return. That you may not be tram- 
meled with minute instructions, nothing farther will be ordered than this general outline of policy and 
operation. In intrusting this highly important and somewhat perilous expedition to your charge, 
the general commanding places great reliance upon your prudence, energy, and valor, and the well- 
attested bravery and endurance of the officers and men in your command. Whenever it is pos- 
sible and reasonably safe, send us word of your progress. You may return by way of Northern 


jet, 


ao 


i 


nna 


M 


THE COURIER LINE. 


¥ 


June, 1863.] 


Streight’s command was of about the same strength as the column un- 
der Grierson, which was at the same time setting out from La Grange for 
ihe raid through Mississippi, described in a previous chapter, It was taken 
on steam-boats up the Tennessee to Eastport, Alabama, where it was joined 
by an infantry force under General Dodge. After the capture of Tuscum- 
bia by Streight, the two columns separated. General Dodge made a sweep- 
ing raid through Northern Alabama, and returned to Corinth. Streight 
struck for Northern Georgia, intending to capture Rome and Atlanta, de- 
stroying there large manufactories and magazines. He was closely followed 
by Forrest and Roddy, with a superior force of Confederate cavalry. He 
kept up a running fight for over a hundred miles, when his command, ex- 
hausted and out of ammunition, was surrendered about fifteen miles from 
Rome. ‘The privates were exchanged, but Streight and his officers were 
kept in close confinement in Richmond, being charged with felony for hav- 
ing incited slaves to rebellion. Streight finally, on February 9, 1864, with 
107 other Federal officers, escaped from Libby Prison. He succeeded, with 
about sixty of the fugitives, in making his way into the Federal lines. He 
surrendered 1365, and lost in the actions with Forrest 100 men. ‘The Con- 
federate loss in killed and wounded he claims to have been five times as 
large as his own. 

For six months, as already stated, Rosecrans remained in camp at Mur- 
freesborough. The Confederate army, under Bragg, lay about thirty miles 
south, on a branch of the Nashville Railroad running from Wartrace to 
Shelbyville. In May Grant was across the Mississippi fighting Pemberton 
and Johnston, and before the close of the month had shut up the former in 
Vicksburg, while the latter was straining every nerve to gather an army 
sufficiently large to raise the siege. At about this time the authorities at 
Washington supposed that Johnston was being heavily re-enforced for this 
purpose from General Bragg’s army. Karly in June, therefore, Halleck 
urged Rosecrans to take advantage of Bragg’s weakness and drive him into 
Georgia, when Hast Tennessee would become an easy prey to the Federal 
forces. But the matter was looked upon in quite a different light at Rose- 
crans’s headquarters. There it seemed better that Bragg should stay where 
he was. It was not believed that he had been materially weakened: it 
seemed evident that the Confederate War Department was resolved upon 
keeping its foothold in Tennessee as well as in Mississippi.t Again, if 
Rosecrans advanced and compelled Bragg’s retreat, his army, for want of 
an adequate cavalry force, was in no condition to pursue, and the conse- 
quence would be unfavorable to Grant, who would then have to meet the 
bulk of Bragg’s army. At a council of war called by Rosecrans, composed 
of seventeen officers (corps and division commanders and generals of cav- 
alry), it was the opinion of eleven that Bragg had not been materially weak- 
ened, the other six thinking that 10,000 men had been sent to Johnston. 
Only four of the seventeen thought the Army of the Cumberland could then 
advance with a reasonable prospect of fighting a great and successful bat- 
tle, and even these were doubtful. The council unanimously agreed that 
an advance was unadvisable.* 


Alabama or Northern Georgia. Should you be surrounded by rebel forces and your retreat cut 
off, defend yourself as long as possible, and make the surrender of your command cost the enemy 
as many times your number as possible. A copy of the general order from the War Department 
in regard to paroling prisoners, together with the necessary blanks, are herewith furnished you. 
You are authorized to enlist all able-bodied men who desire to join the ‘army of the Union.’ You 
must return as soon as the main objects of your expedition are accomplished. 
‘* Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
“J. A. GARFIELD, Brigadier General and Chief of Staff.” 


“¢ Additional by Telegraph. 


* April 9, 1863. 
“The written instructions you have received are designed to cover the cases you allude to. It 
is not necessary that a manufactory be directly in the employ of the rebels to come under the rule 
there laid down. If it produces any considerable quantity of supplies which are likely to reach 
the rebel army, it is to be destroyed. Of course small mills, that can only supply the necessaries 
of life to the inhabitants, should not be injured. Any considerable amount of supplies likely to 
reach the rebel army are to be destroyed. If you dress your soldiers in the costume of the ene- 
my, they will be liable to be treated as spies; you should not do this without the consent of the 
men, after they have been fully advised of the possible consequences. 
‘¢(Signed), J. A. GARFIELD, Brigadier General and Chief of Staff.” 


1! This was against General Joe Johnston’s advice, who said that the Confederate government 
must choose between Mississippi and Tennessee. He urged the retention of Tennessee, which he 
declared to be ‘the shield of the South.” 

2 The following is the correspondence which passed between Rosecrans and Halleck in refer- 


ence to an immediate advance : 
‘* Murfreesborough, Tenn., June 11th, 1863. 


“Your dispatch of to-day is received. You remember that I gave you, as a necessary condition 
of success, an adequate cavalry force. Since that time I have not lost a moment in mounting our 
dismounted cavalry as fast as we could get horses. Not more than three hundred remain to be 
mounted. The Fifth Iowa, ordered up from Donelson, arrived to-day. The First Wisconsin 
will be here by Saturday. My preliminary infantry movements have nearly all been completed, 
and I am preparing to strike a blow that will tell. But to show you how differently things are 
viewed here, I called on my corps and division commanders and generals of cavalry for answers 
in writing to the questions : 

‘First. From your best information, do you think the enemy materially weakened in our front ? 
Second. Do you think this army can advance at this time with reasonable prospect of fighting a 
great and successful battle? Third. Do you think an advance advisable at this time? To the 
first, eleven answered no; six, yes, to the extent of ten thousand. To the second, four, yes, with 
doubts; thirteen, no. To the third, not one yes; seventeen, no. 

“Not one thinks an advance advisable until Vicksburg’s fate is determined. Admitting these 
officers to have a reasonable share of military sagacity, courage, and patriotism, you perceive 
that there are graver and stronger reasons than probably appear at Washington for the attitude 
of this army. I therefore counsel caution and patience at headquarters. Better wait a little to 
get all we can ready to insure the best result. If by so doing we, perforce of Providence, observe 
a great military maxim—not to risk two great and decisive battles at the same time—we might 
have cause to be thankful for it. At all events, you see that, to expect success, I must have such 
thorough grounds that when I say ‘Forward,’ my word will inspire conviction and confidence 
where both are now wanting. I should like to have your suggestion. 

““W,S. Rosecrans, Major General. 

“To Major General H. W. Haxutrox, General-in-Chief.” 

‘ Washington, June 12, 1863. 

“ Generat,—Your telegram of yesterday is just received. I do not understand your applica- 
tion of the military maxim not to fight two great battles at the same time. It will apply to a 
single army, but not to two armies acting independently of each other. Johnston and Bragg are 
acting on interior lines between you and Grant, and it is for their interest, not ours, that they 
should fight at different times, so as to use the same force against both of you. It is for our in- 
terest to fight them, if possible, while divided. If you are not strong enough to fight Bragg with 
a part of his force absent, you will not be able to fight him after the affair at Vicksburg is over, 
and his troops return to your front. 

“There is another military maxim, ‘that councils of war never fight.’ 


68 


If you say that you 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPATGN. 


529 


A few days later, the Vicksburg campaign seeming so near its successful 
termination, and it being understood that General Burnside would co-operate 
by an advance into East Tennessee, the Army of the Cumberland was set in 
motion. This advance—made under great disadvantages, which the reader 
has already been taught to appreciate—and the brilliant movements by 
which General Bragg was driven from Shelbyville ta Chattanooga, form the 


subject of the next chapter. 


CHAPTER XXXIL 
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


Il. THE ADVANCE FROM MURFREESBOROUGH. 

The Confederate Situation in Tennessee.—Estimate of Forces.—The Order to Advance.—<Actions 
at Liberty and Hoover’s Gaps.—Occupation of Shelbyville-—The Race for Elk River.—Bragg 
abandons Middle Tennessee.—Rosecrans brought to a Halt. 

RAGG’S army held the line of Duck River, guarding the railroad from 
Nashville to Chattanooga. Polk, with 18,000 men, was strongly in- 
trenched at Shelbyville, where, by the forced labor of 8000 slaves sent from 

Georgia and Alabama, a line of earth-works had been constructed five miles 

in extent. On his right, at Wartrace, and holding the railroad, was Hardee’s 

corps, 12,000 strong, with outposts at Liberty and Hoover’s Gaps, guarding 
the mountain approaches from the north. In the rear, eighteen miles south 
of Duck River, another intrenched camp lay behind a difficult mountain 
range at Tullahoma. Besides Polk’s and Hardee’s corps north of Duck Riv- 

er, Bragg had another, under Buckner, in Kast Tennessee, numbering 10,000 

effective men. 

The entire Confederate army of Tennessee on the 20th of June, 1863, 
numbered 46,000 effective men.! Rosecrans’s army at that time was not 
less than 60,000 strong, but this superiority of numbers was balanced by the 
inferiority of his cavalry, and by the necessity of a detachment of force at 
every stage of his advance into the enemy’s country. It was, therefore, the 
obvious policy of the Federal commander to compel Bragg to fight a battle 
in Tennessee. It was with this idea that Rosecrans planned his summer 
campaign, waiting only the assurance that the retreat of Bragg’s army, 
which must be reckoned among the things possible, would not seriously af- 
fect the Vicksburg campaign. 

The Confederate General John Morgan having been sent, with a large de- 
tachment of cavalry, northward for an excursion: into Kentucky, it seemed 


an opportune season for an advance against the enemy, orders for which 
were issued on the 23d of June. The movement began the next day. The 
direct road to Shelbyville was the easiest approach, while those farther east- 
ward led through difficult mountain passes, strongly guarded by the enemy. 
An advance by the former would have terminated in a battle with the eife- 


are not prepared to fight Bragg, I shall not order you to do so, for the responsibility of fighting 
or refusing to fight at a particular time or place must rest upon the general in immediate com- 
.mand; it can not be shared by a council of war, nor will the authorities here make you fight 
against your will. You ask me to counsel them to caution and patience. I have done so very 
often, but after five or six months of inactivity, with your force all the time diminishing, and no 
hope of any immediate increase, you must not be surprised that their patience is pretty well ex- 
hausted. If you do not deem it prudent to risk a general battle with Bragg, why can you not 
harass him, or make such demonstrations as to prevent his sending more re-enforcements to 
Johnston? I do not write this in a spirit of fault-finding, but to assure you that the prolonged 
inactivity of so large an army in the field is causing much complaint and dissatisfaction, not only 
in Washington, but throughout the country. 
‘¢ Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
‘¢Major General Roszcrans, Murfreesborough, Tennessee.” 
- Headquarters, Department of the Cumberland, Murfreesborough, June 21, 1863. 

‘¢GENERAL,—In your favor of the 12th instant you say you do not see how the maxim of not 
fighting two great battles at the same time applies to the case of this army and to Grant’s. Look- 
ing at the matter practically, we and our opposing forces are so widely separated that for Bragg 
to materially aid Johnston he must abandon our front substantially, and then we can move to our 
ultimate work with more rapidity, and less waste of material on natural obstacles. If Grant is 
defeated, both forces will come here, and then we ought to be near our base. The same maxim 
that forbids, as you take it, a single army fighting two great battles at the same time—by the way, 
a very awkward thing to do—would forbid this nation’s engaging all its forces in the great West 
at the same time, so as to leave it without a single reserve to stem the current of possible disaster. 
This is, I think, sustained by high military and political considerations. We ought to fight here, 
if we have a strong prospect of winning a decisive battle over the opposing force, and upon this 
ground I shall act. Ishall be careful not to risk our last reserve without strong grounds to ex- 
pect success. W.S. Rosecrans, Major General. 

“ Major General H. W. Hatieok, General-in-Chief.” 

In Rosecrans’s letter (last quoted) to Halleck there is unnecessary impertinence. 
migitt easily fight two great battles at the same time. 
ward thing to do,” as if it were impossible. 

In his testimony before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War (see Rose- 
crans’s Campaigns, p. 27), Rosecrans says: ‘‘I felt it my duty to sacrifice all personal gratification, 
and even to fall in the estimation, temporarily, of the country and friends who had high hopes 
and expectations of the Army of the Cumberland, to secure General Grant, in his operations be- 
fore Vicksburg, from the consequences of compelling Bragg to retire, when it would not be possi- 
ble for us so to pursue as to prevent him from re-enforcing Johnston, whose relative numbers to 
our troops under General Grant was deemed more formidable than I subsequently learned it to 
have been.”’ 

1 Estimated from official returns. The following are the returns of this army from November 
20, 1862, to June 20, 1863, inclusive : 


H. W. Havtecr, General-in-Chief. 


A single army 
Rosecrans speaks of it as ‘fa very awk- 


| Aggregate Pres- Aggregate Present for 

| ent and Absent. Present. Duty. 
November 20; AS62500 cians cen saetee nee 61,229 36,686 30,649 
December 10, 1862 88,484 59,075 51,030 
January, 1863.... 83,780 49,531 36,981 
February 20, 1863 87,783 55,138 4°,088 
March 31, 1863 ... 96,301 65,594 49,915 
April 30, 1863 .. 98,217 67,549 52,069 
May 204860 rte miame eae aantsesalsn saleterer 93,217 64,722 50,233 
FUNG: LOL TBO Seacrest, deals Macca cee 83,597 59,542 45,074 


These returns show: 

1. That Bragg outnumbered Rosecrans at the battle of Stone River by nearly 8000 men, the 
effective Federal force at the time of that battle being only 43,400 men. 

2. That Bragg lost at Stone River about 14,000 men, as will appear by comparing the returns 
of those present for duty in December, 1862, and in January, 1863. Rosecrans’s loss was 8778 
killed and wounded, and nearly 3000 prisoners, altogether between 10,000 and 11,000. 

3. That Bragg had not been weakened materially by any re-enforcements sent to Johnston, 
since the returns for April, May, and June of those present for duty do not vary by more than 6000 
men. 


4. That at the date of Rosecrans’s advance, June 24, 1863, Bragg’s army numbered an aggre- 
| gate presen’ of 60,000, of whom 46,000 could be brought into battle. : 


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my in his well-intrenched and chosen position—a battle which, if successful, 
would be gained at great sacrifice, and leave Bragg an open door for retreat. 
The mountain roads led to Brage’s right and rear. A strong demonstration 
on the Shelbyville road would compel that general to uncover the difficult 
approaches on his right, and once beyond these, Rosecrans, by a very rapid 
movement to Manchester or Winchester, would cut off retreat, and force the 
enemy to a battle, the conditions of which would be equal as to the field of 
conflict, and as to numbers much in his favor. With Morgan’s command 
out of the way, his cavalry was able to cope with Bragg’s, while he was su- 
perior in infantry by at least 20,000 men. 

McCook’s corps began its march early on the morning of the 24th. Phil 
Sheridan’s division took the direct road to Shelbyville, preceded by five com- 
panies of mounted infantry. The other two divisions, under Generals Jeff 
C. Dayis and R. W. Johnson, followed for six miles, and then turned to the 
left into the road to Liberty Gap. Thomas's corps, starting at the same 
time, moved directly on Manchester by way of Hoover’s Gap. Crittenden’s 
corps, the last to move, made a long detour to McMinnville, about forty miles 
southeast from Murfreesborough. Granger, commanding a reserve corps, 
supported McCook and Thomas. The cavalry was divided—Turchin, with 
one brigade, going with Crittenden, while the rest, under Stanley, were 
thrown out on the right flank. 

For several days the weather had been clear and promising, but on the 
very morning of the advance from Murfreesborough it began to rain. For 
seventeen successive days the rain continued, swelling streams, and so badly 


cutting up the roads that rapid progress, the most essential element entering | 


into the campaign, was impossible. One division occupied three days in 
marching twenty-one miles. Such a season at this period of the year had 
not been known in Tennessee for a score of years. 

Both Liberty and Hoover’s Gaps, about ten miles from Murfreesborough, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JUNE, 1863, 


were carried by McCook and Thomas on the 24th. The works at the en- 
trance of Hoover’s Gap, the eastern pass, were unoccupied by the enemy 
when Wilder’s mounted infantry approached them, so sudden and unex: 
pected was the advance, and a train of nine wagons was captured on its way 
to camp, with a drove of beef cattle and ‘some prisoners. At the southern 
extremity of the Gap, in the vicinity of the enemy’s camp at Beech Grove, 
there was some resistance. A miniature battle was fought between a few 
regiments of Wilder’s brigade and a superior Confederate force, in which 
the Federal detachment was almost overpowered before Reynolds's division 
could come to its aid. The loss in Wilder’s command, after two hours of 
fighting, was 68 killed and wounded; deserters and prisoners estimated the 
enemy’s loss at over 500. The Confederate force defending the Gap was a 
part of General Pat Cleburne’s division. 

Another portion of Cleburne’s command guarded Liberty Gap, which had 
in the mean time been carried by Willich’s brigade of Johnson’s division. 
Willich charged with his men, and, turning the enemy’s flanks, drove him 
from the position, capturing his tents, baggage, and supplies. The other 
end of the Gap was carried with equal gallantry by Baldwin’s brigade. The 
next day Johnson held the Gap, to keep up the delusion as to a direct ad- 
vance upon Bragg’s intrenchments. In the afternoon an attempt was made 
by the enemy to regain his lost position, and the attack was sufficiently se- 
rious to compel Johnson to send in Carlin’s brigade of Davis’s division. 
Davis was ill, but, hearing the noise of the battle, left his couch, and reached 
the front in time to witness the charge of Carlin’s brigade and the defeat 


| of the enemy. 


Rosecrans now pushed his army on to Manchester, flanking Bragg, who 
immediately abandoned his useless intrenchments. ‘These were occupied 
by Granger and Stanley on the 27th. Stanley, with his cavalry, had joined 
Granger at Christiana. Advancing on Guy’s Gap, covering Shelbyville, that 
position was carried after a little brief skirmish. The enemy was already 
in retreat, and Shelbyville was captured that evening, with three guns, 500 
prisoners, 8000 sacks of corn, and other supplies. The main body of Wheel- 
er’s cavalry, which had covered the retreat, escaped by swimming Duck 
River. 

By this time all of McCook’s and Thomas’s corps were at Manchester. 
Wilder’s command was ordered to Decherd to destroy the bridge over Elk 
River, but this was found too strongly guarded. In the race for Elk River, 
Bragg had come out ahead, securing his military road, which he had con- 
structed five miles east of the railroad. Covered again by Wheeler's cav- 
alry, he had left Tullahoma on the 30th of June, to escape the blow which 
Rosecrans was prepared to strike on his right flank, and succeeded in cross- 
ing the Elk at Estelle Springs without a battle. Negley’s and Sheridan’s 
divisions, with Turchin’s cavalry, came up with the enemy’s rear-guard, 
under Wheeler, July 25. Skirmishing followed, but the resistance was so 
stubborn that Bragg did not lose a gun, When the river, then swollen by 
the rains of the last nine days, was crossed by Rosecrans on the 8d, the ene- 
my had vanished. Crittenden’s corps, brought down from MeMinnyille, 
had taken possession of the road leading from Decherd by way of Tracy 
City to Chattanooga, thus compelling Bragg to retreat through the moun- 
tains westward. McCook had also advanced so as to keep him to the west 
of Winchester. But Bragg had a fair start, and these movements proved 
of little consequence. The Confederate army retreated across the Cumber- 
land Mountains to Chattanooga, destroying the railroad in its rear, and cross- 
ing the Tennessee at Bridgeport. 

Rosecrans was disappointed. He had hoped to fight a battle in Tennessee. 
He had scarcely counted upon the rapid backward movement made by 
Bragg. Something had been gained. He had recovered Middle Tennes- 


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MAP ILLUSTRATING THE MIDDLE TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN, 


Juny, 1863. ] 


see at a cost of less than 600 men, and had, besides causing the enemy an 
equal loss in killed and wounded, captured over 1600 prisoners. But Bragg 
had escaped. The thing which had been accomplished was not the thing 
which had been planned. 

The worst feature of the situation in which Rosecrans found himself, after 
Bragg’s retreat, was the impossibility of pursuit. His army occupied a line 
extending from McMinnville to Winchester; but his cavalry posts had fol- 
lowed the enemy to the Tennessee, and outposts were established from Ste- 
venson on the right to Pelham on the left. In this position Rosecrans was 
brought to a halt, in order to establish his line of communications with Mur- 
freesborough. The Middle Tennessee campaign had been concluded. The 
movements made by Rosecrans in this campaign were brilliant; but he had 
made a great mistake in too readily assuming that the enemy would fight 
instead of retreating. If, in place of waiting at Manchester for Crittenden, 
he had moved directly on Estelle Springs, Bragg must either have fought or 
have fallen back with an utterly demoralized army, and with great loss of 
artillery. If Crittenden was necessary, then he ought not, in the first in- 
stance, to have been sent so far out of the way. That which, more than any 
thing else, disarranged Rosecrans’s plans, was the never-ceasing rain; a cir- 
cumstance for which he, of course, was not accountable, and one upon which 
he could not have counted. Fair weather would have been the ruin of the 
Confederate Army of ‘Tennessee. As it was, Rosecrans was farther than 
ever from his military base, and, looking forward to the next stage of his 
campaign, could not expect to fight a battle with the enemy under condi- 
tions as favorable as those which had just been offered him. 

But Brage’s army lost by retreating. His effective force after reaching 
Chattanooga was only about 40,000 men, or 6000 short of his strength at 
Shelbyville. 'T'wo thirds of this loss is to be accounted for by straggling 
and desertion. His retreat, occurring at the same time with the surrender 
of Vicksburg and the defeat at Gettysburg, contributed much to the general 
despondency in the South which followed those disasters to the Confederate 
cause. 


CHAPTER XXXIIT. 
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


Ill, THE ARMY OF THE OHIO.—RECOVERY OF EAST. TENNESSEE. 


Burnside’s Department ; its Limits; Political and Military Situation.—The Ninth Corps trans- 
ferred from Newport News to the West.—Pegram’s Raid; his Defeat at Somerset.—New En- 
gland troops at Louisyille.—The three Military Districts of Kentucky and their Commanders.— 
Organization of the Twenty-third Corps.—The Ninth Corps is sent to Vicksburg.—This upsets 
Burnside’s Plan for the immediate recovery of East Tennessee. —Colonel Sanders’s Expedition ; 
he breaks the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, and threatens Knoxville-—John Morgan’s 
Raid.—He starts from Sparta, June 27th.—Estimate of his Force.—Fight at Tebbs’s Bend, July 
4th.—Colonel Moore refuses to surrender on the Glorious Fourth; his successful Defense.— 
Morgan crosses Green River.—Colonel Hanson surrenders Lebanon, July 5th, after seven 
hours’ fighting; Morgan’s Brother killed.—Generals Hobson, Judah, and Shackleford in pur- 
suit of Morgan.—Morgan crosses the Ohio into Southern Indiana.—He sweeps around Cincin- 
nati.—His perilous Situation.—He is surrounded and captured with his Command.—His sub- 
sequent Eseape.—Burnside’s March across the Mountains into East Tennessee.—Difficulties of 
the March.—Knoxville is captured without a Battle.-—Burnside’s Reception by the Loyalists.— 
Capture of Cumberland Gap. 

ENERAL BURNSIDE was assigned to the Department of the Ohio 
on the 15th of March, 1863. He had been relieved of the command of 
the Army of the Potomac on the 25th of January. The interval had been 
spent by the general at his home in Providence, Rhode Island... One week 
after his new appointment he reached Cincinnati, and there established his 
headquarters. General Horatio G. Wright had been the commander of the 

Department of the Ohio, which now comprised the states of Ohio, Indiana, 

Illinois, Michigan, Eastern Kentucky, and Kast Tennessee, as soon as the lat- 

ter should be occupied. The situation, political and military, of the depart- 

ment required the utmost tact and sagacity on the part of its commander. 

The Confederate cavalry was ravaging a large portion of Kentucky, and in 

the more northern states there existed considerable disaffection toward the 

national government. Martial law had been proclaimed in Kentucky, but 
in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois there was no hinderance to the most licentious 
freedom on the part of public speakers and of the press. 

In such a state of affairs, the military force then existing was not sufl- 
cient either to meet the hostile incursions of the enemy or to silence disloy- 
lists. Burnside, therefore, had two divisions of the Ninth Army Corps, 
then in camp at Newport News, under Generals Willcox and Sturgis, trans- 
ferred to his department. Upon this change, Sturgis was succeeded in the 
command of his division by General Robert B. Potter. At this time the 
Confederate General Pegram, with a force. of 8000 men, was marching 
through Central Kentucky, capturing towns. and plundering citizens, and 
had with feeble opposition penetrated as far as Danville. Louisville was 
almost in danger of being captured, and Indiana open to invasion. To meet 
these hostile intentions of Pegram, the Ninth Corps was hurried westward, 
and the small detachments of Federal troops scattered over Central Ken- 
tucky were concentrated at Lebanon and Hickman’s Bridge, under Generals 
Q. A.Gillmore and Boyle. With these latter Burnside ordered an advance 
against Pegram on the 28th of March. The enemy was driven rapidly 
southward, and at Somerset, on the 80th, Gillmore, with his cavalry, routed 
and drove him across the Cumberland River, inflicting upon him a loss of 
500 killed, wounded, and prisoners. 

The two divisions of the Ninth Corps, now commanded by General John 
G. Parke, who had relieved ‘‘ Baldy” Smith, arrived at Louisville early in 
Aprii. ‘I'he corps was composed for the most part of New England troops, 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 531 


SSSS&:> 
ROBERT B, POTTER, 


against whom, as Yankees par excellence, the Kentuckians were prejudiced. 
This sentiment, however, was soon overcome by the courtesy of the officers 
and the general good conduct of the soldiers. Kentucky was at this time 
divided into three military districts: the Eastern, with headquarters at 
Louisa, under General Julius White; the Central, under General Q. A. Gill- 
more, with headquarters at Lexington; and the Western, under General J. 
T. Boyle, with headquarters at Louisville. Gillmore, after Pegram’s defeat, 
was relieved by General Willcox. ‘The line held by the troops in these 
three districts extended from the Big Sandy to the Cumberland River. The 
Ninth Corps, upon its arrival, was sent to the front. It was a part of Burn- 
side’s duty to protect so much of Rosecrans’s lines of communication as lay 
within his department. For this purpose fortified posts were established on 
the railroads leading to Western Kentucky and Tennessee, and the utmost 
precaution was used to prevent raids on the part of guerrillas and the ene- 


my’s cavalry. 


On the 27th of April, in compliance with an order from Washington, all 
the troops in Kentucky not belonging to the Ninth began to be organized 
into another corps, to be designated as the Twenty-third, and to be under 
the command of Major General G. L. Hartsuff. This organization was com- 
pleted by the 22d of May, and a plan of operations was consulted between 
Durnside and Rosecrans for an immediate advance, the former marching 
with his two corps directly into Hast Tennessee, while the latter moved upon 
Chattanooga. Preparations were made for the campaign by both armies, 
and on the 2d of June Burnside moved his headquarters from Cincinnati to 
Lexington; but, at the very last moment, the Ninth Corps was withdrawn 
from Burnside to re-enforce General Grant before Vicksburg, and the Kast 
Tennessee campaign was postponed. 

About the middle of June Colonel H. 8. Saunders led an expedition into 
Kast Tennessee, and, striking the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad at Lenoir, 
moved up the road, breaking up portions of it on his route. He threatened 
Knoxville, burned the bridge—1600 feet long—across Holston River at 
Strawberry Plains, captured 10 guns and 400 prisoners, and, after destroying 
stores of great value, returned to Lexington on the 26th. 

It was at 2bout this time that the Confederate General John Morgan was 
planning his grand raid into Kentucky and the states north of the Ohio. 
His scheme was daring, contemplating a bold march through Kentucky, 
breaking through Burnside’s lines, now weakened by the absence of Parke’s 
corps, then across the Ohio River and through the southern counties of Ohio 
and Indiana, finally sweeping down into West Virginia, or, if fortune favor- 
ed, through Pennsylvania, to join General Lee’s invading army. 

Morgan, starting from Sparta June 27, crossed the Cumberland River 
near Burkesville on the 2d of July, accompanied by General Basil Duke as 
second in command. His force has been variously estimated, the Confed- 
erate statements putting it at 2028 men, with four guns, and the Federal of- 
ficers in Kentucky at from 4000 to 5000. The truth probably lies about 
midway between these estimates. Pollard states the force to have been 
3000 strong, in two brigades. Burnside was scarcely prepared for this sud- 
den invasion. His best troops were away. Saunders, with his most effi- 
cient cavalry, had only just returned from an exhausting raid. Custer’s 
troops were at a distance from the Cumberland. Morgan’s command was 
well organized, and would have little trouble in supplying itself in the fer- 
tile valleys of the Cumberland and Ohio. Confined to no strictly-defined 
line of march, it easily evaded the troops first sent to intercept it, and ob- 
tained a start of two days, moving on Columbia, 


y= ¢ . 


MORGAN'S RAIDERS. 


IMPROMPTU BARRICADE, 


Passing through Columbia, Morgan attempted to cross Green River 
Bridge, at Tebbs’s Bend, on the 4th. Guarding the river at this point were 
five companies of the Twenty-fifth Michigan, under Colonel Orlando TH. 
Moore. The position was well selected for defense, and when Morgan ap- 
proached, before daylight, demanding its surrender, Moore replied, “ The 
Fourth of July is not a proper day for me to entertain such a proposition.” 
Morgan attacked, and was driven off with a loss of nearly 50 men, among 
whom were some of his best officers.!. It had been an obstinate, and at 
times a hand-to-hand struggle, and the 200 brave defenders of the stockade 


_ 


1 Moore gives the Confederate loss as 50 killed and 250 wounded. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JULY, 1863. 


well earned the thanks which were afterward tendered them by the Ken- 
tucky Legislature. Morgan had attacked with two regiments, the rest of 
his force crossing the river, in the mean time, by another ford. 

From the Green River Morgan swept northward, striking Lebanon the 
next day. The garrison at this place consisted of 400 men of the Twentieth 
Kentucky, under Colonel Hanson, who stood out for seven hours against 
Morgan’s attack, placing his men in the dépét and the neighboring houses. 
Surrender at length became inevitable, the enemy having charged into the 
town and set fire to the houses from which the garrison were firing. Here 
Morgan’s young brother was killed while leading a charge. With the Fed- 
eral cavalry now close upon him—riding swiftly on his track while he was 
fighting at Tebbs’s Bend and Lebanon—Morgan had not time to parole his 
prisoners, whom he compelled to keep pace with him to Springfield, making 
ten miles in an hour and a half. Those who faltered were ruthlessly shot 
and left upon the road. 

A formidable force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, under Generals 
Hobson, Judah, and Shackleford, joined by Colonel Wolford, were rapidly 
pursuing Morgan, who was boldly advancing to the Ohio River by way of 
Bardstown. The experienced raider had still the best of the race, scouring 
the country for supplies and horses on his route, leaving behind him empty 
larders and stables, thus compelling his pursuers to make the most of their 
jaded animals. On the 7th, when the Federals reached Shepardsville, Mor- 
gan had twenty hours the start; but the exciting race was continued. Mor- 
gan, having crossed Rolling Fork, burning the bridges behind him, reached 
the Ohio at Brandenburg, 40 miles below Louisville, on the 8th. On board 
of captured steamers he ferried his command across, and his pursuers reached 
the southern bank just in time to witness the burning of his transports. On 
its swift march the Confederate command had gathered fresh accessions of 
force, and was now ready to fall upon the southern counties of Indiana with 
an army of 4000 men and 10 guns. 

Taking Corydon, Greenville, and Palmyra in his way, Morgan hastened 
on the 9th to Salem, capturing there 850 Home Guards, breaking up the 
railroad, and burning the town. It was the portion of Indiana most disaf- 
fected toward the national government which Morgan was visiting with his 
wrath; but he had no time to distinguish friend from foe, and went on burn- 
ing and ravaging. He dared not halt even to fight, and every place was se- 
cure against him which offered any serious resistance. From Salem his 
course veered eastward toward Lexington, which he reached on the morn- 
ing of the 10th. From that point, passing northward and eastward, he men- 
aced at once Madison and Vernon, 20 miles apart, but, finding a consider- 
able force at the latter point, he did not venture battle, but skirmished eva- 
sively, while his men were destroying the railroads north, south, east, and 
west of the town. Thence he moved eastward, passing through Versailles 
on the 12th, seizing fresh horses as he marched, and reaching Harrison, on 
the Ohio border, the next day, where he gathered in his detached columns, 
and made a clean sweep around Cincinnati, at distances of from 7 to 18 
miles. Daylight of the 14th found him 18 miles east of Cincinnati, anxious- 
ly looking for some avenue of escape. 

For his position was now one of great peril. He had embarked upon a 
creat adventure, which might have had some military consequence if he had 
been let alone; but, as must have been apparent to him now, it had proved 
little more than a bold march across one state and a portion of two others. 
Indeed, from a military point of view, he was more a necessity to Bragg in 
‘ennessee than he was an injury to the Federal cause in his present position 
north of the Ohio. So closely had he been pursued that he had stepped 
lightly over the country which he had meant to crush under the heels of 
his horsemen. He had captured hundreds (thousands it may be, so Pollard 
reports) of militia, but he could do nothing with them, and their paroles 
placed them just where they were before. He had destroyed a large amount 
of property, and had broken railroad communications, but the ravages had 
been so slight that a single week would repair the ruin. He had only made 
a bold march, scarcely worthy the record which we have given it, in the 
event of his escape. It is the denouement of the little episode which gives it 
any historic interest. How and where did the bold march end? is the ques- 
tion which the reader waits to have answered. And this was the question 
which Morgan was trying to answer prospectively when, on the 14th, after 
crossing the Miami, he moved southward to the Ohio to find a crossing for 
his closely-meshed command. 

Generals Judah, Hobson, and Shackleford had crossed the Ohio on the 
8th, following Morgan in the route which we have traced. When the raid- 
ers crossed the Miami they had only four hours the start of their pursuers. 
Such a disposition of the Federal forces had been made as would secure 
Hamilton and Cincinnati against attack. Gunboats were brought up to pa- 
trol the Ohio, and to prevent Morgan’s escape southward across that river. 
A column under Judah moved along the river roads, while Hobson and 
Shackleford took those in the interior. The militia sent down by Govern- 
or Morgan, of Indiana, halted at the eastern border of their own state, but 
the people of Ohio, along the roads in Morgan’s front, blocked up his route 
with fallen trees, while the Federal troops hemmed him in upon the north 
and in his rear. For 160 milés Morgan continued his desperate flight 
through Williamsburg, Winchester, Piketon, and Jackson, as if running a 
race with the gun-boats. But the latter, under the direction of Lieutenant 
Commander Fitch, had been warped over the shoals, and thus had succeed- 
ed in forcing their way up the Rapids, so that when Morgan attempted to 
cross the river at Buffington Island, near Pomeroy, he found the “ web-foot- 
ed” monsters still in his front, and was driven back in confusion, and brought 
face to face with his pursuers, near Chester, on the 19th. Here Shackleford 
met him, and soon Judah, also, was upon his flauk, and Hobson upon his 


| 


Avaust, 1863. ] 


rear. There was a good houwr’s fight, when Shackleford ordered a charge, 
and the enemy, with infantry, cavalry, and artillery attacking him upon all 
sides, sent in a flag of truce, and surrendered 700 men, including Dick Mor- 
gan and Basil Duke. But this was only a portion of Morgan’s command. 
The leader himself, with the main body, had pushed up the river some 14 
miles to Belleville, where he was already (about 8 P.M.) crossing his horses. 
Before he had got 400 men, under Colonel A. R. Johnson, across, Hobson 
and Shackleford were again upon him, and General Scammon’s s gun-boats 
made their appearance in his front. ILere 1000 more of the raiders were 
surrendered. 

But Morgan was not among the captured, having again disappeared with 
a small body of his adherents. His guns and weapons were gone, and the 
ereat raid had dwindled down into a run for dear life on Morgan’s part. 
He fled inland to McArthur on the 21st, and thence toward Marietta, where 
he again made a vain attempt to cross into Virginia. ‘Then he veered 
northward again to Hastport. But Shackleford, with 500 men who had vol- 
unteered to stay in the saddle without eating or drinking until Morgan 
should be captured, overtook the flying partisan near New Lisbon, where 
the latter’s flight had been interrupted by an irregular force of militia and 
home guards. Driven to a high bluff, Morgan finally surrendered at discre- 
tion on the 27th. It was now exactly a month since he had marched from 
Sparta, in Tennessee. Of the command with which he first set forth, less 
than 400 had escaped, over 500 had been killed or wounded; the rest, with 
their leader, were prisoners of war. 

Morgan and his ofsicers were carried to Cincinnati, and delivered over to 
General Burnside. By direction of the President they were confined in 
Ohio penitentiaries, their heads being shaved like those of felons. Morgan, 
with six of his officers, managed to escape on the night of November 26 by 
digging their way out of their cells. Those who escaped had been confined 
at Columbus. Morgan, with a certain Captain Hines, took the midnight 
train for Cincinnati, and, just before reaching the city, put on the brakes, 
jumped off, and was ferried across the Ohio into Kentucky. Through 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Northern Georgia, Morgan—having lost his com- 
panion by the way—proceeded to Richmond, where he was féted and made 
much of. His escape from his cell, his disguise, and his flight to Virginia 
had been accomplished through the assistance of Confederate sympathizers 
outside his prison walls. 

About three weeks after Morgan’s capture, Burnside had at Camp Nel- 
son, near Richmond, Kentucky, a thoroughly organized force of 20,000 men. 
Without waiting for the return of the Ninth Corps, he, on the 16th of Au- 
gust, commenced his advance to Hast Tennessee. Rosecrans had already 
driven Bragg to Chattanooga. The occupation of Hast Tennessee was at 
this time of very great importance, in order, by the destruction or possession 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


533 


of the railroad from Virginia, to cut off communications between Lee’s and 
Bragg’s armies. Besides, from Knoxville, Burnside could easily and effect- 
ively co-operate with Rosecrans’s next movement upon Bragg. 

Kast Tennessee lies in the Valley of the Tennessee and Holston Rivers, 
and between the Cumberland and Blue Ridge ranges of mountains. It is a 
mountainous district, and its inhabitants were for the most part loyal to the 
national government. For the latter reason, it was not advisable to occupy 
this region before it could be permanently held. Hitherto the people had 
been harassed by the enemy, who had exercised his power to the utmost 
in order to crush out and overawe the Unionists, many of whom were al- 
ready refugees. 

Burnside’s advance was simultaneous with Rosecrans’s march from Win- 
chester upon Chattanooga, of which we treat in the next chapter. Concen- 
trating his forces at Crab Orchard, he moved directly upon Knoxville, 
through Mount Vernon, London, Williamsburg, and thence southward into 
Tennessee, with Hartsuff’s columns upon his right, proceeding through Som- 
erset, and Colonel Foster’s cavalry upon his left. The routes taken by the 
several columns were those least likely to be defended by the enemy. After 
crossing the Cumberland River a force was sent, under command of Colonel 
De Courcy, to threaten Cumberland Gap, then held by Frazier’s brigade of 
Buckner’s command, while Burnside, with his main body, crossed the moun- 
tains by the gaps farther westward. It was a most difficult route; but the 
troops were in light marching order, and many of them mounted, with pack- 
mules for transportation, the few wagon trains following on the best roads, 
while the soldiers, on foot or on horseback, climbed over the mountains by 
comparatively unfrequented paths. During the fortnight after Burnside’s 
departure from Crab Orchard, on the 21st of August, the whole army, mules 
and men, were tasked to the utmost limits of endurance. Up the rugged 
heights the artillery was with difficulty drawn, and when the mules failed 
from exhaustion their places were filled by the soldiers. At length the 
summit was reached, and the army descended into Hast Tennessee, its con- 
querors; for, surprised by the sudden and apparently formidable move- 
ment, General Buckner evacuated Knoxville and fell back to the Tennes- 
see, leaving Frazier’s command at Cumberland Gap without orders, without 
intelligence of his retreat, and without support. 

Burnside’s army had moved in five columns. The first and second joined 
at Jamestown, Tennessee, and, moving to Montgomery, were joined on the 
30th by the third and fourth. The other column, composed of cavalry, 
moved directly on Jacksborough, and thence through Wheeler’s Gap to 
Knoxville. Burnside’s headquarters were established at Kingston on the 
1st and at Knoxville on the 8d of September. In fourteen days he had 
marched his army 250 miles. 

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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. {AuGusT, 1863. 


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DRAGGING ARTILLERY OVER THE MOUNTALNS. 


SupremBer, 1863.7 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


which De Courcy threatened from the north. Frazier, who occupied the 
Gap with four Confederate regiments, was well supplied, and confident of 
his ability to hold the position. But some of Shackleford’s men succeeded 
on the 7th in creeping through the lines and burning the mill upon which 
the garrison depended for flour. Burnside arrived in person on the 9th, 
when Frazier surrendered 2000 men and 14 guns. The pursuit of a small 
Confederate force under Sam Jones into Virginia completed the long-sought 
conquest of Kast T'ennessee. The campaign had been accomplished with- 
out a single battle. 

By the Loyalists along his line of march and at Knoxville Burnside was 
hailed as a deliverer. His entrance into Knoxville was an ovation which 
might have flattered the greatest of conquerors. His wayworn troops shared 
the generous welcome. National flags, long concealed, came forth from the 
houses, and made the 3d of September seem like a 4th of July.!. General 
Burnside captured at Knoxville a large quantity of ammunition, 2000 stand 
of small-arms, 11 guns, and 2500 prisoners. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


IV. THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 


Rosecrans crosses the Tennessee. —Movements of his three Corps. —Bragg retreats from Chatta- 
nooga.—Ovyer-confidence of Rosecrans. —Why Burnside did not co-operate.—Bragg’s Oppor- 
tunity.—General Negley’s Fight at Dug Gap discovers the Enemy.—Rosecrans alarmed.— 
Hurried Concentration and narrow Escape of his Army.—The Situation on the Evening of 
September 18.—Battle of the 19th.—General Thomas strikes the first Blow.—Baird’s Repulse ; 
Loss of the ‘* Loomis” Battery.—Enemy driven, and Guns recaptured.—Confederate Attack in 
the Afternoon; Van Cleye driven; Hazen repulses the Enemy with Artillery.—Pat Cleburne’s 
Night Attack.—Results of the Day’s Fighting.—Council of War at the Widow Glenn’s.—The 


1 Dr. W. H. Church, of Burnside’s staff, thus describes the reception of the troops on the way to 
and in Knoxville: 

“The East Tennessee troops, of whom General Burnside had a considerable number, were kept 
constantly in the advance, and were received with expressions cf ‘he profoundest gratitude by the 
people, who are described as the most heartily and generally soya! people in the United States. 
There were many thrilling scenes of the meeting of our East ‘Tennessee soldiers with their fami- 
lies, from whom they had been so long separated. 

‘The East Tennesseeans were so glad to see our soldiers that they cooked every thing they had 
and gave it to them freely, not asking pay, and apparently not thinking of it. Women stood by 
the road side with pails of water, and displayed Union flags. The wonder was where all the stars 
and stripes came from. Knoxville was radiant with flags. At a point on the road from Kings- 
ton to Knoxville sixty women and girls stood by the road side waving Union flags, and shouting 
‘Hurrah for the Union!’ Old ladies rushed out of their houses and wanted to see General Burn- 
side, and shake hands with him, and cried ‘ Welcome, welcome, General Burnside! welcome to 
East Tennessee!’ A mecting of the Union citizens of Knoxville was held, and addressed by Gen- 
eral Burnside and General Carter. It was attended by about five hundred men, and a large num- 
ber of women and children. ‘The demonstrations were not boisterous, but there was intense, quiet 
rejoicing. Men who had been hidden for months came in, full of gratitude for their deliverance.” 


OCOUPATION OF CUMBERLAND GAP, 


Confederate General Longstreet’s Arrival.—Battle of the 20th.—Rosecrans’s Dispositions.~ 
Bragg’s Plan of Attack.—Polk’s Delay.—Thomas is hard pressed, but holds his Position.— 
Longstreet’s Attack.—Hindman breaks through the Right of the Federal Line. —How the Gap 
was made.—Rosecrans, McCook, and Crittenden swept from the Field.—Extent of the Disor- 
der.—Garfield goes to Thomas.—Formation of a new Line on the Slope of Mission Ridge.— 
General Negley’s Position. —Weakness of the new Line.—Longstreet’s Assault delayed.—Gran- 
ger arrives in time to meet it and to save the Day.—Withdrawal of the Army by Night to Ross- 
ville and thence to Chattancoga.—Estimate of Losses.—Review of the Campaign. 


E left Rosecrans’s army at Winchester, south of Elk River, with its 
left and rear toward McMinnville well guarded, and its outposts ad- 
vanced to Pelham and Stevenson. If its progress thus far had been diffi- 
cult, it was yet mere play when compared with a farther advance across the 
Cumberland Mountains and the broad Tennessee to Chattanooga, whither 
Bragg had retreated. A direct attack upon the enemy, strongly intrenched 
in Chattanooga, was out of the question, even if Rosecrans’s army had been 
a hundred thousand strong. The campaign against Brage, therefore, neces- 
sarily involved an attack upon the railroad running southward from Chat- 
tanooga through Dalton to Atlanta. The railroad connecting Chattanooga 
with the East would very soon be rendered useless to the Confederates by 
Burnside’s advance to Knoxville. The valley through which the Atlanta 
Road runs could be reached in two ways: westwardly, by turning the head 
of Sequatchie Valley, or by crossing the valley at Dunlap or Thurman’s, and 
then moving across Walden’s Ridge, crossing the Tennessee above Chatta- 
nooga; or southwardly, by moving across the Cumberland range, crossing 
the Tennessee below Chattanooga, and then the four ranges south of the riv- 
er—Raccoon, Lookout, Mission, and Taylor’s.!. Rosecrans chose the latter, 
or southward route, leaving the natural valley from East Tennessee to North- 
ern Georgia open to the co-operative movement which he expected would be 
undertaken by Burnside. 

Upon whatsoever route Rosecrans might advance, there could be little de- 
pendence upon the country for forage, none at all for the subsistence of his 
soldiers. Supplies of food and ammunition sufficient for the campaign must 
be accumulated before moving, and must be carried with the army, thus in- 
creasing the difficulties of the march. The necessity of a long halt after 
Brage’s retreat was therefore inevitable; yet, strange as it may seem, Gen- 
eral Halleck, at Washington, not appreciating Napoleon’s maxim that “an 
army crawls upon its belly,” wondered and chafed at this delay, and finally 
issued a peremptory order directing Rosecrans to advance, and report his 
progress daily to the War Department.? Very fortunately, Rosecrans was 


1 Or, striking farther southward, after crossing the Tennessee, there would be Sand, Lookout, 
and Pigeon Mountains, and 'Taylor’s Ridge. 

2 The order was issued early in August. On the 4th Rosecrans writes : 

“Your dispatch, ordering me to move forward without farther delay, reporting the movement 
of each corps until I cross the Tennessee, is received. As I have been determined to cross the 
river as soon as practicable, and haye been making all preparations, and getting such information 


536 


AN 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, 


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nearly ready to move. He had completed the railroad from Murfreesbor- 
ough to Stevenson, and thence to Bridgeport, by the 25th of July, and only 
waited for the opening of the road from Cowan to Tracy City. By strain- 
ing to the utmost the capacities of the Stevenson Road, he had accumulated 
by the 8th of August a sufficient quantity of supplies to warrant his imme- 
diate advance. The enemy was in no condition to disturb his communica- 
tions or to resist his advance to the Tennessee. So far, therefore, he was re- 
lieved of anxiety. While his own army covered the approaches to his rear 
and right, Burnside’s was more than adequate to the protection of his left. 

Sheridan’s division had already occupied Stevenson and Bridgeport before 
Halleck’s order was issued. The movement of the main army began on the 
morning of August 16th. ‘T'wo of Crittenden’s columns crossed the Cumber- 
land Mountains—Palmer by Dunlap, and Wood by 'Thurman’s—into the Se- 
quatchie Valley, while a third, under Van Cleve, struck Pikeville at the 
head of the Valley. Crittenden’s left,in this movement, was covered by Col- 
vnel Minty’s cavalry. Thomas’s and McCook’s corps advanced southward 
to the Tennessee, occupying positions above and below Stevenson, prepara- 
tory to crossing the river. ‘Three brigades of cavalry moved on the right, 
making a long detour by way of Fayetteville and Athens, to guard the river 
below as far as Whitesburg, about eighty miles from Stevenson. 

Crittenden, upon reaching Sequatchie Valley, sent reconnoitring columns 
of infantry and cavalry across Walden’s Ridge, Wagner's brigade and Wild- 
er’s cayalry advancing to a point opposite Chattanooga, and shelling the 
town on the 21st, silencing the Confederate artillery, and creating great con- 
sternation among the citizens. Another brigade (Hazen’s) had also crossed 
the ridge farther north, at Poe’s, and, with Wilder’s cavalry, reconnoitred 
the country to Harrison’s Landing, twelve miles above Chattanooga. The 
rest of Crittenden’s command moved down the Sequatchie to the Tennessee, 
below Chattanooga. 

On the 21st, the whole army, having crossed the Cumberland Mountains, 
lay upon the right bank of the Tennessee, extending over a line of 160 
miles. Along this line the river flows in a southwest direction, forcing its 
passage through the Cumberland range, and entering Alabama at Bridge- 
port. he two brigades east of Walden’s Ridge were prepared to enter 
Chattanooga in the event of its evacuation by Bragg; to force this evacua- 
tion, or to cut off the enemy from his southern communications, was the 
work of the main army. The preparations for crossing the river consumed 
ten days. During this time reconnoissances were made to discover the most 
available points for this purpose; the pontoons and trains were brought for- 
ward, and trestle-work and materials for improvised bridges were prepared 
with the utmost secrecy. The pontoons were sufficient for only two bridges, 
and twice that number were needed to secure rapidity of movement. The 
facility with which the enemy could, from the high spurs abutting on the 
river, overlook the whole length of the valley, prevented absolute secrecy ; 
this, however, was of little consequence, as the intervening mountains made 
it impossible for Bragg to oppose any serious resistance to the movements 
on his left. The troops began to cross on the 29th of August, and by Sep- 
tember 4th all were on the south side except a brigade of regulars of Baird’s 
division, left to guard the railroad until it should be relieved by Gordon 
Granger’s reserve corps. The crossing was conducted at four points—Shell- 
mound, the mouth of Battle Creek, Bridgeport, and Caperton’s Ferry, at the 
mouth of Big Crow Creek. The bridge at Bridgeport was the one mainly 
used for the crossing of trains. Thomas crossed one division at each of the 
points named ; McCook crossed Woods's and Van Cleve’s at Caperton’s (the 
lowest crossing), and Sheridan’s at Bridgeport; Crittenden (except Wagner's 
and Hazen’s brigades) crossed at Shellmound, at the mouth of Battle Creek, 
and at Bridgeport. An accident to the bridge at Bridgeport delayed the 
crossing at that point for four days. The cavalry, under General Stanley, 
still keeping the left, crossed with McCook at Caperton’s. 

The plan of Rosecrans’s campaign, after crossing the ‘Tennessee, was very 
simple in its idea, though attended with many difficulties in its execution. 
Crittenden was to threaten Chattanooga by a direct advance ; Thomas was 
to cross Raccoon Mountain, and seize Stevens’s and Cooper’s Gaps, leading 
through Lookout Mountain into McLemore’s Cove, twenty miles south of 
Chattanooga; McCook and Stanley, in the mean time, were to move twenty 
miles farther southward across the mountains to Valley Head, turning the 
southern extremity of Pigeon Mountain, and threatening an advance on 
Rome. Except in its topographical features, this plan was very similar to 
that adopted by Hooker in his Chancellorsville campaign. In either case 
the enemy was flanked by the crossing of a river and an advance upon his 
left and rear. Hooker thought Lee would retreat, falling back upon Rich- 
mond or Gordonsville. Rosecrans was equally confident that Bragg, aban- 
doning Chattanooga, would fall back to Rome. Both were alike mistaken ; 
each, finding that the enemy had indeed abandoned his position, but was 
ready to meet the advance squarely in front, refusing to acknowledge defeat 
until after the test of battle. But there were three important points of dif 
ference between the Chickamauga and Chancellorsyille campaigns. Hooker 
was able to encounter the enemy with nearly double the force of the latter, 
while Rosecrans, at a greater distance from his base of supplies, accepted bat- 
tle with the advantage of numerical superiority against him and in Bragg’s 


as may enable me to do so without being driven back like Hooker, I wish to know if your order is 
intended to take away my discretion as to the time and manner of moving my troops 2 

And the following is General Halleck’s reply (August 5): 

“The orders for the advance of your army, and that its progress be reported daily, are per- 
2mptory.”” 

ibeordas appears to have received all this in good feeling. He writes (August 7): 

“Your dispatch received, I can only repeat the assurance given before the issue of the order. 
This army shall move with all the dispatch compatible with the successful execution you wish. 
We are preparing every thing to bring up forage for our animals ; the present rolling stock of the 


road will hardly suffice to keep us day by day here, but I have bought fifty more freight cars, 


Will advise you daily.” 
6U 


which are arriving. 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 537 


favor. Again, Rosecrans had a more difficult country in which to operate, 
though this was in some degree compensated by the circumstance that the 
very obstacles in his own way afforded security to his rear. Finally, the 
sequel of the two campaigns was far different; for, although both Hooker 
and Rosecrans each succeeded in inflicting greater injury upon the enemy 
than he suffered himself, yet the former sustained a complete defeat as re- 
garded the object of his campaign, while Rosecrans, retiring from the battle- 
field of Chickamauga, secured Chattanooga, the professed object of his ad- 
vance from Murfreesborough. 

But in carrying out this comparison we are anticipating our narrative. 
By the time the last divisions of the army had crossed the Tennessee, Thom- 
as’s and McCook’s corps were already far advanced. Negley’s division had 
crossed Sand Mountain into Lookout Valley, and was encamped at Brown’s 
Spring; at the foot of the mountain, on the west side, and ready to begin 
the ascent, was Reynolds’s division; Brannan’s had reached the summit; 
Jeff Davis's division, of McCook’s corps, had crossed Lookout Mountain into 
Wills’s Valley, seizing Winston’s Gap; Johnson’s was across Sand Moun- 
tain, while Sheridan had just reached the left bank of the Tennessee. On 
the 8th all the preliminary movements of the campaign had been success- 
fully carried out. Their effect upon the enemy was immediate. Chatta- 
nooga was evidently no longer tenable. Bragg’s effective force at this time 
was about 45,000 men.! He could not well afford to divide this force by 
sending a detachment of his army to fight the enemy, nor could he stay 
in Chattanooga. The capture of Vicksburg, with its garrison, was an in- 
stance, too recent to be forgotten, of the consequence of holding a position 
simply because of its strength, and in defiance of starvation. The nature of 
the country, and the presence on his right front of Burnside’s army (at Knox- 
ville on the 3d), made a counter attack upon the Federal rear, if not impos- 
sible, extremely hazardous. Reluctantly he abandoned Chattanooga, but not 
the campaign for its possession. The prize must be fought for, but with 
Rosecrans must be left the choice of the battle-field. If the Federal army 
emerged from the passes of Lookout Mountain into McLemore’s Cove or 
Wills’s Valley, he would meet it there; if it drew in its left in order to oc- 
cupy Chattanooga in full force, and successfully evaded battle, he would still 
maintain the offensive, sitting down in front of the strong-hold he had so un: 
willingly abandoned, with his own supplies close at hand, while those of the 
enemy must be brought over the mountains from Murfreesborough, a hund- 
red miles distant. His confidence in the final result was heightened by the 
expectation that his army, now very little inferior to that of the enemy, 
would soon be nearly doubled by re-enforcements from Mississippi and Vir- 
ginia. Chattanooga was evacuated on the 7th and 8th. On the morning 
of the 9th Crittenden was apprised of this event by General Rosecrans, and 
ordered to push forward his entire command, with four days’ rations, and 
make a vigorous pursuit. Bragg had waited at Chattanooga until Rosecrans 
had fully developed his movements southward. He then took position from 
Lee and Gordon’s Mill to Lafayette, on the road leading southward from Chat- 
tanooga, facing the eastern slope of Pigeon Mountain. In this position he 
was nearer to either of Rosecrans’s three corps than they were to each other.’ 

And just here Rosecrans began to base the future of his campaign upon 
a false calculation. His impression that Bragg’s army was retreating upon 
Rome, demoralized and conscious of defeat, amounted to a conviction, al- 
most to an infatuation. There was some ground for the presumption. Brage 
had been flanked out of Middle Tennessee. Why not out of Hast Tennes- 
see and Northern Georgia? But here Rosecrans should have remembered 
that in the summer campaign, his strength, as compared with that of the en- 
emy, had been much greater than it was now. Besides its additional strength 
from the accession of Buckner’s command, Bragg’s army was now within 
easier reach not only of abundant supplies, but also of extensive re-enforce- 
ments. Under the circumstances, the greatest peril lurked in that presump- 
tuous confidence with which Rosecrans was now prepared to push forward 
his columns.2 There was really nothing in the way of Burnside’s co-opera- 
tion with over 20,000 effective men. There was every argument in its fa- 
vor, and no good one against it. The moment Knoxville had been secured, 
Burnside ought to have been ordered to Chattanooga. He could have made 


1 The official returns from the Army of Tennessee for August 31, 1863, give: Present for duty, 
45,041; aggregate present, 59,027; aggregate present and absent, 83,273. Bragg, in his official re 
port of the battle of Chickamauga, says that at this time (September 8) his effective force, exclu- 
sive of cavalry, was a little over 35,000 men. He includes ‘‘ two small divisions” just arrived from 
Johnston’s army. ‘The estimate given in the text is no doubt correct, as the official returns of an 
army are always more likely to be accurate than the numbers given in the report of a battle. It 
includes the cavalry force and Buckner’s command. 

2 Thomas was twenty-six miles from Crittenden, on his left, and the distance to McCook’s corps, 
on the right, was nearly as great. Rosecrans makes the distance ‘‘ from flank to flank, by the near- 
est practicable roads,” fifty miles. 

3 The idea that Bragg’s army would make no stand on Rosecrans’s present front seems also to 
have prevailed with General Halleck. On the 6th he had telegraphed to the latter: ‘‘There is 
no reason now to suppose that any of his troops have been detached, except, perhaps, a small force 
at Charleston.” On the 11th he gives the following instructions: ‘‘ After holding the mountain 
passes on the west and Dalton, or some other point on the railroad, to prevent the retarn of Bragg’s 
army, it will be decided whether your army shall move farther south into Georgia and Alabama,” 
So far is Halleck at this time from being aware of Rosecrans’s danger, that he urges the latter to 
find out whether Bragg’s army is re-enforcing Lee! If he had himself taken some pains to aseer- 
tain whether Lee was re-enforcing Bragg, a mistake on Rosecrans’s part which proved next to fa- 
tal might have been avoided. As early as September 7th Rosecrans seems to have been aware of 
Bragg’s haying received re-enforcements from Johnston’s army. On that day, in reply to a dis- 
patch from Halleck (dated September 6th), inquiring about the position of Bragg and Buckner, 
and suggesting that, in the event of their union, it would be necessary for him to unite with Burn- 
side, he writes: 

‘Your dispatch of yesterday received with surprise. You have been often and fully advised that 
the nature of the country makes it impossible for this army to prevent Johnston from combininy; 
with Bragg. When orders for an advance of the army were made, it must have been known that 
those two rebel forces could combine against it, and to some extent choose their place of fighting 
us. This has doubtless been done, and Buckner, Bragg, and Johnston are all near Chattanooga, 
The movement on East Tennessee was independent of mine. Your apprehensions are just, and 
the legitimate consequences of your orders. ‘The best that can now be done is for Burnside to 
close his cavalry down on our left, supporting it with his infantry, and, refusing nis left, threaten 
the enemy without getting into his grasp, while we get him in our grip, and strangle him, or per- 
ish in the attempt.” 


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the march in eight days,’ connecting with Rosecrans’s left within three days 
after Brage’s evacuation. The very fact of Buckner’s precipitate withdrawal 
from a country abounding in strong positions for defense was sufficient evi- 
dence that the movement was something else than a mere retreat. But nei- 
ther Halleck nor Rosecrans understood its realimport. The former was too 
far from the field of operations; the latter was over-confident of the demor- 
alization of the enemy. Before the 14th Rosecrans never asked or seemed 
to expect any thing from Burnside beyond a demonstration with cavalry. 
His chief anxiety was lest Burnside might be withdrawn to North Carolina. 
Even as late as the 12th he felt sufficient for the enemy in his front, but, in 
the case of Brage’s retreat to the Coosa River, he apprehended an advance 
from the line of that river into Tennessee, and thought a force from the 
Army of Tennessee ought to shut up that avenue.” 

After the capture of Cumberland Gap* Burnside was ordered by General 
IIalleck to concentrate on the Tennessee, connecting with Rosecrans. If 
this order had been issued when Burnside first reached Knoxville, and had 
been promptly executed, the two armies would have been by this time in 
co-operation.* 


1 Judging from the time occupied by Sherman in his march with 25,000 men to the relief of 
Knoxville: November 28th—December 6th. 

2 The following letter was written by Rosecrans, September 12th, to General Halleck, from Chat- 
tanooga : 

“TJ think it would be very unwise, in the present attitude of affairs, for General Burnside to 
make any move in the direction of North Carolina; it would leave my Jeft flank entirely unpro- 
tected, and open the way into Kentucky. I trust [ am sufficient for the enemy now in my front; 
but, should he fall back to the line of the Coosa, the roads from there are short and comparatively 
good to the Tennessee, where it is necessary for me to cross two ranges of mountains, over very 
barren, rough, and difficult roads, to reach the ‘Tennessee, aad then move from thirty to fifty miles 
to reach the flank of a column moving from Gunter’s Landing or Whitesburg on Nashville. It is 
desirable to have that avenue shut up. Can not you send a force from the Army of Tennessee to 
do it?” * September 9. 

4 «The main body of General Burnside’s army was now ordered to concentrate on the Tennes- 
see River, from Loudon west, so as to connect with General Rosecrans’s army, which reached 
Chattanooga on the 9th. . . . As the country between Dalton and the Little Tennessee was still 
open to the enemy, General Burnside was cautioned to move down by the north bank of the river, 
so as to seenre its fords, and cover his own and General Rosecrans’s communications from rebel 
raids. With our forces concentrated near Chattanooga, the enemy would be compelled to either 
attack us in position or to retreat farther south into Georgia. If he should attempt a flank move- 
ment on Cleveland, his own communications would be cut off and his own army destroyed. But, 
uthough repeatedly urged to effect this junction with the Army of the Cumberland, General Burn- 
side retained most of his command in the upper valley, which was still threatened, near the Vir- 
ginia line, by a small foree under Sam Jones.”—Halleck’s Report, 1868. This is the statement 
made by General Halleck, which reflects upon Burnside. But the ipsissima verba of the dispatch 
sent to Burnside on the 11th do not indicate that the order to co-operate with Rosecrans was very 
explicit, or was based upon any definite idea of the enemy’s movements. The dispatch reads: 

**T congratulate you on your success. Hold the gaps of the North Carolina mountains, the line 
of the Holston River, or some point, if there be one, to prevent access from Virginia, and connect 
with General Rosecrans, at least with your cavalry. General Rosecrans will oceupy Dalton, or 


Rosecrans does not fairly admit the fact, but it is nevertheless beyond 
question that, during the three days following the occupation of Chattanoo- 
ea by Crittenden’s corps, he had not the shadow of a doubt either as to the 
enemy’s retreat to Rome, or as to his own secure and full possession of the 
object of his campaign. Tis only fear was that the enemy might turn his 
right and advance north of the Tennessee. For Rosecrans to deny that he 
was conducting his army under this mistaken impression is to convict him- 
self of a folly of which the most stupid colonel in his army could not be capa- 
ble. Of course he preferred the peaceable possession of Chattanooga, if that 
were possible. Therefore, if he had not felt secure of the place, he would 
have secured himself. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, in the way of 
his doing so. Three days, or at the most four, would have sufficed for the 
concentration of his entire army at Chattanooga, the fortifications of which 
would in the mean while have been strengthened by Crittenden. This move: 
ment demanded not one half the strategy which he had shown on numerous 
occasions, nor did it expose his army to any special peri]. Between him 
and the enemy rose Lookout Mountain, “‘a perpendicular wall of limestone 
over which no wheel could pass.” No change of position, open to Bragg’s 
observation, was necessary. With the cavalry still demonstrating on the 
extreme right, beyond Winston’s, and a portion of Thomas's corps still hold- 
ing Stevens’s Gap, the main army could stealthily, rapidly, and without dan- 
ger, in twenty-four hours’ time, have passed beyond the reach of any possi- 
ble interruption from the enemy. The only thing necessary was expedition.? 


some point on the railroad, to close all access from Atlanta, and also the mountain passes in the 
west. This being done, it will be determined whether the available force shall advance into Geor- 
gia and Alabama, or into the Valley of Virginia and North Carolina.” 

Two days after this dispatch was sent, it became apparent to General Halleck that troops were 
moving westward from Lee’s army. He then instructed Burnside to move down his infantry ‘‘ as 
rapidly as possible toward Chattanooga.” But the reason given for the movement (namely, to 
secure against an advance of Bragg’s army into Tennessee and Kentucky) gave Burnside no hint 
of Rosecrans’s immediate danger. And, in any case, the order came too late to secure the arrival 
of Burnside before Longstreet could join Bragg. 

The communications received all this time by Burnside directly from Rosecrans indicated that 
the latter, so far from being in embarrassment, was getting on swimmingly in Georgia, sweeping 
every thing before him. On the 10th Crittenden writes from Chattanooga : 

“T am directed by the general commanding the Department of the Cumberland to inform you 
that I am in full possession of this place, having entered it yesterday, at 12 M., without resistance. 
The enemy has retreated in the direction of Rome, Georgia, the last of his force, cavalry, having 
left a few hours before my arrival. At daylight I made a rapid pursuit with my corps, and hope 
that he will be intercepted by the centre and right, the latter of which was at Rome. The gen- 
eral commanding department requests that you move down your cavalry and occupy the country 
recently covered by Colonel Minty, who will report particulars to you, and who has been ordered 
to cross the river.” 

1 Rosecrans, of course, swears that this movement was impossible. He says, in his evidence 
before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War (Rep. Com., Rosecrans’s Cam- 
paigns, p. 31): ‘It has been a vopular impression, possibly encouraged, if not believed, in high 


SepremBeER, 1863. ] 


JAMES S. NEGLEY. 


Rosecrans’s movements, more clearly than any thing else, indicate his mis- 
apprehension as to the situation of the Confederate army. On the evening 
of the 9th McCook was informed that Bragg was retreating southward, and 
ordered “to move rapidly upon Alpine and Summerville, Georgia, in pur- 
suit, to intercept his line of retreat, and attack him in flank.”? Thomas was 
at the same time ordered to move on Lafayette. Crittenden was sent to 
Ringgold in pursuit. By this disposition of his army Rosecrans exposed 
each of his three corps to a separate and overwhelming attack of Bragg’s 
army, which, instead of retreating to Rome, fronted the western slope of 
Pigeon Mountain, and was ready, holding a central position, to strike Thomas 
when he should emerge from Dug Gap on the way to Lafayette, Crittenden 
on his right, or MeCook on his left. Rosecrans and his corps commanders 
had been alike misled by the reports of citizens and deserters, sent by Bragg 
within the Federal lines for the direct purpose of conveying an impression 
of his rapid retreat to Rome.? This ruse had been successful. Bragg fully 
appreciated his opportunity. Even on the 9th—the very day of the occu- 
pation of Chattanooga by the national troops, and while Rosecrans was urg- 
ing a “vigorous pursuit” of the enemy by Crittenden, an advance by McCook 
and Stanley upon his flank and rear, and of Thomas’s columns through the 


military quarters, that because a portion of our command, including myself, entered Chattanooga, 
we had possession of it, in the sense of being so established there that we could have retained it 
without a battle. This is an error into which no good military mind cognizant of the facts could 
for a moment fall. Bragg was compelled or induced to fall back from Chattanooga by the men- 
acing attitude of Thomas’s corps at Frick’s and Cooper's Gaps, twenty-six miles south, and of 
McCook’s, with the cavalry corps, at Valley Head, forty-two miles from Chattanooga. Critten- 
den’s corps, 2 part of which was employed in making the demonstration above Chattanooga, and 
the remainder in watching and covering the pass over the extremity of Lookout, passed into Chat- 
tanooga when Bragg fell back, and repaired at once to that point to ascertain the movement of 
the enemy; and all that was done was done promptly, and to that end only. And the instant 
these movements were discovered, and the enemy was found to have retired slowly toward Lafay- 
ette, not a moment was lost in making the necessary disposition, first, to secure our troops against 
being cut up im detail, and, secondly, to effect a most expeditious concentration at an eligible 
point between the enemy and Chattanooga, the goal of our efforts.” 

Now this is cool. Apart from the fact that Rosecrans does not here adduce the slightest argu- 
ment to show why he could not on the 9th have commenced the concentration of his army at Chat- 
tanooga, or why such a movement must be discarded by any ‘$good military mind cognizant of 
the facts” as impracticable, his entire statement gives a false impression of the theory upon which 
he conducted the campaign immediately after Bragg’s abandonment of Chattanooga. He had 
only just ordered Crittenden to enter Chattanooga and vigorously pursue the retreating enemy, 
when he telegraphed to General Halleck (from Trenton, September 9th, 8 30 P.M): ‘‘ Chatta- 
nooga is ours without a struggle, and East ‘Tennessee is free. Our move on the enemy’s flank and 
rear progresses, while the tail of his retreating column will not escape unmolested. Our troops from 
this side entered Chattanooga about noon. ‘Those north of the river there are crossing.” This 
dispatch, the instructions given to Burnside, through Crittenden, that he was in fwd/ possession of 
Chattanooga, and the tenor of all his dispatches to Halleck at this time, indicate, as clearly as 
words any way can, that Rosecrans believed that the campaign for Chattanooga was virtually 
ended, and that he did not concentrate at Chattanooga for the simple reason that he deemed it 
unnecessary, and hoped, through his adyanced position, to prevent ‘‘the tail of Bragg’s retreating 
column” from escaping unmolested. As to being ‘* cognizant of the facts,” it is certain that Rose- 
crans not only did not understand Bragg’s movements, but misapprehended them, and acted upon 
his misapprehension. As we have said in the text, it is only under cover of his mistake that he 
can evade the imputation of folly. But no arguments, not even from Rosecrans himself, can make 
us believe that he was foolish enough to expose three corps of his army—each separated from the 
other by mountain barricrs, and by a distance greater than that intervening between either of them 
and the enemy—to the danger of being cut up in detail. If we were not so compelled by all the 
circumstances of the case, we should still prefer to believe that it was a mistake, rather than de- 
liberate recklessness, that led him to keep his army for even a single day in such a position. It 
is trne that, after he found out his mistake, he succceded in extricating his army from destruction, 
but, as we shall see, this was due to the dilatory movements of the enemy. And his manner of 
extricating it compelled him to accept the wager of a doubtful battle ; whereas, if he had been less 
confident of the enemy’s discomfiture, he might previously haye evaded a battle, and, with his army 
strongly posted in Chattanooga, awaited re-enforcements. 1 Mc Cook’s Report. 

2 Rosecrans does not publish this order, nor even allude to it in his report. But there is con- 
clusive proof this order was given in the fact that, at 8 P.M. on the 9th, General Negley (com- 
manding the advance of Thomas’s corps) received instructions to move the next day to Lafayette. 
Negley writes to Thomas at this date, ‘‘ Your order, directing me to march to Lafayette to-mor- 
row, has been received. I will start at 8 A.M.” 

2 “Thrown off his guard by our rapid movement, apparently in retreat, when in reality we had 
concentrated opposite his centre, and deceived by the information from deserters and others sent 
into his lines, the enemy pressed on his columns to intercept us, and thus exposed himself in de- 
tail.” —Bragg’s Report. 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


539 


gaps of Pigeon Mountain upon Lafayette—Bragg was preparing to strike 
m nee . Bete : ts . , . 
Thomas in McLemore’s Cove, and by moving around his left, between him 

“ je . . 
and Crittenden, to secure an easy victory over both, reserving for MceCook’s 
corps the final blow. Five hours after Rosecrans had telegraphed to Wash- 
ington that Chattanooga was his “ without a struggle,” Bragg issued written 
orders to Hindman and Till to move against Thomas! The Confederate 
force thus ordered to move on Stevens’s Gap outnumbered General Negley’s 
division, holding that position, more than two to one.? Celerity was abso- 
lutely necessary to the accomplishment of Brage’s scheme. Hither he should 
not disclose his position, waiting for the enemy to put himself more com- 
pletely in his power before springing his trap, or, if he unmasked his foree, 
he should strike a sudden and decisive blow. In this he was foiled by the 
dilatory execution or the refractoriness of his subordinate generals, Hill 
reported the order to move on Negley to be impracticable, ‘as General Cle- 
burne was sick, and both the gaps, Dug and Catlett's, had been blocked by 
felling timber, which would require twenty-four hours for its removal.’ 
Early on the morning of the 10th Bragg ordered General Buckner to exe- 
cute with his corps the order issued to General Hill. DTindman had ad- 
vanced promptly, and was at Morgan’s (three or four miles from Davis’s 
Cross-roads, but east of Pigeon Mountain), ready to move forward into the 
cove upon the arrival of a supporting column. Buckner joined him in the 
afternoon. To secure promptness of action, Bragg transferred his headquar- 
ters from Lee and Gordon’s Mill to Lafayette. Polk was ordered to send 
Cheatham’s division to.cover Hindman’s rear, and Cleburne, at Dug Gap, 
was instructed to attack in front. During the night of the 10th the obstrue- 
tions were removed from the gap, and Walker’s reserve corps was directed 
to join Cleburne in the front attack. Thus more than 25,000 men, besides 
cavalry, were, on the morning of the 11th, ready to spring upon Negley’s 
division. 

Negley in the mean time had advanced from Stevens’s Gap to Bailey’s 
Cross-roads, and thence, on the 10th, to Davis’s, one mile west of Dug Gap. 
Until he had reached this latter position he was in utter ignorance of the 
fact that only the obstructions in the passes of Pigeon Mountain separated 
him from an overwhelming force of the enemy on his front and left; but 
then, just in time to save lis division, his eyes began to be opened through 
information received from the citizens and his scouts.* He immediately 
urged Baird to support him, and made dispositions to meet the enemy. 
Baird was up by 8 A.M. on the morning of the 11th, with two brigades, and 
was posted in reserve at Davis’s Cross-roads. Brage’s attack was fortunate- 
ly delayed. At daylight on the 11th he went to Cleburne’s position, and 
found him awaiting the opening of Hindman’s guns, which were not heard 
until the middle of the afternoon, and Cleburne, on advancing, found that 
Negley had fallen back to Bailey’s Cross-roads.° General Negley had found 


1 The following are the orders, dated at Lee and Gordon’s Mill, 11 45 P.M., September 9th: 
‘¢ Major General HinpmMan, Commanding Division : 

“¢ GunprAL,—You will move with your division immediately to Davis’s Cross-roads, on the road 
from Lafayette to Stevens’s Gap. At this point you will put yourself in communication with the 
column of General Hill, ordered to move to the same point, and take command of the forces, or 
report to the officer commanding Hill’s column, according to rank. Ifin command, you will move 
upon the enemy, reported to be 4000 or 5000 strong, encamped at the foot of Lookout Mountain 
at Stevens’s Gap. Another column of the enemy is reported to be at Cooper’s Gap, number not 
known.” 

“ Lieutenant General Hitt, Commanding Corps: 

‘¢GrneRAL,—I inclose orders given to General Hindman. General Bragg directs that you send 
or take, as your judgment dictates, Cleburne’s division, to unite with General Hindman at Davis’s 
Cross-roads to-morrow morning. Hindman starts at 12 o’clock to-night, and he has thirteen miles 
to make. The commander of the column thus united will move upon the enemy, encamped at 
the foot of Stevens’s Gap, said to be 4000 or 5000. If unforeseen circumstances should prevent 
your movement, notify Hindman. A cavalry force should accompany your column. Hindman 
has none. Open communication with Hindman with your cavalry in advance of the junction, 
He marches on the road from Dr. Anderson’s to Davis's Cross-roads.” 

2 Negley’s division numbered 5000 men. Baird’s division, however, of nearly 6000 men, was 
moving up to his support. Brannan and Reynolds were still at Trenton, on the other side of 
Lookout. The two divisions ordered to move on Negley were Hindman’s and Pat Cleburne’s, 
numbering together over 11,000, with a large cavalry foree, and with Bragg’s whole army within 
easy supporting distance. 3 Bragg’s Report. 

¢ At 8 P.M. on the 9th he writes to Thomas, “All the information I have received this even- 
ing from my scouts and others induces the belief that there is no considerable rebel force this 
side of Dalton.” ‘Twenty-six hours later, having discovered his danger, he writes the following 
dispatch to General Baird: 

*“* Widow Davis's, September 10th, 1863—10 P.M. 
“ Brigadier General BArRD: 

“ Sir, There are indications of a superior force of the enemy in position near Dug Gap. An- 
other column, estimated as a division, with twelve pieces of artillery, near Morgan’s Mills, three 
miles to my left, in the direction of Catlett’s Gap. Also a cavalry force, under Forrest, at Culp’s 
Mills, near the road from Pond Spring to Cooper’s Gap—there with the intention (as citizens and 
deserters report) of attacking our rear in the morning. 

‘¢My scouts all report the appearance of an offensive movement in this direction, and they con- 
firm the reports I received this morning of a considerable force of the enemy being in the vicinity 
of Lafayette and Dug Gap. 

‘‘My position is somewhat advanced, and exposed to a flank approach by two roads leading 
from Catlett’s Gap; but it is a favorable one to fight the enemy providing your division is within 
supporting distance, which I understood from General Thomas would be the case, and that your 
division would move up to Chickamauga Creek to-night. Vlease inform me if this will be the 
case. 

‘¢ Have the kindness to send this information to General Thomas to-night. 

‘‘T have the honor to remain, yours very truly, Jas. 8. Neciry, Major General.” 


5 <¢A careful examination of the ground we occupied, which was a long, low ridge, covered 
with a heavy growth of small timber, descending abruptly on the north end to the Chickamauga, 
while the east, south, and west sides were skirted by corn-fields and commanded by high ridges, 
demonstrating the fact that it would be impossible to hold this or any other position south of Bai- 
ley’s Cross-roads, and fight a battle, without involving the certain destruction of our trains, which, 
from the contour of these ridges and uneven nature of the ground, we would be obliged to park in 
close proximity to our position. 

‘““The preservation of the trains, perhaps the safety of the entire command, demanded that I 
should retire to Bailey’s Cross-roads, two miles northwest of our position, while we could get our 
trains under cover and fight the enemy to better advantage. I therefore directed that the trains 
should commence moying back slowly and in good order, and also directed General Baird to hold 
Widow Davis’s Cross-roads until I could withdraw a portion of the second division, and take po- 
sition on the north side of Chickamanga Creck, to cover the withdrawal of his two brigades and 
prevent the enemy from flanking us on our left. 

“At 1 P.M. a heavy column of cavalry was seen moving steadily on our left flank, with the 
evident intention of gaining my rear. I immediately had four pieces of artillery placed in posi- 
tion on the ridge at John Davis’s house, which commanded the valley on my left ; also sent Gen- 
eral Beatty, with one regiment and a section of artillery, to seize and hold Bailey’s Cross-roads 
which was reported to be in possession of the enemy’s advance. : 

‘¢ At 2 P.M. the trains were all in motion, falling back to Bailey’s Cross-roads. General Beatty 
and Colonel Scribner, of General Baird's division, were directed to proceed to that point without 


7 


540 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. (SEPTEMBER, 1863. 


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SepremBeEr, 1863. | 


his position untenable, and, after some severe fighting, retired without losing 
any of his artillery or transportation. His caution in observing, by means 
of scouts, the operations of the enemy, and his skillful disposition of his 
forces on the 11th, had saved his division from otherwise certain destruc- 
tion. He reached Stevens’s Gap with his trains at 10 o’clock P.M., and 
forthwith dispatched to Thomas an account of the day’s operations, suggest- 
ing that the troops (Reynolds’s and Brannan’s divisions) moving via Coop- 
er’s Gap take the most direct route to Stevens's Gap, reaching that point at 
the earliest possible moment. He anticipated an immediate attack from the 
enemy; but Bragg had withdrawn his forces from the cove. 

The army was still in danger. Rosecrans was as yet ignorant of the enemy’s 
position. The weight of evidence (received through Bragg’s ingenious ruse 
of sending deserters and citizens within the Federal lines with false informa- 
tion) had indicated that Bragg was moving on Rome. Information received 
on the 10th made it certain that the enemy had retreated by the Lafayette 
Road, but gave no hint of his present position. The next morning Critten- 
den was ordered to Ringgold, from which point he was to send a reconnois- 
sance to Lee and Gordon’s Mill. If the enemy was found in the vicinity of 
Lafayette, Crittenden was to support Thomas, otherwise he was to advance 
toward Rome.!' In making the movement to Lee and Gordon’s Mill, Crit- 
tenden drove ‘squads of the enemy” before him, indicating that the main 
body of the Confederate army was not far distant. At 3 P.M. on the 11th, 
Rosecrans warned Crittenden that a heavy force of the enemy was in Chat- 
tanooga Valley, and urged him to move his whole force promptly to the 
Rossville and Lafayette Road. This Crittenden began to do on the follow- 
ing morning (the 12th), moving his whole command that day to Lee and 
Gordon’s Mill. The same day Brannan’s division, of Thomas’s corps, reached 
Negley’s left, via Cooper’s Gap, Reynolds’s following close behind. In the 
mean while, McCook, having reached Alpine on the 10th, found “that the 
enemy had not retreated very far from Chattanooga.”* He had been or- 
dered (the day before) to move rapidly on Alpine and Summerville to in- 
tercept Brage’s line of retreat, and to attack him in flank. Finding that, 
after all, he was not on the enemy’s flank, he communicated with Thomas, 
and was surprised to learn that the latter “had not reached Lafayette, as 
ordered.” The movement to Summerville, therefore, was not made. ‘Thomas 
informed McCook on the 10th that he could not reach Lafayette before the 
13th. McCook, beginning to be alarmed on account of the isolated situa- 
tion of his corps, on the 12th wisely returned his trains to the summit of 
Lookout Mountain, remaining with his command near Alpine to await the 
result of a cavalry reconnoissance sent out by General Stanley to ascertain 
the whereabouts of the enemy. 

Bragg, having failed in his designs against Thomas, retired from McLe- 
more’s Cove, and sent Polk and Walker’s corps in the direction of Lee and 
Gordon’s Mill. It might not be too late for a movement northward against 
Crittenden. Learning from General Pegram, the Confederate cavalry com- 
mander in that direction, that this corps of the Federal army was divided, one 
division being at Ringgold, Bragg ordered Polk to attack this division on the 
morning of the 13th. His plan now was to crush Crittenden’s divisions in 
detail, and then to turn again upon Thomas's corps in the Cove.? Here 
again he was disappointed. Polk, with double the numbers of the enemy 
which lay between him and Chattanooga, dispatched to Bragg (11 P.M. on the 
12th) that he had taken a strong position for defense, and requesting heavy 
re-enforcements. He was again ordered not to delay his attack, his force al- 
ready being numerically superior to the enemy, and was promised Buckner’s 
corps the next morning. On proceeding to the front, early on the 18th, 
Bragg found that his orders had not been obeyed, and that Crittenden’s 
forces were united, and on the west side of the Chickamauga.* 


delay, and protect the train from the attack of a large force of cavalry approaching with tha 
view. 

“© At 3 o’clock the skirmishers of General Baird’s division were ordered back across the creek, 
where they were placed in position to hold the enemy in check until I could get my artillery in 
position on the ridge this side. Two companies of the Nineteenth Ilinois Infantry, concealed be- 
hind a stone fence, poured into the ranks of the enemy a destructive volley, killing, as I have since 
learned, thirty on the spot. This partially checked the enemy, who was advancing in three heavy 
lines. Meantime I had ten pieces of artillery planted on the ridge to the rear of Davis’s house, 
which commanded that position, until another new line could be formed on a ridge to the rear. 

‘““The enemy now occupied the south side of the creek with a heavy force, and opened two bat- 
teries of artillery at a distance of 400 yards. ‘Two of his brigades were parallel to our position on 
the right. Buckner’s corps was deployed, and moving up steadily on our left, within short range, 
Colonel Stanley’s and a portion of General Starkweather’s brigades sustained here a well-directed 
and terrific fire, which our troops returned with spirit and marked effect. The firing increased, 
and indicated an immediate general engagement along our entire front, and would have termin- 
ated in an assault from the enemy in a few moments, which would have been disastrous to us, 
considering the overwhelming force of the enemy and our very unfavorable position. 

«By direction, General Baird deployed General Starkweather’s brigade to our right, which 
checked the enemy’s advance in that direction, and enabled Colonel Stanley to withdraw his bri- 
gade, which being done, we retired slowly and in good order to Bailey’s Cross-roads, where a 
strong position of defense was assumed, and the troops were bivouacked for the night, with trains 
parked at Stevens’s Gap. During the night the enemy withdrew to Dug Gap.”— General Negley’s 
Report. 1 Crittenden’s Report. 2 Mc Cook’s Report. 

3 His orders to Polk were explicit, and were thrice repeated, as follows: 

‘* Lafayette, Georgia, 6 P.M., September 12th. 
“Lieutenant General PoLK: 

‘¢GpnprAL,—I inclose you a dispatch from General Pegram. This presents you a fine oppor- 
tunity of striking Crittenden in detail, and I hope you will avail yourself of it at daylight to-mor- 
row. ‘This division crushed, and the others are yours. We can then turn on the force in the 
Cove. Wheeler's cavalry will move on Wilder so as to cover your right. I shall be delighted to 
hear of your success. Very truly yours, Braxton Brace. 

‘To attack at daylight on the 13th.” 

“Lafayette, Georgia, 6 P.M., September 12th, 1863. 
* Lieutenant General PoLk, Commanding Corps: 

‘« GeneraL,—lI inclose you a dispatch marked ‘ A,’ and I now give you the orders of the com- 
manding general, viz., to attack at daylight to-morrow the infantry column reported in said dis- 
patch at three quarters of a mile beyond Peavine Church, on the road to Greysville from Lafay- 
ette, I am, general, etc., Grorce W. Brent, A. A. G.” 

“* Lafayette, Georgia, September 12th, 1863. 


** Lieutenant General Potx, Commanding Corps: bial Ali : 
‘«GrNERAL,—The enemy is approaching from the south, and it is highly important that your 


attack in the morning should be quick and decided. Let no time be lost. 
‘“*T am, general, etc., GrorGE W. Brent, A. A. G.” 
* Bragg’s Report, Yt appears, however, from Crittenden’s own report, that his corps had already 


6X 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


541 


Rosecrans was at length assured from every possible source that his army 
was in peril, and that the theory of his movements since the occupation of 
Chattanooga had been founded upon a gigantic mistake. He had already 
(on the 11th and 12th) ordered Crittenden to Lee and Gordon’s Mill, bring- 
ing in his detached forces from the east side of Chickamauga Creek,? and 
directed Thomas to bring McCook and Stanley within supporting distance 
of his own corps. On the 18th, fully aware of his exposed situation, and 
that, to use his own words, “it was a matter of life and death to effect a 
concentration of his army,” he began to hurry up his columns with the 
idea of shutting off the enemy from an advance on Chattanooga by the 
Lafayette Road. Instead of getting on the rear and flank of the enemy, his 
task was now to get in his front. 

General Thomas, when he received, during the night of September 
12th-18th, the order brought by General Mitchell from Rosecrans to bring 
McCook and Stanley up to his support, understood more perfectly than his 
commander the nature of the emergency which confronted the Union 
army. He immediately directed McCook to move two divisions of the 
Twentieth Corps over the mountain to the left of the Fourteenth, leaving 
the other divisions to guard the trains. Crittenden, under instructions from 
Rosecrans, on the 14th, leaving Wood’s division at Lee and Gordon’s Mill, 
moved the remainder of his command to Mission Ridge, and sent Wilder’s 
cavalry up Chickamauga Creek to connect with Thomas, whose extreme 
left under Reynolds then touched Pond Spring. 

McCook in the mean time was moving in execution of the orders which 
he had received ; but, unfortunately, instead of taking the mountain road 
direct to Stevens’s Gap, he crossed Lookout Mountain, and, moving down 
the valley, was obliged to recross at Cooper’s Gap, thus losing at least a 
whole day at the most critical stage of the campaign.’ This delay came 
near being fatal to the army.‘ By the night of the 17th McCook’s com- 
mand was in McLemore’s Cove, and the three corps of the command were 
within supporting distance for the first time since the crossing of the Ten- 
nessee. ‘I'he day previous Rosecrans was satisfied that Bragg was receiving 
re-enforcements from Lee’s army. He had been advised by General Hal- 
leck to that effect on the 15th. He now calls stoutly for Burnside’s assist- 
ance. But it is already far too late for that to reach him, 

From the morning of the 13th to the night of the 17th Bragg has now 
had five days since he abandoned his attempt against the detached corps of 
Rosecrans’s army. During this time he has been contemplating an advance 
around the Federal left to secure the only available approaches to Chatta- 
nooga from McLemore’s Cove. He has dispatched Wheeler’s cavalry to the 
left to press the Federal forces in the Cove, in order to divert attention from 


been concentrated at Lee and Gordon’s Mill on the 12th, before the order to attack had been is- 
sued to General Polk. 

‘ When was it that Rosecrans first became acquainted with the actual situation of Bragg’s 
army? This question is not answered in his report with any degree of precision. On the even- 
ing of the 10th he was certain that the main body of Bragg’s army ‘‘ retired by the Lafayette Road, 
but uncertain whether he had gone far.” At 3 30 P.M. on the 11th, he informed Crittenden 
that ‘‘the enemy was in heavy force in the Valley of the Chattanooga.” At 3 P.M. on the 
12th, he sent General R. B. Mitchell, of the cavalry corps, to General Thomas with verbal orders 
instructing the latter to direct McCook and Stanley to move up within supporting distance of his 
corps. ‘The reason given for this movement does not imply that Rosecrans then knew that the 
Confederate army was near Lafayette; it was ordered ‘‘ with a view of moving upon the enemy at 
the earliest practical moment.” Mitchell (probably by taking the road east of Lookout Mountain) 
struck Negley’s headquarters. The following is a copy of the letter written by Negley to Thomas 
upon Mitchell’s arrival (1 A.M. on the 13th): H 


‘* Major General Tuomas: 

‘¢ GuNERAL,—General Mitchell, of the cavalry corps, has just arrived from General Rosecrans’s 
headquarters, having left there at 3 o’clock P.M. He brings verbal orders from General Rose- 
crans to the following effect, which he desires me to communicate to you: 

“‘That you order General McCook and Stanley, with his cavalry, to move at once within sup- 
porting distance of your corps, with a view of moving upon the enemy at the earliest practicable 
moment, 

‘General Rosecrans complains of a want of information in regard to your movements and posi- 
tion, and of the numbers and position of the enemy. 

‘“ Feeling confident, from the remarks that General Rosecrans made to General Mitchell, that he is 
totally misinformed as to the character of the country in this vicinity, and of the position, force, and in- 
tentions of the enemy, I write you on that point, so that you can communicate with him at once. 

‘* Also, to inform you that one of my scouts (young Bailey), who is intelligent and reliable, has 
just returned from the vicinity of Bird’s Mills, stating that he was informed by Mr. Paine, and 
other citizens, that in the affair of yesterday our force was confronted by Buckner’s entire com- 
mand, two other divisions of infantry from the vicinity of Dug Gap, and a force of five or six 
thousand cavalry. ‘That the enemy expected to hold us at Dug Gap, while Buckner and the cay- 
alry could pass to our rear, and take possession of Stevens's and Cooper’s Gaps. That Breckin- 
ridge’s command was on Pigeon Ridge, or at Lafayette. That Bragg was concentrating his en- 
tire force at or near Lafayette. That the rebel cavalry west of Pigeon Ridge had passed through 


Worthing Gap, and the infantry had fallen back to the top of the ridge and beyond. The smoke 
from their line of encampment was visible this evening. 
‘« A similar statement was made by two other citizens on hearsay... . . General Brannan re- 


turned from his reconnoissance this evening. He advanced as far as Widow Davis’s Cross-roads. 
He met with only a small cavalry picket, which fled at his approach. Indications were that the 
enemy were on and beyond Pigeon Ridge. ... . 


‘*T have the honor to remain yours very truly, Jas. §. Neciry, Major General,” 


The whole tenor of this letter indicates that the order brought by Mitchell was based upon no 
accurate knowledge by Rosecrans of the enemy’s position. Yet it is clear, both from this order 
and from the instructions already issued to Crittenden to move to Lee and Gordon’s Mill, that 
Rosecrans was, on the 12th, beginning to lose confidence in his scheme for striking the tail end of 
Bragg’s army, and to be alarmed for his own safety. His petulant complaint of Thomas’s negli- 
gence in forwarding information was an indication of his own fears. On the 18th the ground 
upon which he had stood slipped clean away from under his feet. On that day he received from 
Thomas, from McCook, and from Crittenden information which only too clearly demonstrated 
“io Bragg’s entire army was concentrated at Lafayette and along the eastern slope of Pigeon 

ountain. 

2? What is throughout this chapter called ‘‘Chickamauga Creek” is really the West Fork of 
Chickamauga Creek. 

* McCook probably moved upon the best instructions he had in regard to the roads. There is 
some discrepancy, however, between his own and Rosecrans’s statements. McCook says, ‘‘It 
was my desire to join General Thomas by the mountain road, via Stevens’s Gap; but not having 
any guide, and all the citizens concurring that no such road existed, and General Thomas also 
stating that the route by Valley Head was the only practicable one, I determined to join him by 
it.” Rosecrans, in his report, states that McCook was ordered to take the mountain road. This 
might be explained on the supposition that McCook received an order from Rosecrans subsequent 
to the one received from Thomas. 

* «The tardy arrival of McCook’s corps came near being fatal to us.”~-Rosecrans’s Testimony 
before the Congressional Committee. 

’ Rosecrans thus writes to Halleck from near Gordon’s Mill, 1 30 P. M., September 16: ‘* From 
information derived from various sources from my front, I have reason to believe what you as~ 
sert in your dispatch of yesterday, 4 30 P.M., is true, and that they [7.e., Longstreet’s forces] have 
arrived at Atlanta at last. Push Burnside down,” 


543 


his real movement, and Forrest's to the right to cover his advance. But he 
has not advanced. His forces, on the night of the 17th, lie along Peavine 
Creek, east of Pigeon Mountain. Nothing has been in his front between 
him and Chattanooga, except cavalry, with a small detachment of infantry, 
for the past four days. Chattanooga itself has only been held by Wagner’s 
brigade, and all the while Bragg appears to have taken it for granted that 
the Federal army was concentrated in his front. He has been waiting also 
for Longstreet’s corps, three brigades of which, under General Hood, have 
just arrived, and now, when Rosecrans’s army 7s really concentrated in 
his front, he issues his orders for the crossing of Chickamauga Creek.’ It 
is impossible to calculate the advantage of this delay to Rosecrans’s army. 

West Chickamauga Creek, which now separated the opposing armies, 
takes its rise from the junction of Mission Ridge with Pigeon Mountain at 
the southern extremity of the Cove, and runs northeastwardly down the 
Cove by Pond and Crawfish Springs, touching the Lafayette and Chatta- 
nooga Road at Lee and Gordon’s Mill, and, after its junction with the main 
creek, empties into the Tennessee four miles above Chattanooga. About 
four and a half miles below Lee and Gordon’s Mill, in a straight line, is 
2eed’s Bridge, on one of the roads from Ringgold to Rossville. Here was 
the extreme right of Bragg’s line on the night of the 17th. Between this 
point and Lee and Gordon’s Mill there are several available crossings—at 
Alexander's Bridge, and at Byron’s, Tedford’s, Dalton’s, and several other 
fords. The roads leading to these from the east were bad, both from their 
narrowness and from the mountainous character of the country. The stub- 
born resistance of Minty’s and Wilder’s cavalry delayed the crossing of 
Bragg’s forces on the 18th. The right column, proceeding from Ringgold, 
was commanded by General Bushrod R. Johnson, and consisted of his divi- 
sion—made up of three improvised brigades from Mississippi—and Hood’s,’ 
which also consisted of three brigades. The two divisions numbered over 
7000 men. Forrest’s cavalry co-operated with this column, covering its 
front and right upon the march. At Peavine Creek, between Chickamauga 
Hill and Pigeon Mountain, an attempt was made by a small detachment of 
Minty’s cavalry to resist the progress of Johnson’s column, but without sue- 
cess. The attempt was repeated when the Confederates reached Reed’s 
Bridge, again with insufficient force, and with no better result than before. 
Johnson succeeded in saving the bridge from destruction, and began to 
cross his command at 8 o’clock P.M., partly by the bridge, and partly by the 
ford above. He then swept southward in front of the points where Walker's 
and Buckner’s corps had been ordered to cross. 

Walker's corps, nearly 6000 strong, encountered stout resistance at Alex- 
ander’s Bridge (about three miles south of Reed’s), and, the Federal cavalry 
having, after a sharp skirmish, succeeded in destroying the bridge, was com- 
pelled to cross by night at Byron’s Ford. One brigade was left east of the 
ereek to guard the ordnance train, which could not cross with the troops. 

Buckner’s corps, 10,000 strong, started from a point near Rock Spring 
Church, and crossed Pigeon Mountain, following the route taken by Walk- 
er’s, but, turning southward upon approaching the Chickamauga, secured the 
crossing at Tedford’s Ford, but, waiting Walker’s movements on the right, 
did not cross till the next morning. 

Thus, before daylight on the 19th, Bragg had, including cavalry, over 
15,000 men across the creek. Buckner’s corps consisted of Stewart's and 
Preston’s divisions. It was ready to cross, as was also Cheatham’s division 
of Polk’s corps. These, crossing early on the morning of the 19th, increased 
the force on the east of the creek by 16,000 men. Hindman’s division of 
Polk’s corps, and Breckinridge’s and Cleburne’s of Hill’s corps, held the left, 
south and west of Lee and Gordon’s Mill, on the opposite side of the creek, 
and did not cross until the afternoon and night of the 19th. 

These movements indicate clearly the enemy’s plan of operations. Antici- 
pating no serious opposition on his extreme right, Bragg expected to secure 
the approach to Chattanooga by the Lafayette Road, and then to close down 
upon the Federal army and fight the battle upon a field from which, even in 
the improbable event of his defeat, he could fall back upon the strong-hold 
which a fortnight before he had been compelled to abandon on account of 
his weakness, but which now, with his army heavily re-enforced — nearly 
doubled, in fact’—he could easily hold against the combined armies of Burn- 
side and Rosecrans. For Bragg to gain the front which he sought, and ex- 
tend his army across the Lafayette and Dry Valley Roads and the intervening 
ridges, would have been to win the battle’s prize before the battle itself had 
been fought. But here Bragg was again disappointed. His advance had 
been too long delayed, and his movements on the 18th had been unexpect- 
edly retarded. And thus it happened that the battle of Chickamauga came 
to be fought for the very position which Bragg had hoped to gain before 
fighting it. 


1 The following is a copy of these orders. 

‘J, Johnson’s column, on crossing at or near Reed’s Bridge, will turn to the left by the most 
practicable route, and sweep up the Chickamauga toward Lee and Gordon’s Mill. 

‘II. Walker, crossing at Alexander’s Bridge, will unite in this move, and push vigorously on 
the enemy’s flank and rear in the same direction. 

‘TIT, Buckner, crossing at Tedford’s Ford, will join in the movement to the left, and press the 
enemy up the stream from Polk’s front at Lee and Gordon’s Mill. 

“TV. Polk will press his forces to the front of Lee and Gordon’s Mill, and, if met by too strong 
resistance to cross, will bear to the right, and cross at Dalton’s Ford, or at Tedford’s, as may be 
necessary, and join the attack wherever the enemy may be. 

“VY, Hill will cover our left flank from an advance of the enemy from the Cove, and, by pressing 
the cavalry in his front, ascertain if the enemy is re-enforcing at Lee and Gordon’s Mill, in which 
event he will attack them in flank. 

‘VI. Wheeler's cavalry will hold the Gap in Pigeon Mountain, and cover our rear and left, and 
bring up the stragglers. 

‘VII. All teams, ete., not with the troops, should go toward Ringgold and Dalton, Georgia, 
beyond Taylor’s Ridge. All cooking should be done at the trains; rations, when cooked, will be 
forwarded to the troops. 

‘VIII. The above moyements will be executed with the utmost promptitude and perseverance.” 

2 Hood did not take command of his division until it had crossed the creek. 

3 «« Nearly half our army consisted of re-enforcements just before the battle.’—Bragg’s Report. 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1863. 


For Rosecrans’s army had been, the last five days, marching for dear life, 
and when Bragg crossed the Chickamauga he found this army, which he 
had expected to strike near Lee and Gordon’s Mill, upon his front and right, 
prepared to contest inch by inch the possession of the Lafayette and Chatta- 
nooga Road.!. Its own celerity of movement, and Bragg’s delay (in this case 
due to excessive caution), had again saved the Federal army. 

While awaiting the arrival of McCook’s corps, Thomas’s and Crittenden’s 
extended from the Dry Valley Road in front of Stevenson’s Gap to Crawfish 
Spring, being connected at Pond Spring by Wilder’s cavalry. Wood's divi- 
sion of Crittenden’s corps still held a strong defensive position at Lee and 
Gordon’s Mill,?and the river below that point was guarded by Minty’s cav- 
alry, which crossed and reconnoitred the country on the left front, occasion- 
ally meeting and skirmishing with the enemy. The gaps of Pigeon Moun- 
tain to the south were also carefully guarded by Thomas’s command. As 
soon as McCook came up he closed in on Thomas’s right, and Crittenden 


drew in his right upon Crawfish Spring, to give place for Thomas. Wilder’s 
cavalry was then detached and sent to the left. 
The 18th was a day of terrible anxiety to General Rosecrans. Reports at 


different periods of the day came in from Wood and Wilder of the enemy’s 
advance upon the left. The Lafayette Road must be secured, if possible, at 
any hazard. Before night Palmer’s and Van Cleve’s divisions of Critten- 
den’s corps were upon the creek to Wood’s left and right, and all night long 
Thomas was marching by the road to Widow Glenn’s, and past the slopes of 
Mission Ridge, toward Kelly’s Farm on Chickamauga Creek, away off to 
the left of Crittenden; so that on the morning of the 19th the right of the 
army rested at Crawfish Spring, which the day before had been its left. 
Negley’s division had been left by Thomas to guard the fords of the Upper 
Chickamauga in the vicinity of Crawfish Spring. Granger, with the reserve 
corps, was at Rossville. 

The battle of the 19th was opened by General Thomas. The head of his 
column reached Kelly’s at daylight, and went in on the left of Wilder (who 
had the night before been driven back to the heights east of the Widow 
Glenn’s), Baird taking position first, then Brannan upon his left. At this 
point, Dan McCook, commanding a brigade of Granger’s reserve corps, re- 
ported the presence of an isolated brigade of the enemy between Kelly’s 
house and Reed's Bridge, and Brannan, with two brigades, was advanced on 
the road to the bridge to secure the capture of this detached force. Baird 
also advanced to keep in line with Brannan. These dispositions were made 
at 9 A.M. Soon after, Palmer’s division, of Crittenden’s corps, came up on 
Baird’s right. The fight began at about ten o’clock.? It consisted at first 
of sharp skirmishing with Forrest on the Reed’s Bridge Road. ‘The move- 
ments of Johnston and Hood the night before toward Lee and Gordon’s Mill 
had left Walker’s corps in a somewhat isolated position on the Confederate 
right. Wilson’s brigade, of this corps, after conducting the ordnance train 
across the creek, was called upon to support Forrest. Coming in contact 
with this force, Croxton’s brigade, of Brannan’s division, had become en- 
gaged, and drove the enemy for half a mile, when the latter was re-enforced 
by Ector’s brigade, and it was necessary to send in Baird’s division. The 
small force of the enemy engaged at this point was steadily pressed back 
until it was supported by the remainder of Walker’s corps.* After an 
hour’s severe fighting, Croxton’s brigade had been withdrawn, and Baird 
and Brannan, uniting their forces, drove the enemy from their front. 

In the mean time, Cheatham’s division came up to Walker's support at 
noon, and, forming in rear of the latter, advanced upon Baird, striking him 
in the flank, and throwing two of his brigades into confusion. Baird was 
driven back before overwhelming numbers for some distance, when the for- 
tunate arrival of Reynolds’s and Johnson’s divisions on his right again 
turned the tide of battle. These fresh divisions, advancing with Palmer’s 
(which had been opportunely sent by Crittenden), struck Cheatham’s flank, 
and thrust him back in disorder upon Walker’s corps, Brannan’s troops at- 
tacking him at the same time in front, and recapturing the artillery which 
Baird had lost in his retreat. While Cheatham was thus hotly engaged, 
and being driven in confusion, Stewart’s division, of Buckner’s corps, com- 
ing from the Confederate left to his support, attempted in vain to drive 
Thomas back from his advanced position. His three brigades—Clayton’s, 
Brown’s, and Bate’s—advanced each in its turn. In one hour’s fighting 
Clayton lost nearly 400 officers and men,’ and, being withdrawn, Brown 
took his place, and gallantly charged through a dense underwood extend- 
ing along his front, when he encountered a terrific fire from all arms. He 
was unable to use his artillery, while the batteries in his front and on his 
right flank poured into his ranks murderous volleys of grape and canister. 
Checked for a brief moment, he again pushed forward and up the slope, 
where the strength of the Federal position and an attack on his right com- 
pelled him to retreat, after the loss of many of his best officers and a large 
number of his men. Bate relieved him then, meeting the same fire which 
had driven back his brother commanders, but, with Clayton’s support, suc- 
ceeded in driving the Federal force in his front beyond the Chattanooga 
Road. 


1 «The enemy, whose left was at Lee and Gordon’s Mill when our movement commenced, had 
rapidly transferred forces from his extreme right, changing his entire line, and seemed disposed 
to dispute, with all his ability, our effort to gain the main road to Chattanooga in his rear.”— 
Bragg’s Report. ; 

2 A stronger position naturally than that which General Wood occupied can scarcely be 
imagined. The creek at Gordon’s Mill bends round in the form of a semicircle, the convexity be- 
ing toward the south, whence the enemy would have advanced toward General Wood. An emi- 
nence, forming what would be a diameter of the circle if completed, runs from east to west, unit- 
ing the extremities of the bend. Upon this General Wood had placed his artillery. The creek 
itself, of considerable depth, and with a bank several feet high upon our side of it, constituted a 
splendid ditch, and all along its bank lay Wood’s men, behind a rude but efficient breastwork of 
logs and rails.’”’—National Account, Rebellion Record, vii., p. 409. 3 Thomas’s Report. 

4 Forrest reports the capture of two batteries at an early stage of the engagement, but that he 
was unable to bring them off for want of horses. ° General A. P. Stewart’s Report. 


Sepremper, 1863.] . THLE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 543 


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POSITION OF FORCES JUST BEFORE THE OPENING OF THE BATTLE OF TUE 19th, 


544 


The battle had already extended far up the creek. By two o'clock Hood 
and Johnson had become involved in the struggle, and the entire Confeder- 
ate line, as it then stood, below Lee and Gordon’s Mill, had been engaged 
with the exception of two brigades of Preston’s division (Buckner’s corps), 
which, on rising ground, held the extreme left of Brage’s army west of the 
Chickamauga. On the Federal line, division after division had been sent 
in —Van Cleve’s, of Crittenden’s corps; then Davis's, of McCook’s; then 
Wood's, from Lee and Gordon’s Mill; and, finally, Sheridan’s. ach in its 
turn had driven the enemy, and then, outflanked, had been thrust back. The 
arrival of Sheridan’s division finally-stayed the enemy’s progress on the Fed- 
eral right. 

On the centre the Confederates had in the mean time gained considerable 
advantage, and the shells from their batteries almost reached the Widow 
Glenn’s house, where Rosecrans’s headquarters were. Negley’s division had 
therefore been withdrawn from Crawfish Spring, arriving upon the field at 
430 P.M. This division was dispatched to the centre, where it found that 
Van Cleve had been dislodged from the line. Negley immediately attacked, 
and drove the enemy steadily till night. Palmer had been endangered by 
the disaster to Van Cleve, but the advance of the enemy upon his flank was 
checked by General Hazen, who, driven back upon an elevation of ground, 
promptly manned twenty guns and poured a cross-fire into the enemy’s 
charging column, which threw it back in disorder. 

The attack which had for a time broken the Federal centre had begun on 
Reynolds’s right. After Cheatham’s repulse there had been a lull in the bat- 
tle in front of the Federal left from 4 o’clock till about 5, during which 
Brannan and Baird had reorganized their commands, and had been with- 
drawn to a strong position on the extreme left, in which direction Thomas 
expected the next attack. But the enemy made his adyance some distance 
falther to the right. Brannan’s division and the greater portion of Baird’s 
were promptly sent to Reynolds's assistance, arriving just in time to prevent 
disaster. Even while Van Cleve was being driven in the centre, Thomas 
was driving the enemy on the left. 

In pursuing the enemy Thomas's lines became very much extended, and 
were now concentrated upon more commanding ground. It was supposed 
that the battle for that day was over. But Thomas had scarcely completed 
the disposition of his forces before he was again attacked by the enemy. 
Pat Cleburne’s division, of Hill’s corps, having crossed the river at Tedford’s 
Ford, had reached the Confederate right soon after sunset. Passing over 
the line which Thomas had just driven back, and supported on his left by 
Cheatham, he made an unexpected charge upon Johnson and Baird’s divi- 
sions, producing considerable confusion in their ranks; but order was soon 
restored, and the enemy repulsed.’ In this night attack General Preston 
Smith, of Cheatham’s division, was killed. This engagement terminated the 
battle of the 19th. 

The battle thus far had been waged for a position. When it began in 
the morning neither of the two armies had formed its line, though in this 
respect the advantage had been with the Confederates. If Bragg had been 
aware of Thomas’s movement made on the night of the 18th, the result of 
the morning’s, and, probably, of the whole day’s fighting would have been 
far different. Supposing the Federai forces to be in the neighborhood of 
Lee and Gordon’s Mill, Bragg had moved his own too far up the creek, leav- 
ing Forrest only on his extreme right; and while he had been moving them 
back to the right to meet the emergencies arising out of the engagement 
with Thomas, Rosecrans was given time to bring up his divisions to Thom- 
as’s support. In this way Thomas’s movement to the left had spoiled the 
enemy’s preconceived plan of operations. Every assault which had been 
made during the day upon the vital point of the Federal line, its extreme 
left, had been severely repulsed. Whatever ground had been gained by 
Bragg had been upon the centre, where Van Cleve had been driven back 
so far that, until Negley’s arrival, the communication was cut off between 
Thomas and Rosecrans’s headquarters at the Widow Glenn’s.? Karlier in the 
day (say at 2 o’clock P.M.) the line of each army had extended along the La- 
fayette and Chattanooga Road. But upon the restoration of the Federal line, 
after the break on its centre, the left and centre had been refused, leaving 
this road, from Lee and Gordon’s Mill to within less than a mile of Kelly’s 
house, in possession of the Confederates. This refusal of the line was rather 
an advantage to Rosecrans than to Bragg, since it gave the Federal army a 
stronger position. 

It is impossible to estimate, with any degree of precision, the comparative 
injury inflicted upon the two armies in this first day’s battle. Unquestion- 
ably the Confederates sustained the heavier loss. ‘They had little opportu- 
nity for using artillery, on account of the thickly wooded country over 
which they moved.3 Of the Federal divisions, Baird’s and Johnson’s had 
suffered the most severely. The former, when flanked and driven back by 
Walker’s corps, had lost a regiment of regulars, 411 strong, besides 100 oth- 
er prisoners and two batteries. One of these was the First Michigan, for- 
merly ‘‘Loomis’s” battery. Its commander, Lieutenant Van Pelt, stood by 
his guns to the last, and gave up his life with them, falling into the hands 
of the enemy mortally wounded.* 


1 Thomas's Report. But Cleburne claims that he drove the Federals a mile and a half, taking 
two or three hundred prisoners and two or three guns. 

? Thomas, hearing of this break, feared that the entire right would be routed, and began to dis- 
es his line with reference to covering its retreat to the Dry Valley Road, but he was soon re- 

ieved of his apprehensions by Negley’s arrival. 

° «As most of the ground over which the battle was fought was very thickly wooded, we could 
not see more than three hundred yards to the front, consequently could seldom use artillery.”— 
Report of Major Potter, commanding the Artillery of Buckner’s Corps. 

* Bragg reports the capture of several batteries by Walker’s corps, but only these two were se- 
eured. A. P. Stewart reports the capture of twelve guns, but only four were sent to his rear. Jack- 
son, of Cheatham's division, reports the capture of six guns, but these were probably among the 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1863. 


Rosecrans’s headquarters had been all day at the Widow Glenn’s, where 
he could receive by a direct road communications from General Thomas. 
His immediate presence upon the field was at some portions of the day ex- 
tremely necessary. If, just before noon, he had been with Crittenden, he 
would have sent in supports to Thomas’s right with such promptness that 
Walker’s corps must have been completely destroyed or driven into the 
river. Instead of being there, he was pacing his headquarters at the Widow 
Glenn’s in nervous excitement, while his aids, with the assistance of the dis- 
tressed widow, were attempting to locate the line of battle by the sound of 
the firing. The general ought to have known that he could most effectu- 
ally assist Thomas by his personal direction of the battle to the right of the 
latter. 

Leaving out the reserve corps under General Granger at Rossville, Rose- 
crans’s whole army on the field, except two brigades, had been engaged on 
the 19th. Curiously, both General Bragg and General Rosecrans claim that 
they were opposed to superior numbers on this day. In fact, however, the 
forces engaged had not been far from equal; if there was any superiority, it 
was in Rosecrans’s favor. But Bragg had full 15,000 men who had not 
been under fire, if we include Kershaw’s and Humphreys’s brigades of Long- 
street’s corps, which came up in time for the next day’s battle. Breckin- 
ridge’s and Hindman’s divisions were across the river by night, but had 
taken no part in the battle. 

A council of war was held after dark at Rosecrans’s headquarters, and the 
disposition of forces and the conduct of the battle of the next day were de- 
termined upon. That it would be a desperate conflict was certain. The 
battle already fought bad been for the road to Chattanooga. The attempt 
to secure this road would be renewed the next day with forces which it 
would be hard to withstand. Failing of success at this point, the enemy 
would do his best to crush the army which stood in his way. 

General Longstreet, in person, arrived at Bragg’s headquarters before mid- 
night. To him was given the command of the left wing of the Confederate 
army, consisting of that portion of the troops which during the day had 
been under Hood’s command—Buckner’s corps, and Hood’s and Johnson’s 
divisions—with the fresh troops under Hindman and McLaws. ‘The acces- 
sion of Breckinridge’s division was the only change made in the right wing, 
which had been and would still remain under the command of General Polk. 
Bragg ordered Polk to attack the next morning at daybreak, meaning that 
from his extreme right the battle should extend, division by division, to the 
extreme left. 

The Federal line during the night was reorganized. Thomas's front re- 
mained as he had already established it, with part of Brannan’s division in 
reserve. It extended in a semicircular form (at least its formation may be 
thus characterized with sufficient accuracy for our purpose) around Kelly’s 
house, covering the road in front and on either flank. From the point 
where it crossed the road on the south side it was refused, to conform with 
the refusal of the left and centre extending southwestwardly. McCook’s 
corps closed up on Thomas, and refused its right upon the ground north of 
and covering the Widow Glenn’s house. Wood’s and Van Cleve’s divisions 
were placed in reserve, in a position to support either Thomas or McCook, 
Neither of the corps organizations was intact. Palmer, of Crittenden’s, and 
Johnson, of McCook’s corps, were with Thomas, while Negley, who belonged 
to Thomas, was with McCook. The line extended thus from left to right: 
Baird (his left refused to cover the road), Johnson, Palmer, Reynolds, Bran- 
nan, Negley, Davis, Sheridan; with Woodand Van Cleve in reserve. John- 
son’s and Palmer’s divisions extended from Baird’s lines to the road south 
of Kelly’s house, Reynolds’s and the other divisions being to the west of the 
road. In the rear of Johnson and Palmer was an open field, while farther 
back, on the other side of the road, were dense woods. ‘The road from Ring- 
gold to Rossville was well guarded by the cavalry and Granger’s corps. 

The Confederate right wing, confronting the three divisions of Thomas 
east of the Lafayette Road, consisted of four divisions—Breckinridge’s, Cle- 
burne’s, Cheatham’s, and Walker’s. The two latter were in reserve. Long- 
street’s command extended from Cleburne’s position, with Stewart on the 
right, then Johnson, then Hindman holding the left. Hood was in reserve, 
to Johnson’s rear. Preston was held in reserve on the left rear. Humphrey 
and Kershaw, when they came up, were also held in reserve. 

Brage’s army had a hard day’s work before it, and it was all-important 
that it should be begun early. But his orders to Polk were for some rea- 
sons (certainly unsatisfactory ones to Bragg) not carried out. The attack 
was not begun on the right until nearly 10 o’clock A.M. Every moment 
of this delay had been of great advantage to Thomas, whose troops had been 
all night felling timber and strengthening their line by temporary breast- 
works.! And when the fight began it progressed slowly. The work assigned 
to Polk—namely, to thrust Thomas back from his position, and thus double 


recaptured by Brannan. Hood captured a battery from Jeff C. Davis's division, but it was after- 
ward recaptured. On the Federal side it was claimed that there was a balance against the Con- 
federates of three guns. 

1 <¢ At dawn General Bragg was in the saddle, surrounded by his staff, eagerly listening for the 
sound of Polk’s guns. The sun rose and was mounting in the sky, and still there was no note of 
attack from the right wing. Bragg chafed with impatience, and at last dispatched one of his 
staff officers, Major Lee, to ascertain the cause of Polk’s delay, and urge him to a prompt and 
speedy movement. General Polk, notwithstanding his clerical antecedents, was noted for his fond- 
ness for military ostentation, and carried a train of staff officers whose numbers and superb dress 
were the occasion of singular remark. Major Lee found him seated at a comfortable breakfast, 
surrounded by brilliantly dressed officers, and delivered his message with military bluntness and 
brevity. General Polk replied that he had ordered Hill to open the action, that he was waiting 
for him, and he added, ‘ Do tell General Bragg that my heart is overflowing with anxiety for the 
attack—overflowing with anxiety, sir.’ Major Lee returned to the commanding general, and re- 
ported the reply literally. Bragg uttered a terrible explanation, in which Polk, Hill, and all his 
generals were included. ‘Major Lee,’ he cried, ‘ride along the line, and order every captain to 
take his men instantly into action.’ In fifteen minutes the battle was joined, but three hours of 
valuable time had been lost, in which Rosecrans was desperately busy in strengthening his posi- 
tion.”— Pollard’s Lost Cause, p. 450. 


SeprembeER, 1863. ] THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 545 


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THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA, SEPTEMBER 19th. 
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546 


up the Federal line, pressing it back upon Longstreet—was not found easy 
to execute. 

Breckinridge opened the attack. He had not reached Cleburne’s right 
until after dawn, and knew nothing of the ground. Of his three brigades 
Helm held the left, Stovall the centre, and Adams the right, being the ex- 
treme right of the whole line. The division extended so far to the right 
that only a portion of Helm’s brigade encountered the Federal line in a di- 
rect advance westward, and thus Stovall and Adams, meeting no resistance, 
pushed forward, seriously threatening Thomas's flank. Baird’s division did 
not quite reach the Lafayette Road; Thomas had, therefore, as early as two 
o’clock A.M., written to Rosecrans, asking for Negley’s division to supple- 
ment his line. Rosecrans had promised that it should be sent forthwith. 
Seven o'clock came, an attack was momentarily expected, but Negley had 
not arrived. The request was repeated, and was received by Rosecrans at 
eight o'clock. Some demonstration of the enemy in Negley’s front led 
Roseerans to retain this division until it was relieved by McCook. McCook 
having been ordered to promptly relieve Negley, Rosecrans, accompanied 
by General Garfield, rode along his entire line. Upon returning to the 
right he found Negley where he had left him, not having been relieved. 

Beatty’s brigade was immediately sent to Thomas, the other two being or- 
dered to follow as soon as other troops were ready to take their position. 
Beatty reached Thomas in time, fortunately, to secure his line. Breckin- 
ridge’s left brigade had already been severely cut up, having been exposed 
to a front and enfilading fire from a foe concealed behind breastworks, and, 
after two assaults, in which General Helm, commanding the brigade, and a 
large number of his subordinate officers, had been killed, this portion of the 
line was withdrawn. Stovall and Adams, however, had advanced, driving 
back two lines of Baird’s skirmishers. Stovall halted at the road, but 
Adams pressed forward, his line and Stovall’s being now formed perpendic- 
ular to the road, to conform to Baird’s position. The advance now was 
through the woods west of the road. Stovall attacked the angle of the 
works, and was soon forced to retire. Adams, encountering Baird’s left, 
now re-enforced by Beatty and some regiments from Johnson’s, Brannan’s, 
and Wood's divisions, was severely beaten. Adams, wounded, and a large 
number of prisoners, were captured. Thus, before noon, Breckinridge had 
been driven from the field. ‘To prevent a repetition of the attack at this 
point, Negley was ordered to mass all the artillery which could be spared 
upon a position commanding the enemy’s approach, but, from some misun- 
derstanding, Negley took a very different position from that which had been 
indicated. 

Cleburne, on Breckinridge’s left, had advanced against Johnson’s, Palm- 
er’s, and Reynolds's divisions with no better success. Owing to Polk’s ut- 
ter neglect of his line in the morning, there was no well-arranged plan of 
attack. Cleburne, in the hurry occasioned by orders to dress upon Breckin- 
ridge’s left, had got into some confusion. His left, also, in advancing, con- 
verged with Longstreet’s line of advance in such a manner that part of 
Wood's brigade passed over some of Stewart’s division, and Deshler’s was 
thrown entirely out of line in Stuart’s rear. Thus a part of Wood’s brigade 
moved against that part of Thomas’s line which turned westward upon the 
road. Crossing a field bordering the road, near Poe’s house, this brigade 
received a heavy oblique fire, and in a few minutes sustained a loss of 500 
men, killed and wounded. Deshler might then have been sent in; but 
Polk’s brigade, on Wood’s right, had also been repulsed, and Cleburne’s 
whole line was withdrawn to a safe position some 400 yards in the rear. 
On the retreat General Deshler was killed, a shell piercing “fair through 
his chest.”? 

In the mean time, the Federal divisions on Thomas’s right have met with 
a terrible misfortune. Upon the failure of McCook to relieve Negley in the 
morning, Crittenden had been ordered to do so, sending in Wood’s division. 
But this movement had been delayed until half past nine o’clock. McCook’s 
line, holding the extreme right, was not satisfactory to Rosecrans, being too 
far removed from the troops on its left. After repeated orders from Rose- 
crans, this difficulty was only partially remedied. Messages still continued 
to come from Thomas, asking for re-enforcements. Van Cleve’s division 
was sent to his aid. Shortly after this a most unfortunate event took place. 
Captain Kellogg, coming across the field to bring further tidings to Rose- 
crans that Thomas was still heavily pressed, thought he discovered a break 
in the line on Reynolds’s right. In fact there was no such break, but Bran- 
nan’s division, from its arrangement in echelon at this point, had occasioned 
the delusion. Rosecrans forthwith ordered Wood, who had relieved Neg- 
ley, to close up and support Reynolds. Wood, misapprehending the intent 
of the order, moved his division entirely out of line, ‘at double quick,” and 
passed to Brannan’s rear. Thus a gap was made where previously none had 
existed, and through this gap the enemy advanced, throwing the entire right 
wing into confusion, from which it did not recover.’ 


1 Cleburne’s Report. 

2 General Wood having claimed that he did right in moving out of line, and had no discretion 
to do otherwise, General Rosecrans, on the 12th of January, 1864, wrote to Adjutant General 
Thomas the following letter: 

‘¢GpneRAL,—The report of the general-in chief shows that a letter from one of my division 
eommanders at the battle of Chickamauga, commenting on the report of his commanding general, 
has been received at the War Department, and subsequently published by its authority. The gen- 
eral in chief refers to that letter as a rival authority to my own, and as raising a doubt on the ac- 
euracy of a point in my report. The letter, dated October 23, ult., four days after I left the com- 
mand, is based on a quotation from my official report, to which, evidently, the writer was not at 
that time entitled, and which, therefore, prima facie, was surreptitiously obtained. _ It has been re- 
ceived and publicly used as a document disparaging my report, without having been referred to 
me, or passing through my hands, as required by military courtesy and army regulations. 

“The War Department is therefore respectfully requested, as an act of justice, to cause the 
above and following observations to be filed and published as an appendix to my official report of 
the battle of Chickamauga: 

‘‘ Brigadier General T. J. Wood writes and sends to the War Department a clandestine letter to 
show, contrary to the inference drawn in my report, that he did right, under an order to ‘close up 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


{SEPTEMBER, 1863. 


Longstreet had waited until 11 o’clock, and then, seeing that Polk was 
making no serious impression upon the enemy, began the attack with the 
left wing. Stewart was closed up to the right, to make room for Hood in the 
front line. Humphreys’s and Kershaw’s brigades (McLaws’s division), were, 
on their arrival, brought up as supports to Hood, whose division was made 
the main column of attack. Longstreet’s order of battle was entirely re- 
versed by the character which the conflict had assumed on the right. His 
left, instead of his right, became the movable column. Stewart’s division, 
upon reaching the Lafayette Road, was there stationed, forming the pivot 
upon which Longstreet’s wing turned. Hood’s column was up just in time 
to take advantage of the break occasioned by Wood's sudden withdrawal, 
above alluded to, and the troops on his right and left pushed the attack with 
great vigor. General Hood received a severe, and it was then thought mor- 
tal wound, just after his column had penetrated the Federal lines, and Gen- 
eral Law, commanding one of his brigades, succeeded to the command. 
But, notwithstanding the loss of their old commander, the troops pressed 
their advantage, flanking Jeff Davis on the one side, and Brannan on the 
other, cutting off five brigades from the right of the army, and driving them 
to the rear. The blow had fallen just as Rosecrans was weakening his right 
by sending two of Sheridan’s brigades to Thomas. These brigades were re- 
called to oppose the enemy’s advance, and Davis closed up to the left for the 
same purpose. But the enemy’s charge could not thus be resisted. The 
attack now extended from beyond Brannan’s right to a point west of the 
Dry Valley Road. The Confederates at the weak point outnumbered the 
Federals three to one. McCook’s five brigades were driven back, with a 
loss of nearly half their men. The right of Brannan was driven back, and 
two of his batteries, moving to a new position, were taken in flank, and 
thrown back through two of Van Cleve’s brigades, then on their way to 
Thomas, producing inextricable confusion. In this way these two brigades 
of Van Cleve, with the five already mentioned, were driven from the field 
on the road to Rossville. Davis and Sheridan strove in vain to make a 
stand. Hindman’s division had advanced far to their right, making resist- 
ance useless. Johnson had advanced on Hindman’s right, swelling the vol- 
ume of the assaulting column. In this charge of Longstreet’s command the 
Confederates claimed a capture of seventeen guns. 

Rosecrans, McCook, and Crittenden had all been swept from the battle- 
field. Thomas alone was left, with one of Negley’s brigades, and the divis- 
ions of Baird, Johnson, Palmer, Reynolds, and such portions of Wood’s and 
Brannan’s as had not been involved in the disaster, to withstand the entire 
Confederate army. Negley had taken some fifty pieces of artillery to the 
rear, in obedience, as he supposed, of Thomas’s orders. He thus saved a 
large number of guns from capture, and offered a somewhat formidable re- 
sistance to the enemy’s advance. But the Confederate success against 
McCook’s line compelled him to withdraw, and he went to Rossville, where 
he was very efficient in the reorganization of Rosecrans’s scattered troops.’ 


on General Reynolds and support him,’ in taking his division out of the line of battle and in rear 
of Brannan’s division, to a reserve position in rear of Reynolds. My report, dealing with facts, 
and avoiding personal censure, shows that General Reynolds sent me word, by Captain Kellogg, 
A.D.C. to General Thomas, that there were no troops on his immediate right, and that he wanted 
support there ; that, stpposing Brannan’s division had been called away, I told an aid to write to 
General Wood an order to close up on Reynolds and support him, who wrote as follows : 
‘¢¢ Headquarters, September 20, 10 45 A.M. 
“ ‘Brigadier General T. J. Woop, Commanding Division, ete. 

“¢The general commanding directs that you close up on Reynolds as fast as possible, and sup- 
port him. Respectfully, Frank 8. Bonn, Major and A.D.C.’ 

‘¢ Now, with this order in his hand: 

“ Ist. When General Wood found there was no interval to close, because Brannan’s troops haa 
not left, his plain duty as a division commander was to have reported that fact to the general com- 
manding, who was not more than six hundred yards from him, and asked farther orders. His 
failure to do so was a grave mistake, showing want of military discretion. 

‘©2d. When about to move, notwithstanding this, his duty, on being informed, as he was by one 
of his brigade commanders, that his skirmishers were engaged, and the enemy in line of battle op- 
posite his position, General Wood was renewedly bound to have reported the facts and taken orders 
before leaving his position at such a critical time. But, instead of doing so, he privately withdrew 
his troops from the line, and let the enemy in, in the face of an order the wording of which shows 
that no such operation as the opening, but, on the contrary, the closing of a gap, was intended by it. 

‘3d. This conduct of General Wood, treated in the report with all the reserve consistent with 
the truth of history, contrasts most unfavorably with that of General Brannan, commanding the 
division next on his left, who, a little earlier in the day, when he received an order to leave his 
position and support the left, finding his skirmishers engaged, reported the fact to General Thom- 
as, desiring to know if, under such circumstances, he should execute the order. He was told. 
‘No; stay where you are.’ 

“4th. It also contrasts with General Wood’s own conduct and correspondence only a few days 
previously, when he protested against a reprimand of his corps commander for not occupying a 
position at Wauhatchie, lecturing his senior on the impropriety of what he termed ‘blind obe- 
dience to orders,’ and in upward of fifty pages of manuscript trying to prove his conduct consist- 
ent with that sound discretion which a division commander ought to exercise in remoying his 
troops from the danger threatened by the literal execution of orders, 

“The material difference of circumstances in the two cases, as appears from his own writings, 
being that the discretion he exercises at Wauhatchie, and the ‘blind obedience’ he pleads at 
Chickamauga, both have the effect of getting his troops out of danger. 

‘* As the best of generals are liable to mistakes, I should have been content to leave those of 
General Wood to the simple historical statement of them, presuming he regretted them far more 
deeply than even myself. And, so feeling, I called attention to his military virtues— vigilance, 
discipline, providence of his commissariat, and care of his transportation. But his mean and un- 
soldierly defense of error shows him wrong both in head and heart. 

‘‘Respectfully, your humble servant, (Signed), W. S. Rosecrans, Major General. 

“ Brigadier General L. Tuomas, Adjutant General U.S. A. 

* Official: R. 8. Tuorn, Captain, A.D.C.” 

1 Both Generals Wood and Brannan, in their reports, endeavor to disparage General Negley’s 
conduct in this connection. Brannan says: ; 

‘¢General Negley, so far from holding my right as he had promised, retired with extraordinary 
deliberation to Rossville at an early period of the day, taking with him a portion of my division, as 
will be seen by the report of Colonel Conwell, commanding First Brigade, leaving me open to at- 
tack from the right, as well as from the left and front (from which point the rebels attacked sim- 
ultaneously on four several occasions), and my rear so far exposed that my staff officers, sent back 
for ammunition, were successfully cut off, and the ammunition, of such vital importance at that 
time, prevented from reaching me, thus necessitating the use of the bayonet as my only means 
of defense.” 

General Wood says: 

‘* Before closing my report, I deem it my duty to bring to the notice of the commanding gener- 
al certain facts which fell under my observation during the progress of the conflict on the 25th. 
As I was moving along the valley with my command, to the support of General Reynolds, in con- 
formity with the order of the commanding general, I observed on my left, to the west of me, a 
force posted high up on the ridge. I inquired what force it was, and was informed that it was a 
part (a brigade, perhaps) of General Negley’s division. I was informed that General Negley was 
with the force in person. Iremember distinctly seeing a battery on the hill-side with it. At the 


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SerremsBer, 1863. ] THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 547 


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THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA, SEPTEMBER 20th. 


548 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


On the Federal right there was indescribable confusion, The trains had 
all been pushed along the Dry Valley Road, and, mingled with the disorgan- 
ized troops, blocked up the road to Rossville. Rosecrans and Garfield, his 
chief of staff, left the field together, taking the Rossville Road. To a retreat 
from this part of the field there was no alternative. As far as the eye 
could reach, there was no orderly array of battle, and no direct communi- 
cation with the left. Was Thomas beaten also? This was the question 
which now agitated the minds of the general and his staff officer. If he 
was routed, then clearly Rosecrans’s place was at Chattanooga, where he 
could best provide for the safety of his army and of his trains. Finally, the 
two officers, before reaching Rossville, came to a point where two roads led, 
one to Chattanooga, and the other around to Thomas’s position. Firing 
could be heard in the latter direction with considerable distinctness. Apart 
from this firing, there was no hint to guide General Rosecrans. The two of- 
ficers listened most intently, and reached exactly opposite conclusions, Rose- 
erans had already arrived at a conviction that the entire army was defeat- 
ed. He judged that the firing which he heard was scattered, and indicated 
disorganization. Garfield, who doubtless had a more correct ear, thought it 
was the firing of men who were standing their ground. He felt that Thomas 
was not beaten, and, as General Rosecrans was determined himself to go to 
Chattanooga, he asked permission to go to Thomas. This was given. Rose- 
crans went to Chattanooga, and telegraphed to General Halleck that his 
army was beaten. Garfield went to Thomas; what he found there we shall 
soon discover. 

It is scarcely strange that Rosecrans should have jumped at the conclu- 
sion that Thomas was defeated. That he was not seems almost a miracle; 
but it was just such a miracle as had twice already during this campaign 
saved the army from destruction. If Longstreet had known the full extent 
of the disorder which his first assault had produced, he would have thrown 
caution to the wind, and have pursued with abandon. But, fortunately, he 
did not know. His divisions on the right had met with obstinate resistance. 
Hindman, instead of pursuing the advantage gained on the extreme left, 
was moved eastward to support Johnson. Thus time was given for the 
formation of a new Federal line from Thomas’s right, across the command: 
ing heights which constitute the southern spurs of Mission Ridge, east of 
McFarland’s Gap. 

Thomas, meanwhile, knew nothing of the disaster to the Federal right. 
Just before the repulse of the enemy on his extreme left, a little after noon, 
he sent to Rosecrans to hurry up Sheridan’s division, which had been prom- 
ised him. Captain Kellogg, his aid sent for this purpose, proceeding to the 
right, met a large force of the enemy in the open corn-field to the rear of 
Reynolds, advancing cautiously. This force was at first supposed to be 
Sheridan’s troops, but the mistake was soon discovered, and the enemy was 
driven back. The gap between Reynolds and Brannan was filled, and 
Wood's division—so much of it as remained—was placed on the right, in 
prolongation of Brannan’s line. 

It can easily be seen that if, during the formation of this line, or previous, 


time it was certainly out of reach of any fire from the enemy. This was between 11 and 12 
o’clock in the day. A little later in the day, perhaps half or three quarters of an hour, when I 
became severely engaged, as already described, with the large hostile force that had pierced our 
lines and turned Brannan’s right, compelling him to fall back, I looked for the force that I had seen 
posted on the ridge, and which, as already remarked, I had been informed was a part of General 
Negley’s division, hoping, if I became severely pressed, it might re-enforce me, for I was resolved 
to check the enemy if possible. But it had entirely disappeared; whither it had gone I did not 
then know, but was informed later in the day it had retired to Rossville, and this information I 
believe was correct. By whose orders this force retired from the battle-field I do not know; but 
of one fact I am perfectly convinced: that there was no necessity for its retiring. It is impossible 
it could have been at all seriously pressed by the enemy at the time—in fact, I think it extremely 
doubtful whether it was engaged at all.” 

It is not necessary here to attempt any defense of so brave and skillful an officer as Gener- 
al Negley against such charges as these. We will simply quote the opinion of the Court of In- 
quiry called upon to investigate General Negley’s conduct in the spring of 1864. The finding of 
this court was as follows: 

“No question has any where been raised as to the conduct of General Negley on the 19th of 
September, the first day of the battle of Chickamauga. He commanded on that day his entire 
division, and it appears from the evidence that his conduct throughout was creditable. 

‘¢ Barly on the second day General Negley was assigned a position in the line on the right of 
General Brannan, from which he was relieved between 8 and 10 o’clock by Wood’s division. 

‘‘ He was then ordered to take a position on the extreme left; but his division having been re- 
lieved at a later hour than was expected, his reserve brigade was sent meantime in advance of 
the others, and became separated from him, taking a place in the line under General Baird. 
Subsequently another of his brigades was placed in line on the left of General Brannan, and un- 
der the command of that officer. A little later in the day, as General Negley was moving to a 
position on Missionary Ridge, to which he had been ordered by General Thomas, he gave up to 
General Brannan, on his urgent appeal for support, the largest regiment of his last brigade, re- 
taining for himself only two weak regiments and four companies of another regiment. The point 
to which he was directed was in rear of the centre of the line. Here he found a battery ; other 
batteries and parts of batteries joined him, and it appears on evidence that he had at last fifty 
guns under his care, with only the small infantry support ‘above referred to, namely, two small 
regiments and four companies of another regiment, in all 600 or 700 men. 

‘¢The gap in the line made by the withdrawal of Wood’s division, the rout of the entire right, 
and the unresisted advance of the enemy from that direction, as well as the advance of the enemy 
from the left of the line, the enemy having outflanked and driven in a portion of the left also, 
subjected General Negley to such hazard of losing this large park of artillery as made it expedi- 
ent, in his judgment, to withdraw it to a point on the Dry Valley Road, about two or three miles 
from Rossville. It appears in evidence that this movement was executed in good order, and all 
the artillery saved. 

‘¢Here General Negley met Generals Davis and Sheridan, with portions of their command, 
and considerable bodies of disorganized troops from various commands. He co-operated with the 
division commanders above referred to in taking such measures as the exigencies of the occasion 
seemed to require, and toward evening retired to Rossville. 

“General Negley exhibited throughout the day (the second of the battle) and the following 
night great activity and zeal in the discharge of his duties, and the court do not find in the evi- 
dence before them any ground of censure. 

“The impression which seems to have been entertained by General Brannan that General 
Negley had ordered one of his brigades to the rear is not sustained by the testimony. 

“Tt appears in the evidence that Brigadier General Wood, on one or more occasions, at the 
headquarters of the Army of the Cumberland, and in presence of the commander of that army 
and a portion of his staff, indulged in severe reflections upon the conduct of Major General Neg- 
ley, applying to him coarse and offensive epithets. When placed upon the stand before the court 
he failed entirely to substantiate any charge or ground of accusation against him. The court 
deem it their duty to express their marked condemnation of such conduct, leading to vexation 
and unprofitable investigation prejudicial to the service. 

*‘IT, The record and opinions in the foregoing cases have been submitted to the President of 
the United States. Ie is of opinion that no farther action is required, and the Court of Inquiry 
is dissolved. 3y order of the Secretary of War, KE. D. Townsenp, A. A. G.” 


[SepTEMBER, 1863. 


the enemy had assaulted the Federal right with any considerable force, he 
must have made himself complete master of the position. Not less fortu- 
nate, nor less decisive than Longstreet’s delay, was General Gordon Granger's 
arrival upon this part of the field just as Wood had got into position on the 
new line. Granger had started from Rossville at 11 o’clock with General 
Whittaker’s and Colonel Mitchell’s brigades, under the immediate command 
of General Steedman, leaving Colonel Dan McCook’s brigade to guard the 
Ringgold Road. He had heard heavy firing, and judging, from the sound, 
that ‘Thomas was being hard pressed, he felt that his presence upon the field 
was necessary. It was about three and a half miles from Rossville to the 
point where Thomas was then engaging Breckinridge. Granger had gone 
over two thirds of this distance when the enemy made his appearance in 
the woods to the left. This hostile force was found to be only a party of 
observation, and Granger pressed on with his column, leaving the enemy at 
this point to be taken care of by Dan McCook. 

While Granger is advancing the battle has been steadily swaying to the 
left along Thomas’s line, until it has reached Reynolds’s and Brannan’s divis- 
ions. Against these McLaws and Stewart, with a part of Cleburne’s divis- 
ion, have been directing assaults as violent as those which Breckinridge and 
Cleburne have been making against the stronger line north and west of the 
Lafayette Road—stronger, because situated on more favorable ground, and 
more thoroughly fortified by breastworks. ‘The result had been different: 
while Breckinridge and Cleburne are being driven back, Longstreet’s divis- 
ion, though sustaining terrible loss and repeated repulse, are at length gain- 
ing ground. It is at this point that Wood withdraws from Brannan’s right, 
and the disaster follows on the Federal right which we have already de- 
scribed. -Brannan now withdraws from his works, and the whole of 
Thomas’s line east of the Lafayette Road is refused, moving back upon the 
spurs of Mission Ridge. All this has taken place as Granger is marching 
for the field. Longstreet is preparing for a fresh assault upon the new po- 
sition with overwhelming numbers, and, when that assault comes, Thomas 
feels that, so far as he can see, there is no hope for his army—no possible 
alternative to defeat. 

- At this critical moment clouds of dust are seen rising to the left and rear. 
In those phantom-like columns lurk hope or disaster. Some new element 
is about to enter into the chemistry of this doubtful battle, which now 
waits for the development of this approaching force for its solution. The 
direction from which this force is coming gives no clew as to its character: 
it is as like to prove hostile as friendly. At length long lines of men are 
seen emerging from the woods, crossing the Lafayette Road in perfect disci- 
pline, their banners fluttering above, and their bayonets glittering in the 
sunlight. An aid has reconnoitred, and reports that it is an infantry force. 
But whose? Soon this vital question was answered from the advanced 
colors—the red and blue, with the white crescent, marking Granger’s battle- 
flag. 

Granger had come up in time. Already Longstreet had gathered his col- 
umns for an assault in front and on either flank. He had called for assist- 
ance from General Polk, but the latter had been too badly beaten to respond. 
Thomas’s right rested upon a chain of heights beginning about a fourth of 
a mile west of Kelly’s house, and extending westward about one mile to- 
ward the Dry Valley Road. These heights are covered with open woods, 
have a gentle but irregular slope on the south, north, and east, and their sum- 
mits are a hundred feet above the level of the surrounding country.?. McFar- 
land’s Gap—now the great strategic point of the battle-field—was on the ex- 
treme right. This gap is the entrance from the battle-field into Chattanooga 


~Valley. The Dry Valley Road from this point to Rossville was crowded 


with the trains of the Federal army. ‘The stand which was now taken by 
Thomas, if obstinately held till nightfall, would secure the safe retreat of 
the army to Rossville. 

Granger, as he came up, was sent in on Brannan’s right. Wood had al- 
ready been formed on Brannan’s left. Steedman led Granger's men up the 


crest of the hill, contending as he advanced against an assaulting column of | 


the enemy which had gained the summit of the ridge. Moving forward his 
artillery, he dislodged the enemy and drove him down the southern slope, 
inflicting upon him a fearful loss in killed and wounded. The arrival of 
fresh troops had revived the courage of the Federals at this point, and ev- 
ery assault of the enemy from this time until nightfall was repulsed with 
great slaughter. The conflict here was desperate. Granger’s command con- 
sisted in great part of troops which had never before tasted battle ; but they 
fought with heroic obstinacy, losing nearly half their numbers, .With great 
difficulty Longstreet succeeded in bringing his men to charge again, after 
they had been driven from the ridge and the gorge to the south of it. He 
had put in now his last division, and his troops were exhausted by their re- 
peated assaults. 
In the mean time, General Garfield, about four o’clock P.M., after runnin 
the gauntlet of the enemy’s fire on the left, reached Thomas, bringing him 


the first official intelligence of the disaster which had befallen the right of - 


the army at noon. Garfield had left the field with Rosecrans, as we have 
seen, at the time of the disaster; as he now returned to it, he found the 
ridge just in rear of the point where the right had been beaten, held by 


1 “About 3 o’clock in the afternoon I asked the commanding general for some of the troops of 
the right wing, but was informed by him that they had been beaten so badly that they could be 
of no service to me. I had but one division [Preston’s] that had not been engaged, and hesitated 
to put it in, as our distress upon our right seemed to be almost as great as that of the enemy upon 
his right.”—Longstreet’s Report. 

2 Such is the description given in Buckner’s report. In regard to the topography of the battle- 
field, the writer of this chapter has been compelled to depend upon Confederate reports, not find- 
ing any fair description elsewhere. Rosecrans is usnally very minute in the description of the to- 
pography of his campaigns; but he probably never sufficiently explored the battle-field of Clhick- 
amauga to describe it with any degree of accuracy. 


SepremBER, 1863. ] 


Thomas’s line, which at the same time still retained the Lafayette Road. It 
was to him a glorious moment. He alone, of all the army which then held 
the field, had witnessed the advance of Hood’s irresistible columns and the 
wreck of a whole line of battle; and he alone, of all those who had left the 
field, was permitted to witness the magnificent spectacle of Longstreet’s re- 
pulse from the ridge. It was the fulfillment of the promise which his own 
heart had whispered to itself when he parted company with Rosecrans near 
Rossville.! 

Shortly after Garfield’s arrival, Thomas received a dispatch from General 
Rosecrans suggesting the withdrawal of the army to Rossville. Rosecrans 
had already learned from Garfield that Thomas was making a bold stand in 
the old tracks of the morning, and that the enemy was being repulsed. At 
half past five General Thomas ordered Reynolds to withdraw from his posi- 
tion. The line which had been assumed and obstinately held thus far, 
though strong in position, was weak in numbers. Only about twenty thou- 
sand men held the entire front from the Lafayette to the Dry Valley Road. 
Thomas, since noon, had been with his right. He saw that against the over- 
whelming numerical superiority of the enemy he could not hold out much 
longer. He, therefore, prepared to retire from the field. In passing from 
Wood’s rear to Reynolds's position, to point out to the latter officer the po- 
sition where he wished him to form line to cover the retirement of the divi- 
sions farther to the left, he found the enemy advancing in this direction to 
his rear. Upon this hostile force Reynolds was ordered to charge, and the 
enemy was driven beyond the left of the line. Wood, Brannan, and Gran- 
ger were then withdrawn. Johnson’s and Baird’s divisions were attacked 
just as they were retiring, but they succeeded in moving from the field in 
order, and without serious loss.? 

General Negley’s presence at Rossville, where, with Sheridan’s and Davis’s 


_ assistance, he had rallied a considerable body of troops, and provided them 


ee Cm re eee 


with rations, was of very material assistance to General Thomas. But for 
these generals the retreat of the disorganized troops would have been con- 
tinued to Chattanooga. Upon Thomas's arrival at Rossville, he posted Neg- 
ley’s division on the Ringgold Road; Reynolds’s on Negley’s right, stretch- 
ing to the Dry Valley Road; Brannan’s in reserve to Reynolds’s right and 
rear; while McCook’s corps extended from the Dry Valley Road nearly to 
Chattanooga Creek. 

Bragg’s army was too tired and too sadly worsted to attempt pursuit on 
the night of the 20th. On the 21st a few strageling blows were directed 
against the Federal army at Rossville. Thomas, feeling that he could not 
hold his position there against the Confederate army, suggested to Rose- 
crans that he be ordered to Chattanooga. The order was issued at 6 P.M. 
on the 21st, and by 7 o’clock the next morning Rosecrans’s army was with- 
drawn to that place without opposition from the enemy. 

Thus ended the battle. Though driven from the battle-field, the Federal 
army had succeeded in shutting the enemy out of Chattanooga. It had 
fought bravely, and had retired in good order, after having for two days 
held its position. Even the disaster upon its right on the 20th, taking from 
the field over 10,000 men, had not crushed its power of resistance. While 
it held the battle-field it repulsed every assault of the enemy, and withdrew 
only when its ammunition and supplies had given out, and it had become 
certain that its position could not be held for another day. The solitary 
advantage which the enemy had to show as a proof of his victory was his 
final possession of the battle-field. As to the numbers engaged on the Con- 
federate side there are widely varying estimates.* After an investigation 


1 There is a general misapprehension in regard to this ride of Garfield’s to the front from Ross- 
ville, caused probably by the publication of explanatory letters from sources which ought to be au- 
thentic, but which are not so. Of this nature is a letter recently (during March, 1867) published 
in the New York Citizen. This letter, entitled ‘‘ Rosecrans at Chickamauga —The Question 
Solved,” is based entirely upon informatien given by a member of Rosecrans’s staff. Now this 
member of Rosecrans’s staff knew absolutely nothing of what he relates as to this matter. He 
makes Rosecrans ‘‘fall in” with Garfield at or near Rossville, whereas it was at this very point 
that Garfield parted with Rosecrans, after having been with him all the time from the beginning 
of the battle on the 19th. By a still wider error he makes Rosecrans receive reports at this point 
that Thomas continued to hold his position. Rosecrans received no such reports. Neither Gar- 
field nor Rosecrans had any thing to guide them in their conduct at this time save their own in- 
ferences. As to Rosecrans ‘‘ knowing that the fate of our army depended upon our holding Chat- 
tanooga,” it is clear that any such dependence upon Chattanooga could only follow upon the de- 
feat of the entire army. Until this utter rout was established the case was exactly reversed: the 
ability to hold Chattanooga depended upon the fate of the army. Again, Rosecrans is made to 
send Thomas orders by Garfield ‘‘to hold his position at all hazards until nightfall, and then to 
retire to Rossville.” Rosecrans sent no order to Thomas by Garfield. A dispatch was sent later 
in the day to Thomas, ordering the latter to retire to Rossville. Moreover, it is stated that the 
only way for Rosecrans to reach Thomas ‘‘ was vta Rossville, and thence out on the east side of 
the ridge, it being impossible to cross the ridge at any intermediate point.” Certainly the advance 
of the enemy had not been continued so far as to prevent the crossing of the ridge at any point 
north of McFarland’s Gap ; and there was no other difficulty. rom McFarland’s Gap Rosecrans 
could have certainly gone on horseback to Thomas with as much ease as troops were a short time 
afterward brought over precisely the same route which he would have taken, the only difference be- 
ing that the direction was opposite. ‘The enemy at no time during the battle penctrated to the 
road which Rosecrans would have taken. But did Rosecrans know that this route was clear for 
him? We answer, no. And it is here, and not in the fact that there was no such route, that 
Rosecrans can find his only apology. From what he could see, he suspected that Thomas was 
also defeated. He says in his official report : 

“Giving the troops direction to rally behind the ridge west of the Dry Valley Road, I passed 
down it, accompanied by General Garfield, Major McMichael, and Major Bond, of my staff, and 
a few of the escort, under a shower of grape and canister and musketry, for two or three hundred 
yards, and attempted to rejoin General Thomas and the troops sent to his support by passing to 
the rear of the broken portion of our lines, but found the routed troops far toward the left; and, 
hearing the enemy’s advancing musketry and cheers, I became doubtful whether the left had held 
its ground, and started for Rossville. On consultation and farther reflection, however, I determ- 
ined to send General Garfield there, while I went to Chattanooga to give orders for the securi- 
ty of the pontoon bridges at Battle Creck and Bridgeport, and to make preliminary dispositions 
either to forward ammunition and supplies, should we hold our ground, or to withdraw the troops 
into good position.” 

The simple fact is that Rosecrans made a great mistake. He arrived too soon at the conviction 
that his whole army was defeated, and upon that conviction he went to Chattanooga, because he 
deemed it his duty to do so. The charge of cowardice, or of an apathetic abandonment of the 
field, which have been made against him, are too ridiculous to be even mentioned. Rosecrans 
Was a general against whose bravery or patriotism there can rest no reproach. 

? The Confederate reports indicate that the entire line was carried by assault, and that Thomas 
was driven. This was not the case. There was no serious assault. The enemy simply occupied 
a position deliberately abandoned by Thomas. 

* Rosecrans’s estimate of the numbers opposed to him scems to us to be extravagant. 


624 


He says 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


549 


of the official returns of numbers from Bragg’s army before the battle, and 
of the Confederate reports of the battle (which are very minute), we judge 
that the effective force of the enemy, including re-enforcements, amounted 
to 70,000 men, of whom 55,000 infantry and cavalry were directly engaged 
on the battle-field. Rosecrans was clearly outnumbered. His entire army, 
including cavalry, was not far from 60,000 strong. THis foree actually en- 
gaged in the battle amounted to from 48,000 to 47,000 men. 

The Federal army lost in the battle 1644 killed, and 9262 wounded. 
Bragg reports a capture of 8000 prisoners. Halleck’s report (for 1868) esti- 
mates Rosecrans’s missing as 4945. The loss in cavalry was 500, making a 
total Federal loss of 16,3851. The Federal loss in artillery Bragg makes 51 
guns, and Rosecrans 36 (meaning probably the net loss, subtracting from 
his entire loss the guns which had been captured from the enemy). The 
Confederate loss in killed and wounded largely exceeded that sustained by 
Rosecrans. Bragg reports a loss of two fifths of his command, but does 
not give the exact figures. Halleck, in his report, says that the Confederate 
journals admitted a total loss of 18,000. This is probably not far from the 


truth.2 Bragg lost 2003 prisoners, leaving his loss in killed and wounded 
about 16,000. 


(in a letter published after the battle): ‘*The enemy reports a loss of 18,700 killed and wounded, 
and admits his loss to have been 20 per cent. of his entire command—a very large loss—which 
gave him 93,500 at Chickamauga.” But this calculation is based upon a mistake which would 
actually double the enemy’s numbers. Bragg distinctly states in his report that his loss amounted 
to two fifths (40 per cent.) of his entire command, which would give him—supposing his loss 18, 700 
(Bragg, however, does not state the exact number), 46,750 instead of 93,500. Rosecrans thinks 
one fifth of the numbers engaged ‘‘a very large Joss.” But in his official report of the battle he 
says, ‘‘I am fully satisfied that the enemy’s loss largely exceeds ours.” Now Rosecrans Jost in 
killed and wounded 11,406, or more than one fifth of his own army. 

Rosecrans (in the letter alluded to) arrives at this estimate of the enemy’s numbers in another 
way. ‘‘Bragg,” he says, ‘‘ had 32,000 troops when driven from his intrenched camps at Shelby- 
ville and Tullahoma, across the mountains and the Tennessee. Buckner joined with about 10,000 
troops from East Tennessee, Johnston with about 25,000, and Longstreet with about 25,000 more, 
giving again 92,000 as his whole force.” his also is a gross miscalculation. Bragg’s force and 
Buckner’s united, on June 20th (four days before Rosecrans advanced from Murfreesborough) 
amounted to 46,000 effectives—a larger estimate than Rosecrans gives. 
dence that Bragg had received 50,000 re-enforcements. At any rate, no such number was en- 
gaged in the battle. From the Army of Virginia about 12,000 men were sent under Longstreet, 
but Bragg reports that only 5000 of these arrived in time to participate in the battle. The re- 
enforcements from other sources actually engaged were B. R. Johnson’s and Walker's commands, 
or about 15,000 men. Of Bragg’s own army (the Army of Tennessee, including Bucknev), the 
Confederate reports indicate that there were engaged about 27,000, exclusive of cavalry. ‘This 
estimate would give the enemy about 47,000 infantry actually engaged at Chickamauga. 

The estimate, as made up from the Confederate official reports, is the following : 

LONGSTREET’S COMMAND. PoLK'’s COMMAND. 


» 


But we can find no evi- 


Buckner'si Corps. cjsice ccs dese cejeee rales sts 9,207 Breckinridge’s Division 
Hindman's Division ......... Cleburne’s Division ....... E 
B. R. Johnson's Division Walker's: Corp. 1s 02-30h0anieee eet 9 
Longstreet's Corps (proper), consisting of Cheatham’s Division (approximate) ..... 7,500 
Hood's and McLaws's Divisions....... 5,000 23,359 
24,012 24,012 
Total, exclusive of Cavalry......... “AT,371 


There is good reason to believe that Bragg underestimates the number of Longstreet’s own 
troops when he puts it at 5000. Longstreet had five brigades, three under Hood (Law’s, Ben- 
ning’s, and Robertson’s), and two under McLaws (Kershaw’s and Humphreys’s). Kershaw had 
all the regiments which he had at Chancellorsville, and the Eighth North Carolina in addition. 
He must have had at-least 2000 men, Giving Humphreys 1500 men, and Hood’s three brigades 
3500 (a moderate estimate in either case), Longstreet’s proper command (engaged) numbered 
7000. ‘This would make the entire infantry force of the enemy, in round numbers, 50,000. The 
cavalry force engaged probably numbered 5000, making a total of 55,000. 

This army was composed of regiments from each of the eleven Confederate States, and from 
Kentucky. All together there were about 115 regiments and 11 battalions; and the battalions 
would have made about four regiments of the average size. The average for each regiment was 
little over 400 men. Forty-four regiments—a little over one third of the army—were from Ten- 
nessee. Over 20 were from Alabama; 19 from Mississippi; 5 from Kentucky ; 13 from Arkan- 
sas, and about the same number from South Carolina; 5 from Texas; 15 or 16 from Georgia; 
6 from Louisiana; 8 from Florida; 7 from North Carolina; and from Virginia only 2. The 
Virginians were all in Buckner’s command. B.R.Johnson’s command, which Greeley (Am. Con. 
flict, vol. ii., p. 415) makes consist of Virginians, had not a Virginia regiment. Cheatham’s di- 
vision consisted almost wholly of Tennesseeans. Humphreys’s brigade was made up of Mississip- 
pians entirely, and Kershaw’s entirely of Carolinians. 

The estimate of Bragg’s army which we have been considering is for the forces actually en- 
gaged. The estimate for his whole army would be largely above this. Just before his retreat 
from Chattanooga he had 45,000 effectives. His re-enforcements, and the additions made to his 
cavalry by recruiting, before the battle, increased this force to over 70,000. 

* The last offiical returns from Rosecrans’s army before the battle are those of August 31st. 
C. Goddard, A. A. G. of Rosecrans’s staff, quoting from these returns, gives the following as the 
effective force of the several divisions: 


Baind's veicisasyes « 5,702 Wood's.... 2,064 
: IN@SIBY'S ocierepasaisis 5,130 Twenty-first Corps <~ Palmer's .. 5,703 
Fourteenth Corps Brannan’s......... 6,015 Van Cleve's . 5,308 
a a ae tbe 
Reynolds's ......... 6,625 13,975 
v4 UT2 - 
ee Granger’s Reserve Corps.............-+ 4,500 
MIDRIB Biicielcictelsieis wis cis 4,586 13,S75 
Twentieth Corps ~ Johnson’s........... 5.607 14,345 
Sheridan’s.....5.... 4,352 24,072 
14,345 Lota inser tandeceevan seers e tec 56,S:2 


This estimate includes the entire infantry force, with the exception of Wagner's brigade left at 
Chattanooga. Goddard says: ‘‘I am morally certain that these returns, made previous to cross- 
ing the Tennessee, show a considerably larger force than took active part in the battle. What 
percentage should be deducted I can not well say... .. There was a regiment left at Crawfish, 
I think to guard the hospital. That, with the details for train guards, hospital and ambulance 
attendance, etc., would, I think, reduce the fighting strength at least 3000 men. I made a rough 
estimate at Crawfish, and put down our effectives at about 42,000, which was, I think, not far 
from right.” 

It is probable that much more than 8000 men were detailed—it would not be unfair to say 
5000. Deducting this and Granger’s foree—which only came up at the close of the battle, and 
after a foree more than double his own had been swept from the field—and we have left 47,392. 
As the cavalry on the 19th and 20th was almost entirely detached to guard the exposed flanks 
of the army, it ought not to be estimated as a part of the force actually engaged on the field. 
Rosecrans’s army, all told, cavalry and infantry, numbered nearly 60,000 just before the battle. 

* The Confederate reports give the losses in all the brigades excepting those of Gist’s, Ector’s. 
and those of Hood, McLaws’s, and Cheatham’s divisions. Leaving out these 10 brigades, the loss 
in these several commands is as follows: 


| Killed. | Wounded. Missing. | Total. Per Cent. 

‘Wileon's Bripadevyovecescs cs 99 426 80 605 50 
Buckner's Corps .........000. 803 2576 90 2,969 43 
Breckinridge’s Division. . 166 909 165 1,240 33 
Cleburne’s Division ..... 204 1539 6 1,249 34 
Hindman's Division... 272 1480 98 1,850 30 H 
Liddell's Division ..... 162 963 277 1,4 2 44 
B. R. Johnson's Division ...... 188 1081 166 1,435 42 

Tobalis saninsiseetsts deg ott 1394 S9T4 882 11,250 36 


Ector’s loss was about the same as Wilson’s. Ector and Wilson’s brigades numbered together 
2400 before going into action, They lost more than half. Gist’s loss is not reported, but was ‘at 
least 400. The greater part of Cheatham’s division was held in reserve on the 20th; but his loss 
on the 19th was severe. In all he must have lost 1600 men. Thus, leaving out the casualties in 
Longstreet’s own corps, we have, 


Brom precise: dat sigess -cenastociaiy.tecePeveta awinks Wee waandsdaeeeee 11,250 
Hetors: Brigadest estimnated).a,)cc5. st cvcasscves ee nctavesusvardcun. deuce 600 
Giat's Brigade: (estimated)... .s2yceec 05 soon cabdacanecetetaseuay coxseeer ‘ 400 
Cheatham’s Division (estimated).......-......... Yes tne¥ne suede st pout 1600 


13,850, or ahont 34 per cent, 


5d0 


Eighteen days after the Army of the Cumberland crossed the Tennessee 
it was concentrated in Chattanooga. The campaign, so far as it concerned 
this army alone, was over, It had been a tedious campaign of wearisome 
marches, terminating in a doubtful and unnecessary battle. Many mistakes 
had been made by both the Federal and Confederate commanders. Risks 
had been run on the one side which imperiled a whole army, and the disas- 
trous results of which were only averted by delays and neglect of opportu- 
nities on the other. The battle itself was badly managed by General Rose- 
crans. His personal supervision of its details on the 19th would have en- 
abled Thomas to strike blows so decisive that it is doubtful if there would 
have been a second day’s battle. On the 20th there was, from the begin- 
ning of the fight, nothing but disorder and confusion on the right; nearly 
every order was either disobeyed or misunderstood. If on this day Rose- 
crans had devoted himself to seeing that Thomas was supported, and to such 
a disposition of his right as the transfer of troops to the left made necessary, 
there would have been no disaster, no serious loss of artillery or prisoners, 
and no necessity of abandoning the field to the foe. Rosecrans relied upon 
McCook and Crittenden to do what he ought to have known—if he knew 
any thing of men—would not be done by those commanders. Herein con- 
sisted his greatest blunder at Chickamauga.! All else—that, indeed, for 
which he was chiefly blamed—the historian will regard as the result of a 
natural mistake. 


The missing, as precisely reported, we have found amounted to 882. It would be fair to sup- 
pose that the missing of Ector’s and Gst’s brigades and of Cheatham’s division would increase 
this number to at least 1000. Subtracting this from the entire loss thus far estimated, we have 
left 12,850 as the killed and wounded, leaving out those of Longstreet’s corps. Now, taking the 
very lowest estimate of Bragg’s infantry force (as made up from official reports), it amounts to 
48,000. Forty per cent. of this would give 19,200 as the number of killed and wounded in in- 
fantry alone. This would make the loss in Longstreet’s corps the difference between 19,200 and 
12,850, or 6350. But Bragg reports that only 5000 of Longstreet’s corps took part in the battle. 
This estimate excludes prisoners captured from Bragg, which Rosecrans reports as 2003. We 
have already estimated the missing from all the other commands except Longstreet’s corps as 
1000; the other thousand, therefore, must have been from this corps. This would make the 
entire Confederate loss in infantry—killed, wounded, and missing—21,200, and Longstreet’s en- 
tire loss 7350, or 2350 more men lost than, according to Bragg’s report, he brought into battle. 

The precise reports we are compelled to assume as correct. The error, therefore, is either in an 
extravagant overestimate on Bragg’s part of his loss, or an equally extravagant underestimate of 
the number of Longstreet’s corps engaged in the battle. One thing, however, is certain—namely, 
that the loss in Longstreet’s corps was considerably above the general average. Hood’s three 
brigades fought both days, and suffered severely on both. Kershaw’s and Humphreys’s brigades 
were engaged only on the 20th, but they sustained a fearful loss in their assaults on the afternoon 
of that day. It would not be extravagant, therefore, to estimate Longstrect’s loss as 45 per cent. of 
his command. ‘Then, supposing the entire loss of the army to have been about what Halleck says 
the Confederate journals stated it, 18,000, and deducting 1000 for casualties in the cavalry force, 
Longstreet’s loss would be the difference between 17,000 and 18,850, or 3150, which would be 45 
per cent. of 7000, the latter being the number which in a preceding note we gave as the probable 
estimate of Longstreet’s force actually engaged. This calculation would decrease the percentage 
of loss in killed and wounded from 40 to about 30 per cent., and give Longstreet 2000 more men 
than Bragg gave him in his report. 

The loss in some brigades of Bragg’s army was almost incredible. Helm’s brigade, of Breckin- 
ridge’s division, went into battle with 1763 men, and came out with 432, losing over two thirds, be- 
sides its commander. Bate’s brigade, of Buckner’s corps, lost 608 out of 1085. Liddell’s division 
lost 1402.out of 3175, nearly 50 per cent. In the space of a single hour, on the afternoon of the 
20th, Gracie’s brigade, of the same corps, lost 698 out of 2003. Another brigade (Kelly’s) of this 
corps reports a loss of 300 out of 876. Still another reports a loss of 50 per cent. B. R. John- 
son’s division out of 3683 lost 1435, nearly one half. Maney’s brigade, of Cheatham’s division, 
lost half its numbers. Jackson’s brigade, of the same division, lost 490 out of 1405; the loss in 
one of its regiments (the Fifth Georgia) was 55 per cent. Wilson’s brigade lost 50 per cent., and 
Ector’s in the same proportion. 

t Rosecrans made no charges against McCook or Crittenden. On the contrary, in his report, 
he accorded them only praise. The court of inquiry which investigated Negley’s conduct also 
considered the cases of McCook and Crittenden. We quote below the findings of the court in 
each case. But these opinions do not in the least affect General Rosecrans’s responsibility. 

Decision in McCook’s Case. 

“Tt appears from the investigation that Major General McCook commanded the Twentieth 
Army Corps, composed of Sheridan’s, Johnson’s, and Davis's divisions. 

‘* His command on the 19th of September, 1863 (the first day of the battle of Chickamauga), 
consisted of Davis's and Sheridan’s divisions, and of Negley’s temporarily, and occupied the right 
of the line, Johnson’s having been detached to Thomas’s command. The evidence shows that 
General McCook did his whole duty faithfully on that day with activity and intelligence. 

‘Barly on the 20th of September General McCook had under his command the divisions of 
Sheridan and Davis (the latter only 1300 to 1400 strong), and Wilder's brigade, and the senior 
officers of the cavalry were told they must take orders from him, though attend to their own bus- 
iness. 

‘<The posting of these troops was not satisfactory to the commanding general, who in person 
directed several changes between 8 and 10} o'clock P.M. 

‘During these changes, involving a flank movement of the whole right to the left, the enemy 
made a fierce attack, taking advantage of a break in the line caused by the precipitate and inop- 
portune withdrawal of his division by Brigadier General T. J. Wood, passing through the interval, 
and routing the whole right and centre up to Brannan’s position. 

“The court deem it unnecessary to express an opinion as to the relative merits of the position 
taken by General McCook and that subsequently ordered to be taken by the commanding general, 
but it is apparent from the testimony that General McCook was not responsible for the delay in 
forming the new line on that occasion. 

“Tt further appears that General McCook not only had impressed on him the vital importance 
of keeping well closed to the left and of maintaining a compact centre, but he was also ordered to 
hold the Dry Valley Road. This caused the line to be ‘attenuated,’ as stated in the testimony 
of the commanding general, who says that its length was greater than he thought it was when as- 
sumed. 

“Tt is shown, too, that the cavalry did not obey General McCook’s orders. 

“‘'The above facts, and the additional one that the small force at General McCook’s disposal was 
inadequate to defend against greatly superior numbers the long line hastily taken under instruc- 
tions, relieve General McCook entirely from the responsibility for the reverse which ensued. 

“Tt is fully established that General McCook did every thing he could to rally and hold his 
troops after the line was broken, giving the necessary orders, ete., to his subordinates. 

“The eourt are of opinion, however, that in leaving the field to go to Chattanooga, General 
McCook committed a mistake, but his gallant conduct in the engagements forbids the idea that 
he was influenced by considerations of personal safety. 

‘Bearing in mind that, the commanding general having previously gone to Chattanooga, it was 
natural for General McCook to infer that all the discomfited troops were expected to rally there, 
as well as to presume that a conference with the commanding general on that important subject 
was both desirable and necessary, the court can not regard this act of General McCook as other 
than an error of judgment.” 

Decision in Crittenden’s Case. 

«General Crittenden commanded the Twenty-first Army Corps, composed of Palmer’s, Wood's, 
and Van Cleve’s divisions. 

‘On the 19th of September, 1863 (the first day of the battle of Chickamauga), his command 
consisted of those divisions, except Wagner’s brigade, which garrisoned Chattanooga. 

‘‘The evidence adduced respecting General Crittenden’s operations on that day not only shows 
no cause for censure, but, on the contrary, that his whole conduct was most creditable; for by his 
watchfulness, and prompt and judicious support of troops engaged, serious consequences to our 
army were prevented, and the enemy’s plans for the day disconcerted. 

‘“Early on the morning of the 20th General Crittenden’s command consisted of Wood’s and 
Van Cleve’s divisions ; but as, about 8 o’clock A.M., Wood's division was detached, to take post 
in Thomas’s line, General Crittenden is not responsible for its subsequent conduct. 

‘Van Cleve’s division was shortly after ordered to the left, and General Crittenden was to ac- 
company it. 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| SEPTEMBER, 1863. 


The battle left Rosecrans with an army in and about Chattanooga 45,000 
strong. Bragg was left with an army numbering over 50,000 men, to 
which re-enforcements were daily being added. It was evident, therefore, 
that nothing farther could be accomplished by the Army of the Cumberland 
until it should be largely re-enforced. Rosecrans proceeded to fortify Chat- 
tanooga. Hooker’s corps was sent to him from the East on the 23d of Sep- 
tember. Other re-enforcements were on the way from Grant’s army. As 
soon as the latter arrived Rosecrans was relieved of his command, on the 
19th of October,! and General Grant, with the armies of the Cumberland, 
the Ohio, and the Tennessee, entered upon that brilliant campaign which 
terminated in General Brage’s utter defeat before the close of the year.? 


CHAPTER XXXV. 
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


V. THE SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE. 

The Campaign for Chattanooga involved the East Tennessee Problem.—Halleck’s Mistake ; his 
Contradictory Orders. —The tardy and feeble Effort toward co-operation with Rosecrans.— 
Plans for subsequent Movements suggested by Burnside.—Halleck still insists upon the Oceu- 
pation of the Upper Valley of the Holston and Co-operation with Rosecrans at the same Time. 
—Why Bragg did not move on Rosecrans’s Rear directly after the Battle of Chickamauga.— 
The Confederates occupy Lookout Mountain, abandoned by Rosecrans.—The Mistake of Rose- 
crans deprives him of his shortest Line of Communication.—Wheeler’s Raid north of the Ten- 
nessee.—Destruction of a Federal Train.—Capture of MeMinnville.—Conflict with Crooks’s 
Federal Cavalry near Farmington.—The Difficulty of supplying Chattanooga prevents the ac- 
cession of Burnside’s Army to the Defense of that Place-—The Campaign against Sam Jones 
in East Tennessee.—Longstreet crosses the Tennessee, November 14, 1863.—Burnside, in ac- 
cordance with Grant’s Instructions, falls back toward Knoxville.—The Battle at Campbell’s 
Station.—Burnside’s Situation after reaching Knoxville.—Longstreet, needed by Bragg, can 
not afford to wait, and Assaults on the 18th.—Death of General Sanders.—Defeat of Long- 
street’s second Assault, November 29th.—Grant sends Sherman to the Relief of Knoxville.— 
The Siege is raised, and Longstreet retreats eastward. 


N the campaign of General Rosecrans against Bragg, General Burnside’s 
army had been utilized only to a very small extent. The advance upon 
Knoxville had been unresisted. The occupation of that point was of con- 
siderable importance. By his possession of the railroad connecting Kast 
Tennessee with Virginia, Burnside compelled the Confederate re-enforce- 
ments to Bragg’s army from the east to make an extensive detour by way 
of Atlanta. His presence on Rosecrans’s left and rear made his army a 
large reserve force relatively to Rosecrans; but the Army of the Ohio was 
too distant to answer the chief use of a reserve corps—that of active co-op- 
eration in case of necessity. The idea that Burnside’s army, by remaining 
in the Valley of the Holston, secured the possession of East Tennessee, is 
simply absurd. It was security enough, doubtless, against Sam Jones's hit- 
tle army, or any other inconsiderable detachments which might straggle 
across the mountains from West Virginia. But these were only demonstra- 
ting columns sent for the purpose of keeping Burnside’s army where it was. 
The Confederate force which was really fighting for Hast Tennessee was 
Bragg’s army. The only force which actually contested Bragg’s possession 
of this prize was the Army of the Cumberland; and it maintained the con- 
test single-handed, while Burnside’s army accomplished little beyond the il- 
lustration of General Halleck’s pet theories. The enemy thoroughly under- 
stood that the defeat of General Rosecrans was the recovery not only of 
Chattanooga, but of all else which Bragg and Buckner had abandoned. If 
Rosecrans could be cut off from Chattanooga—and at one stage of the cam- 
paign this seemed likely to be accomplished—there was no alternative to 
Burnside’s retreat but overwhelming disaster. The continued separation 
of the two armies was too auspicious to the Confederate government to be 
counted upon, and, therefore, Longstreet had been sent to Bragg. 


“ As it was moving the attack took place, and the troops were broken by our retreating artil- 
lery and infantry, as well as by the furious attack of the enemy. 

“For the disaster which ensued he is in no way responsible. 

«Changes were ordered to be made in the line. The break which occurred while the troops 
were moving by flank from the right to the left to conform to these changes was taken advantage 
of by the enemy, and disaster and rout ensued. It is amply proven that General Crittenden did 
every thing he could, by example and personal exertion, to rally and hold his troops, and to pre- 
vent the evils resulting from such a condition of affairs, but without avail. 

“‘ Believing that by his presence on the field nothing more could be effected, he left for Ross- 
ville, where he learned little else than that the commanding general had gone to Chattanooga. 

‘‘He repaired thither, where one of his brigades was stationed. 

“In the opinion of the court, General Crittenden is not censurable for this act.” 

1 'The following is a copy of General Rosecrans’s order upon leaving his army: 


“« General Orders, No. 242. 
‘ Headquarters Department of the Cumberland, Chattanooga, Tenn., October 19th, 1863. 

“The general commanding announces to the officers and soldiers of the Army of the Cumber- 
land that he leaves them, under orders from the President. 

“Major General George H. Thomas, in compliance with orders, will assume the command of 
this army and department. 

‘The chiefs of all the staff departments will report to him. 

“Jn taking leave of you, his brothers in arms—oflicers and soldiers—he congratulates you that 
your new commander comes not to you as he did, a stranger. General ‘Thomas has been identi- 
fied with this army from its first organization. He has led you often in battle. To his known 
prudence, dauntless courage, and true patriotism you may look with confidence that under God 
he will lead you to victory. 

‘The general commanding doubts not you will be as true to yourselves and your country in the 
future as you have been in the past. 

‘To the division and brigade commanders he tenders his cordial thanks for their valuable and 
hearty co-operation in all that he has undertaken. 

“To the chiefs of the staff departments and their subordinates whom he leaves behind he owes 
a debt of gratitude for their fidelity and untiring devotion to duty. 

‘Companions in arms—officers and soldiers—farewell ; and may God bless you! 

; “W.S. Rosecrans, Major General.” 


2 We have dealt thus elaborately with the history of Rosecrans’s Chickamauga campaign on. 
account of the general misapprehension which exists in regard to many of its most important fea- 
tures. We have endeavored to do justice to all the actors concerned. ‘The writer has made no: 
statement in regard to any point in dispute without substantiating it. His materials have been 
abundant, consisting in no small proportion of unpublished official documents. If he has erred in 
any important particular, it has not been from prejudice, but because the evidence before him was, 
after all, incomplete. Whatever mistakes may have been made on this account, time alone can 
correct. A fair history of any event is not often written while the historian rests under its shad- 
ow. If the present writer has failed to do justice, still justice will be done; if he has not told the 
exact truth, still, sooner or later, the exact truth will be told, 


aia 


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Ocroner, 1863. ] 


Burnside had received orders instructing him to co-operate with Rose- 
erans, but it had all the while been insisted upon that he must hold the Val- 
ley of the Holston from Rosecrans’s left to the Virginia boundary, a line of 
nearly 200 miles. Not till it was too late did he receive an explicit order 
to move to Chattanooga. The first order to this effect he got on the 16th, 
only three days before the battle of Chickamauga. ‘The Ninth Corps, which 
had been resting for the last fortnight after its struggle in Mississippi, was 
now ordered to move. But the necessity for haste does not seem to have 
been appreciated. The next night a more urgent dispatch was received 
from General Halleck, who wrote, ‘There are several reasons why you 
should re-enforce Rosecrans with all possible dispatch. It is believed the 
enemy will concentrate to give him battle. You must be there to help 
him.” On the 21st a peremptory order came from the President, command- 
ing Burnside to join Rosecrans without delay. By this time all the forces 
had been, with great deliberation, put in motion, except a small detachment 
of infantry and cavalry confronting the enemy on the Watauga River. 
With this latter foree Burnside remained. Not venturing to withdraw 
while the enemy was in his front, he determined to wait until the next morn- 
ing, and fight a battle before obeying the President’s order. The next morn- 
ing disclosed the fact that the enemy had retreated, burning the bridge be- 
hind him. The Federal column at this point was then started for Knox- 
ville, where, by the 25th, the troops were all concentrated. It was then 
known that the battle of Chickamauga had been fought, and the emergency 
was past. Some correspondence followed between Halleck and Burnside, 
the result of which was that the command of the latter remained in Kast 
Tennessee. Burnside proposed to the general-in-chief three separate plans 
for the future operations of his army. 

The first of these contemplated the abandonment of the railroad and Kast 
Tennessee, leaving only a small garrison at Cumberland Gap. This would 
leave free an army of full 20,000 men to move down the Tennessee and re- 
enforce Rosecrans. 

The second plan suggested the movement of his main body—say 18,000 
men—along the line of the railroad against Brage’s right at Cleveland, leav- 
ing garrisons at Knoxville and Loudon, also at Cumberland Gap, and at 
Bull’s Gap and Rogersville, to cover Cumberland Gap. 

The third plan proposed the movement of a force, consisting of 7000 in- 
fantry and 5000 cavalry, south of the Tennessee River, through Athens, 
Columbus, and Benton, past the right flank of the enemy, ‘down the line 
of the Kast Tennessee and Georgia Railroad to Dalton, destroying the ene- 
my’s communications, sending a cavalry force to Rome to destroy the ma- 
chine works and powder-mills at that place, the main body moving on the 
direct road to Atlanta, the railroad centre of Georgia, and there entirely de- 
stroying the enemy’s communications, breaking up the dépots, etc., thence 
moving to some point on the coast where cover could be obtained.” No 
trains were to be taken. The troops were to live upon the country. This 
would divert the attention of the enemy, and materially relieve Rosecrans. 
The chances of escape from pursuing columns of the enemy Burnside 
thought were in his favor. 

Burnside was partial to the plan last described, which, by the way, on a 
miniature scale resembled Sherman’s brilliant march from Atlanta to the 
sea, undertaken more than a year afterward. Halleck replied somewhat 
testily, decidedly objecting to Burnside’s proposed raid. He was in favor 
of immediately co-operating with Rosecrans by a movement on the north 
side of the Tennessee. But he still insisted upon Burnside’s holding the 
upper valley of the Holston, 200 miles away from Chattanooga.? 

Rosecrans favored the first of the plans proposed by Burnside, but events 
soon occurred which made this impracticable. While the Federal com- 
manders had been forming plans, General Bragg had not been idle. The 
very next day after the battle of Chickamauga, Longstreet had suggested a 
movement to Rosecrans’s rear, above Chattanooga, to cut off his communica- 
tions, and compel him to fall back to Nashville. At first Bragg seemed in- 
clined to adopt this plan—at least Longstreet so understood. But if Bragg 
for a moment entertained such a scheme, he soon gave it up as impractica- 
ble. But, while keeping his main army south of the Tennessee, Bragg as- 
sumed the offensive with considerable energy. 

Rosecrans’s most convenient line of communication with Murfreesborough 


1 Halleck says: ‘‘The purport of all your instructions has been that you should hold some 


’ point near the upper end of the valley, and with all your available force move to the assistance of 


Rosecrans. Since the battle of Chickamauga, and the wear of our force to paper, you have been 
repeatedly told that it would be dangerous to form a connection on the south side of the Tennes- 
see River, and consequently that you ought to march on the north side. Rosecrans has now tele- 
graphed to you that it is not necessary to join him at Chattanooga, but only to move down to such 
a position that you can go to his assistance should he require it. You are in direct communica- 
tion with Rosecrans, and can learn his condition and wants sooner than I can. Distant expedi- 
tions into Georgia are not now contemplated. The object is to hold East Tennessee by forcing 
the enemy south of the passes, and closing the passes against his return.” 

2 “The suggestion of a movement by our right, immediately after the battle to the north of the 
Tennessee, and thence upon Nashville, requires notice only because it will find a place among the 
files of the department. Such a movement was utterly impossible for want of transportation. 
Nearly half our army consisted of re-enforcements just before the battle, without a wagon or an 
artillery horse, and nearly, if not quite a third of the artillery horses on the field had been lost. 
The railroad bridges, too, had been destroyed to a point south of Ringgold, and in all the road 
from Cleveland to Knoxville. To these insurmountable difficulties were added the entire absence 
of means to cross the river, except by fording at a few precarious points too deep for artillery, and 
the well-known danger of sudden rises, by which all communication would be cut—a contingency 
which did actually happen a few days after the visionary scheme was proposed. But the most 
serious objection to the proposition was its entire want of military propricty. It abandoned to 
the enemy our entire line of communication, and laid open to him our dépots of supplies, while it 
placed us, with a greatly inferior force, beyond a difficult, and, at times, impassable river, in a 
country affording no subsistence to men or animals. It also left open to the enemy, at a distance 
of only ten miles, our battle-field, with thousands of our wounded and his own, and all the tro- 
phies and supplies we had won, All this was to be risked and given up for what? To gain the 
enemy’s rear, and cut him off from his dépét of supplies by the route over the mountains, when 
the very movement abandoned to his unmolested use the better and more practicable route of half 
the length on the south side of the river. It is hardly necessary to say the proposition was not 
even entertained, whatever may be the inferences drawn from subsequent movements.”’—Bragg’s 

ort. 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


51 


qo 


was through Bridgeport, and the shortest road from Chattanooga te this 
point lay along the south bank of the Tennessee. ‘This route could be ren- 
dered secure only by holding the point of Lookout Mountain, and Stevens's 
and Cooper’s Gaps. Rosecrans, after retreating to Chattanooga, gave up 
these important positions to the enemy. He claims that he could not have 
held them and Chattanooga at the sume time! The enemy immediately oc- 
cupied Lookout Mountain, and thus compelled Rosecrans to transport his 
supplies by the more difficult route across the mountains. But even this 
latter route was not left undisturbed. Bragg sent Wheeler, with a large 
cavalry foree—W harton’s, Martin’s, Davidson’s, and Armstrong’s commands 
—against this line of communication. Wheeler’s command crossed the 
Tennessee above Chattanooga, and on the 2d of November reached the 
Sequatchie Valley. Proceeding around Chattanooga on the north side to 
Jasper and Anderson’s Cross-roads, two wagon trains were captured, one of 
them ten miles in length, consisting of from 800 to 1500 wagons, and heav- 
ily loaded with ordnance and provisions. ‘This train was destroyed, and 
during the night Wheeler crossed the Cumberland Mountains, and the next 
morning headed his columns toward McMinnville. Although the Federal 
cavalry was in close pursuit, he succeeded in capturing the place, with its 
fortifications, and its garrison of 587 men and 200 horses. Then he moved 
westward.to Murfreesborough. Only time was allowed for a feint on this 
point, but the stockade guarding the railroad bridge over Stone River was 
captured, and the bridge, together with the track for a distance of three 
miles, was destroyed. On the 5th the railroad bridges and trestles between 
Murfreesborough and Wartrace were destroyed, also a large quantity of stores 
at Shelbyville. Wheeler was now ready to withdraw; but Davidson, on the 
Duck River, did not retire with sufficient promptness, and was overtaken by 
the Federal cavalry. Rosecrans, after the battle of Chickamauga, had sent 
most of his cavalry north of the Tennessee to guard the fords of the river. 
Those nearest Chattanooga were guarded by Colonel Miller, commanding 
Wilder's brigade. Farther up the river were Minty’s and Long’s brigades, 
under the command of General Crook. Wheeler, as we have seen, was not 
thus prevented from crossing into Sequatchie Valley; but, as soon as he 
had crossed, the cavalry brigades along the river combined under General 
Crook’s command, and pressed on in the pursuit. This force was soon 
joined by Mitchell’s cavalry division. The pursuit was close, though it did 
not prevent the enemy from doing very great injury. There were some in- 
considerable fights with the rear of Wheeler’s column, but no battle until 
Davidson’s command was engaged near Farmington. Wheeler, with Mar- 
tin’s division, came up just in time to relieve Davidson from his perilous sit- 
uation. Both Crook and Wheeler claim each to have driven the other. 
Certainly Wheeler stood only long enough to secure the safety of his trains, 
when he withdrew. . 

. There was, apart from any interruption from the enemy, great difficulty 
in supplying Rosecrans’s army. Wheeler's movement had added to the em- 
barrassment rising from this cause. Under such circumstances, the addi- 
tion of Burnside’s army to that which was already encamped at Chattanoo- 
ga was inexpedient, unless absolutely necessary. 

In the mean time the enemy, under General Sam Jones, was again threat: 
ening Burnside’s left. He had advanced, by the 8th of October, as far as Blue 
Springs. Burnside had a small body of infantry at Morristown, and a cay- 
alry brigade at Bull’s Gap. The Ninth Corps, re-enforced by Willcox’s 
division and Shackleford’s cavalry, were on the 10th led against the enemy 
in front, while Colonel Foster’s brigade of cavalry was sent via Rogersville to 
the enemy’s rear, to intercept his retreat. The Confederates were driven by 
the attack in front, but escaped Foster’s blow by withdrawing during the 
night. Shackleford pursued, driving the enemy into Virginia. Burnside 
lost about 100 killed and wounded, and took 150 prisoners. 

A week or more after the fight at Blue Springs General Grant assumed 
command of the “ Military Division of the Mississippi,’ which was now 
made to comprise the three departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, and 
the Tennessee. Thomas succeeded Rosecrans as commander of the Army 
of the Cumberland, and McCook and Crittenden were ordered to Cincinnati. 
Sherman commanded the Army of the Tennessee, and Burnside retained his 
present command. Hooker’s corps had come from the East, and there were 
now four different Federal armies operating upon the soil of Tennessee. 
Halleck, after so long a time, saw the necessity of unity in the action of 
these various commands in order to their effective co-operation, and the con- 
trol of these four armies was therefore given to General Grant. 


1 In his evidence before the Congressional Committee, Rosecrans says: ‘¢ General Halleck, in hig 
annual report, says I abandoned the passes of Lookout Mountain, leaving the public to imagine 
that these passages were within the possible control of my army, and their abandonment not justi- 
fied asa military measure. I call the attention of the committee to the fact that one of these passes 
was forty-two miles south of Chattanooga, and the next nearest twenty-six miles south of Chat- 
tanooga, and the nearest at the extremity of Lookout Mountain in front of our lines. ‘This latter 
may have been the one which gave rise to his report, and if so it ought to have been so stated. I 
was satisfied that I could not even hold this pass and Chattanooga at the same time if the enemy 
did his duty, and therefore withdrew my troops from it, but established batteries on the other side 
of the river, which rendered it practically of little, if any use to them. Subsequent events amply 
justified the wisdom of this decision, for the enemy, with a division and a half, were unable to 
hold it against General Hooker, and it was their attempt to cover this point which was one of the 
causes of their being beaten so easily at Missionary Ridge.” 

This apology is exceedingly weak. In the first place, Rosecrans, after abandoning the point 
of Lookout Mountain overlooking Chattanooga and its approach via the south bank of the ‘Ten- 
nessee, and finding that the enemy had immediately occupied it, saw that he had made a mistake 
in giving it up, and ordered McCook to storm and recapture the position. McCook stoutly object- 
ed that the thing couldn’t be done, and was supported in this opinion by the judgment of some of 
the best officers in the army. As to the other point, namely, the enemy’s inability to hold the 
same position subsequently against Hooker, the argument is no more pertinent. Hooker did not, 
and could not have succeeded in a direct attack upon the position, such as McCook was ordered 
to make. He surprised the enemy by taking their works in flank. Now such a movement was 
impossible to the enemy in the case of Rosecrans’s holding the position. ‘This is as clear as day- 
light. For, of course, the Federal works would have fronted the enemy, and the entire disposi- 
tion, both of the forces holding the position as well as of the fortifications themselves, would have 
been altered, so that Bragg must have assaulted in front, or not at all. 


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About the middle of October, just after Wheeler’s return from Middle 
Tennessee, there had been indications of a movement by the enemy toward 
Knoxville. Bragg’s right flank had begun to extend beyond Cleveland. 
On the 20th, Colonel Woolford, holding the Sweetwater Valley, south of 
the Tennessee, was attacked by a superior force of the enemy near Philadel- 
phia, and, after several hours’ fighting, finding that he was being surround- 
ed, retired to Loudon, leaving in the enemy’s hands thirty-eight wagons, 
six small howitzers, and between 800 and 400 prisoners. It soon became 
evident that Bragg was threatening Burnside with a formidable force, and 
the latter withdrew all his troops to the north side of the river, occupying 
the heights about Loudon. To this point Burnside moved his headquarters 
on the 28th, where he remained until the 81st, when the emergency appeared 
to have passed, and he returned to Knoxville. The enemy, in his operations 
south of the river, had captured 650 prisoners. On the 10th of November 
the Federal garrison at Rogersville was attacked by forces from Virginia 
and driven back to Morristown, with a loss of 500 prisoners, four guns, and 
thirty-six wagons. 

Karly in November, Longstreet’s corps, now consisting of 12,000 men, 
was detached from Bragg’s army, and, accompanied by 5000 cavalry under 
Wheeler, began to move against Burnside. Upon learning this fact, Gen- 
eral Grant urged Burnside to concentrate his army at Kingston, where he 
would be in more intimate connection with the forces at Chattanooga. Burn- 
side preferred Knoxville to Kingston. It had already been partially forti- 
fied under the superintendence of Captain O. M. Poe, who had erected two 
earth-works near the town. His reluctance to abandon Hast Tennessee was 
also an argument in favor of this point. About this time Charles A, Dana, 
Assistant Secretary of War, and Colonel Wilson, of Grant’s staff, visited 
Knoxville. These gentlemen agreed with General Burnside, and Grant 
yielded the point. It seemed also to be a great advantage to Grant that 
Longstreet should be diverted as far as possible from Chattanooga. The 
movement of his corps into East Tennessee, though he had urged it at an 
earlier period, was at this time, it appears, opposed by Longstreet; but both 
Davis and Bragg insisted upon the undertaking. ‘Longstreet was promised 
the support of Stevenson’s and Cheatham’s divisions, which would have in- 
creased his strength to over 27,000 men; but upon reaching Sweetwater 
(near Loudon) he discovered that they were ordered in the opposite direc- 
tion. There were no indications, either, of the supplies, of which he was in 
pressing need, and which had been promised him. He was obliged to halt 
for some days at Sweetwater, losing most precious time, while he sent out 
his foraging expeditions in every direction to gather up corn stacked in the 
fields, which was then threshed and baked. His men were thinly clad; 
their shoes were unserviceable; they had few blankets, and no tents; but 
they had marched before in the same plight, and uttered no complaint. 


On the morning of November 14th Longstreet’s advance crossed the Ten- 
nessee at Hough’s Ferry, six miles below Loudon, demonstrating against 
Knoxville with his cavalry at the same time. At Lenoir’s General Potter 
was stationed, with the Ninth Corps and one division of the Twenty-third, 
under Brigadier General Julius White. Longstreet did not cross the river 
without resistance. General White fell upon his advance in the afternoon, 
and drove it back for two miles to the river. Burnside would have attacked 
again on the morning of the 15th, but he received late at night an order 
from General Grant to withdraw his troops. The design was to draw Long- 
street on to Knoxville. The order was promptly obeyed. “If General 
Grant,” said Burnside, “can destroy Bragg, it is of no great consequence 
what becomes of ourselves. Order the troops to be ready to march in the 
morning.” Burnside fell back to Lenoir’s on the 15th, and on the night of 
that day prepared to continue his retreat to Campbell’s Station. 

The enemy endeavored by a flank movement to anticipate General Burn- 
side in the possession of Campbell’s Station, but the Federal troops reached 
this important position first. Here a stand was made on the 16th by Har- 
tranft’s division, while the main portion of the Federal army and the trains 
passed along the Loudon Road toward Knoxville. Hartranft had reached 
the Station a quarter of an hour before Longstreet’s advance came up. He 
succeeded in holding his ground and covering the retreat until the army 
and the trains had passed the threatened point. Then Burnside, forming 
his army upon a low range of hills, half a mile from Campbell’s, covering . 
the approaches to Knoxville, awaited the enemy’s attack. Several assaults 
were made upon this position, which were repulsed with great loss to the 
enemy. Longstreet advancing upon his rear in the afternoon, Burnside 
withdrew to a second position, equally strong, 1000 yards in rear of the first. 
The enemy repeated his attack with determination, but was finally forced to 
withdraw, and that night Burnside’s army retired within its intrenchments 
at Knoxville. 

In the mean time General Sanders had met the enemy’s cavalry south 
of the Holston, on the opposite bank from Knoxville. General Parke, now 
Burnside’s chief of staff, had been left in command of the town. A pontoon 
bridge was thrown across the Holston, by means of which Sanders kept up 
communication with the garrison defending the town. Holding this posi- 
tion, General Sanders successfully maintained it until Burnside’s army en- 
tered Knoxville. 

General Burnside held a position of great strength. His force was fully 
equal to that of the enemy, and the hills around Knoxville, previously forti- 
fied by General Buckner, and now connected by means of rifle-pits, formed 
a vast fortified camp. General Sanders’s foree was now drawn across the: 
river, and covered the Loudon Road. Longstreet had already lost much 
time. Grant was ready to move upon Bragg, and if Longstreet would. be. 


Novemser, 1863.] 


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back in time to assist the latter, his work at Knoxville must proceed rapid- 
ly. This necessity of haste led Longstreet to make an immediate assault on 
the Federal works on the 18th. During the 17th there had been skirmish- 
ing on the Lenoir Road, while the Federal army was busily occupied in get- 
ting into position, collecting supplies, and strengthening its fortifications. 
The attack of the 18th fell mainly upon Sanders’s cavalry. It was the en- 
emy’s design to push back this cavalry force into the town, and then enter 
with a triumphant charge; but Sanders’s men, though unrelieved for sev- 
eral days, and though opposed by superior numbers, were not thus easily 
driven. After a gallant resistance of three hours they were pushed back, 
but Ferrero’s guns at Rebel Point checked the enemy. Sanders then re- 
newed the unequal conflict. He made a charge, and was repulsed by supe- 
rior numbers. At 4 o’clock P.M. he fell, mortally wounded, and the hill 
and the fort which he had maintained so long was surrendered to the ene- 
my. His death was a sad misfortune tothe army. Three weeks before, he 
had been promoted to a brigadier generalship at General Burnside’s earnest 
solicitation, and had been assigned to the command of a cavalry division. 
Burnside felt his loss most keenly, and ordered that the earth-work in front 
of which he fell should be named Fort Sanders in honor of his memory. 
On being informed that the wound was mortal, General Sanders replied, 
“ Well, I am not afraid to die. . . . I have done my duty, and have served 
my country as well as I could.” Burnside and his staff stood by his bed- 
side when he died. His midnight burial was the saddest among the many 
sad incidents connected with the siege of Knoxville. 
7 Le 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


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The partial success gained by Longstreet on the 18th proved of little 
value. To push this slight advantage against works so gallantly defended 
could only result in increased loss to his command, without any reasonable 
chance of victory. He therefore determined to reduce the garrison to sur- 
render by famine. Burnside’s army held the roads approaching Knoxville 
from the west; on each side of the city ran the Holston. The assault on 
the 18th had been on the Federal left. 

Burnside was fairly besieged on the night of the 18th. The enemy had 
cut off communication with Cumberland Gap, and held the approaches to 
Knoxville on the northwest and southwest. The Federal army was sup- 
plied for three weeks; the fortifications were hourly strengthened; a chevaux 
de frise of pikes was set up in front of the rifle-pits, and the heights on the 
opposite side of the Holston were securely held and fortified. Burnside 
was urged by Grant to hold on to Knoxville. Fortunately, he was better 
supplied with provisions than the enemy conjectured, and had lost no time 
in his work upon the fortifications, which had become almost impregnable. 
His only hope now was Grant’s speedy victory over Bragg, and the ap- 
proach of a relieving force. 

Grant’s work, as we shall see in the next chapter, was speedily ana 
effectually accomplished. One week after Longstreet’s assault on the 18th, 
Bragg was defeated before Chattanooga, and Longstreet’s position was ren- 
dered extremely perilous. But the latter determined to make a final effort, 
risking every thing upon the chances of a bold assault on Burnside’s lines 
before a Federal force could reach his own rear. He had in the mean while 


554 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


JOUN G. PARKE. 


been re-enforced by two brigades of B. R. Johnson’s division. The morning 
of the 29th of November was fixed for the assault. 

The point selected for the attack was Fort Sanders, which commanded 
the Kingston Road, and overlooked Knoxville. The capture of this fort 
would be decisive, and every nerve was strained for its accomplishment. 
This position was held by a portion of the Ninth Corps. It was well pro- 
tected by a wide ditch in front, by thickly laid abatis, and by a network of 
wires stretched from stump to stump. 

In the gray of the morning three picked brigades of McLaws’s division 


[ NoVEMBER, 1863. 


appeared in front of the fort, while a Georgia regiment of sharp-shooters 
silenced the Federal guns. Leaving the shelter of the woods, the storming 
column advanced up the slope. Only at the edge of the ditch did the ene 
my halt. Here it was found that an important feature in the assault had 
been forgotten. There were no means at hand for crossing this ditch. It 
was now the moment of glorious opportunity to the defenders of the fout, 
who poured a deadly fire upon the hesitating column, checking the first im- 
petus of its assault. But, though retarded in their movement, the courage 
of the assailants was indomitable. They broke through the entanglement 
of wires, they cut their way through the abatis; the carnage made among 
them by musketry and artillery could not daunt their brave spirits; they 
filled the ditch ; some of them assailed the scarp of the fort, pushing each 
other up to reach the parapet; a few forced their way through the embra- 
sures. Here, with these few, a hand-to-hand conflict was waged. One offi- 
cer advanced with a flag and boldly demanded the surrender of the fort, 
and was dragged inside a prisoner. Those who had reached the parapet 
were shot and hurled back into the ditch, which now writhed with its dead _ 
and wounded, while, to increase the maddening torment, hand grenades were 
thrown into their midst. Meanwhile, into the rear the artillery hurled its 
fatal missiles, until at length, entirely baffled, this column was withdrawn 
and another took its place, and the carnage was renewed. But no impres- 
sion was made upon the garrison. After a display of courage probably 
unequaled by that exhibited in any assault during this war, and never sur- 
passed in any other war, the attack was abandoned. There followed a 
truce, to permit the enemy to gather up his dead and wounded—over 500 
all told—and here from the lips of the enemy was heard the first tidings of 
Grant’s victory. The loss in the fort was 8 killed, 5 wounded, and about 
30 captured. An assault made at the same time upon General Shackleford 
on the south side of the Holston had also been repulsed. 

This repulse of the enemy, though it did not immediately terminate the 
siege, was its last important event. The day before the assault Sherman 
had been ordered with 25,000 men to march to the relief of Knoxville. 
Elliot's cavalry division were sent in the same direction. Sherman ad- 
vanced along the south side of the Tennessee, cutting off Longstreet’s re- 
treat, and by the 4th of December his army was within two or three 
marches of Knoxville. On the 5th the enemy retired and the siege was 
raised. Longstreet retired up the Holston River, but there was no pursuit. 
He did not entirely abandon East Tennessee until the following spring, 
when his command rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia.’ 


1 With the siege of Knoxville closed the active services of General Burnside in East Tennessee. 
The command was transferred to General Foster. ‘The transfer was actually made on the 11th 
of December. Three days afterward Burnside left Knoxville, and reached his home in Provi- 
dence, R.I., on the 23d. On January 28th, 1864, President Lincoln approved a resolution ‘‘ that 
the thanks of Congress be, and they hereby are, presented to Major General Ambrose I. Burn- 
side, and through him to the officers and men who have fought under his command, for their 
gallantry, good conduct, and soldier-like endurance.” 


| 


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LUNGSTREEYS ASSAULT ON FORT SANDERS 


OctoBER, 1863.] 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 555 


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LONGSTREEt’S SUARPSHOOTERS ATTACKING A FEDERAL TRAIN ABOVE OLTATTANOOGA, 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


VI. DEFEAT OF BRAGG. 


General Grant after the Vicksburg Campaign.—He assumes Command of the Military District 
of the Mississippi, and of the Armies under Sherman, Thomas, Burnside, and Hooker.—His 
available Force for the final Struggle of the Chattanooga Campaign.—The Condition of his 
four Armies.—Hooker’s Arrival in the West.—Chattanooga besieged by Bragg’s Army.—Rose- 
crans’s Plan for the Recovery of Lookout Valley executed by Grant.—Longstreet’s Signals from 
Lookout Mountain interpreted by General Geary. —The Battle of Wauhatchie.—Importance of 
this Success. — Chattanooga relieved. — The Understanding between Grant and Burnside. — 
Longstrect sent against Knoxville.—Position of Bragg’s Army.—Confidence of the Confeder- 
ate Commander.—Grant’s Plan of Attack.—Waiting for Sherman.—March of the Army of the 
Tennessee.—Sherman confers with Grant at Chattanooga.—Rumor of Bragg’s intended Re- 
treat.—Thomas’s Reconnoissance, November 23d.—Orchard Knob carried. —Bragg strengthens 
his Right.— Operations on the 24th.—Sherman’s attack on Tunnel Hill.—Hooker carries Look- 
out Mountain; the ‘‘ Battle above the Clouds.”—Operations on the 25th—Bragg’s altered Po- 
sition.— General Corse’s assault on Cleburne’s Position.—Waiting for Hooker.—Thomas storms 
Missionary Ridge.—The Confederate Centre broken.—Hooker drives the Left.—Retreat and 
Pursuit.—A decisive Victory. 


E will now turn from the siege of Knoxville—an important episode 

in the Chattanooga campaign—to the movements of Grant’s army at 

Chattanooga, which terminated on November 25th in the expulsion of 
Bragg’s forces from Missionary Ridge. 

Immediately after the reduction of Vicksburg, Grant dispatched expedi- 
tions in various directions in the State of Mississippi. In one of these, sent 
to Natchez, under General Ransom, 5000 head of cattle, which were being 
crossed over the Mississippi at that point for the enemy’s supply, were cap- 
tured. His army now became dispersed. Ord and Herron were sent to the 
Department of the Gulf. Steele was dispatched to Helena, to re-enforce 
Schofield in the Department of the Missouri. Toward the last of August 
General Grant proceeded upon a tour of inspection through his department. 
He reached New Orleans on the 2d of September. As he was returning to 
his hotel in that city from a review of Ord’s corps, on the 4th, his horse be- 


came frightened, and, violently striking a carriage, General Grant was thrown 
into the street, and so severely injured in the hip that he was unable either 
to walk, or mount his horse without assistance, until his arrival at Chatta- 
nooga, toward the close of October. Secretary Stanton met him at Indian- 
apolis, and both together proceeded to Louisville. Here, on the 18th, the 
Secretary handed him the order of the President, giving him the command 
of the “‘ Military District of the Mississippi,” comprising the departments of 
the Tennessee, the Ohio, and the Cumberland. By the same order Rosecrans 
was relieved of his command, being superseded by General Thomas. 

This order gave Grant the military control of all the territory in posses- 
sion of the government from the Mississippi River to the Alleghany Moun- 
tains, and of four large armies under Sherman (who succeeded Grant in the 
command of the Department and Army of the Tennessee), Thomas, Burn- 
side, and Hooker. ‘These armies, together, numbered probably 150,000 ef: 
fective men. ‘Two thirds of this force, or about 100,000 men, was available 
for the Chattanooga campaign. Deducting 20,000 for Burnside’s effective 
command, and we have left a force 80,000 strong, which could be used di- 
rectly against General Bragg. General Hooker’s army was 23,000 strong, 
and consisted of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps. The Army of the Cum- 
berland, now reduced to a little over 40,000 men, had been reorganized. 
McCook and Crittenden had been sent to Cincinnati, and their two com- 
mands, consolidated with the reserves, now constituted the Fourth Corps, 
under Gordon Granger. General Palmer commanded the Fourteenth, Thom- 
as’s old corps. The remaining portion of the forces brought against Bragg 
were to come from the Army of the Tennessee. Of this latter army, McPher- 
son’s corps remained at Vicksburg, and, by demonstrations along the Big 
Black, prevented Johnston from sending farther re-enforcements to Bragg. 
Hurlbut’s corps was retained at Memphis. Upon Sherman’s taking com- 
mand of the Army of the Tennessee, General Blair had been assigned to 
that of the Fifteenth Corps. 

The transfer of General Hooker’s army westward to the Tennessee wag 


HARPER'S 


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accomplished with marvelous expedition. Although accompanied by its ar- 
tillery, trains, baggage, and animals, this army moved from the Rapidan, in 
Virginia, to Stevenson, in Alabama, a distance of 1192 miles, in seven days, 
crossing the Ohio twice.! General Hooker reached Cincinnati in person on 
the 29th of September, and during the first week in October his army was 
on Rosecrans’s right flank at Stevenson. At the time of, and for a long 
period subsequent to Hooker’s arrival, Rosecrans’s army was in a state of 
partial siege. Bragg commanded the river road to Bridgeport, and his cay- 
alry interrupted the communications with Bridgeport by way of Walden’s 
Ridge, and even assailed the Nashville Railroad.? Rosecrans feared that 
the enemy would cross above Chattanooga, on his left, separating him from 
Burnside; but this was not his greatest danger. What Rosecrans had most 
reason to be apprehensive about was the subsistence of his army. To re- 
cover Lookout Valley, and the command of the river road to Bridgeport, 
was the important necessity of the moment. Rosecrans had already planned 
the movement which was to secure this road when he was relieved. 

Grant met Rosecrans and Hooker at Nashville October 21st. He imme- 
diately put into execution the plan which had been adopted, and there could 
be no delay. The route from Stevenson over Walden’s Ridge was from 60 
to 70 miles in length, and the supply trains were shelled from Lookout 
Mountain from the very day that Rosecrans had abandoned that important 
position to the enemy. The roads were so bad that Wheeler's cavai . did 
not venture upon a raid. The animals were walking skeletons, and were 
dying by thousands for want of forage, and the wagons were worn out by 
the difficult roads. The troops were reduced to half rations. On the 19th, 
immediately after assuming his new command, Grant had telegraphed to 
Thomas to hold on to Chattanooga. Thomas replied, “I will hold the town 
till we starve.”? And, as matters stood, his chance of starving was very 


1 Secretary Stanton’s Report, November 2d, 1865. 

2 Rosecrans’s letters to Halleck, at this time, indicate great anxiety for the safety of the Federal 
army. October 12th, he writes: , 

‘* Line from here to Kingston long; our side is barren mountain; rebel side has railroad. Our 
danger is subsistence; we can not bring up Hooker to cover our left, against a crossing above us, 
for want of means to transport provisions and horse-feed. Enemy’s side of valley full of corn. 


Every exertion will be made to hold what we have, and gain more, after which we must put our” 


trust in God, who never fails those who truly trust.” 

Again, on the 16th: 

‘« Bvidence increases that the enemy intend a desperate effort to destroy this army. They are 
bringing up troops to our front. They have prepared pontoons, and will probably operate on our 
left flank, either to cross the river and force us to quit this place and fight them, or lose our com- 
munication. They will thus separate us from Burnside. We can not feed Hooker’s troops on 
our left, nor can we spare them from our right dépdts and communications; nor has he transpor- 
tation. ‘The rains have raised the river, and interrupted our pontoon bridge ; the roads are very 
heavy. Our future is not bright. Had we the railroad from here to Bridgeport, the whole of 
Sherman’s and Hooker's troops brought up, we should not, probably, outnumber the enemy. This 
army, with its back to the barren mountains, roads narrow and difficult, while the enemy has the 
railroad and the corn in his rear, is at much disadvantage. ‘To secure this position, at least, 
McMinnville should be made a strong, fortified dépot, Kingston the same, and, for ulterior opera- 
tions, 20,000 or 30,000 more troops put into Tennessee, at easy points to cover the railroad, and 
subsist until called to the front for advance on the enemy. . Additional cavalry force is indispen- 
sable to a good future for this army. Burnside must be within supporting distance of us; if we 
lose this point, his hold on East Tennessee is gone; if we hold it, the Rebs can not make much use 
of the country above, and we shall dispossess them.” 

* The accompanying illustration is a fac-simile of a medal presented to General Thomas by the 
State of Tennessee, after the defeat of Hood at Nashville. The resolution in favor of the present- 


PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[OCTOBER, 1863, 


good. Two weeks longer, and without relief from its embarrassment, the 
Federal army must have abandoned its position. 

Grant reached Chattanooga on the 23d of October. The next day, with 
General Thomas and W. F. (“‘ Baldy”) Smith, chief engineer, he made a re- 
connoissance of Brown’s Ferry (below the mouth of Lookout Creek) and of 
the country lying southward. It was then decided that, in accordance with 
the plans already formed by Rosecrans, Hooker should cross at Bridgeport, 
and advance to Wauhatchie in Lookout Valley, threatening the enemy’s 
flank. This movement was open to the observation of the enemy. So also 
was the movement of one of Palmer’s divisions down the river to a point 
opposite Whiteside (11 miles west of Wauhatchie), where he was to cross 
and, move up to Hooker’s support. While attention was fixed on these 
movements, General Smith, with 4000 men, was to move secretly, under 
cover of the night, across Brown’s Ferry, and seize the range of steep hills 
at the head of Lookout Valley, three miles below Lookout Mountain. A 
pontoon bridge was then to be thrown across the river at Brown’s Ferry, 
and a line of communication being thus opened between Thomas and Hook- 
er, the latter would be enabled to advance without danger of an attack on 
his left flank. 

This plan was successfully carried out. The position to be gained was 
held by a portion of Longstreet’s command, which had not yet been de- 
tached from Bragg’s army. The enemy’s line stretched from Lookout 
Mountain to Missionary Ridge. But a single brigade was posted in Look- 
out Valley, though the Confederate pickets lined the river down to Bridge- 
port. The position, from the occupation of which there was especial appre- 
hension on the part of the Federal army, was the most feebly defended of 
any on the Confederate line. Hooker sent Geary’s division, of Slocum’s 
corps, across on the 26th, and by the 28th this force had reached Wauhatchie. 
Howard, with the Eleventh Corps, held Geary’s left toward Brown’s Ferry. 
Palmer, with the Fourteenth Corps, was moving up in the rear, Smith also 
had accomplished the duty assigned to his command. Of the 4000 men de- 
tailed to this command, 1800, under Hazen, embarked on sixty pontoon- 
boats, had floated down the river from Chattanooga on the night of the 27th, 
past the Confederate pickets lining the left bank, and, landing at Brown’s 
Ferry, had taken their appointed post with a loss of only four or five men 
wounded. The rest of Smith’s force was ferried across and joined Hazen 
before morning. By 10 A.M. on the 28th a pontoon bridge had been 
thrown across the river at Brown’s Ferry, and before night Howard had 
connected with Smith. 

This movement was, however, not accomplished without a struggle. 
Longstreet had a signal-station on the top of Lookout Mountain, overlooking 
the whole field over which Howard and Geary moved. When, on the even- 
ing of the 28th, he saw, too late, the vital importance to the Federal army 
of the position seized by Hooker’s command, he at once communicated with 
Bragg, explaining the altered situation, and was directed to attack and drive 
back Geary and Howard at all hazards. Longstreet had already seen enough 
from “Signal Rock” to convince him that it was useless to attack the supe- 
rior numbers on his flank directly or by daylight; but, noting the situation 


ation passed the Legislature November 2, 1865. The medal is of gold, is three inches in diame- 
ter, and was wrought by ‘Tiffany and Co., of New York City. 


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MAP ILLUSTRATING THE BATTLE OF WAUHATOUIR. 


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Ocroner, 1863. ] 


CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 


GENERAL HAZEN’S BRIGADE DESOENDING THE TENNESSEE, 


of Geary’s weak division at Wauhatchie, holding the road leading from Kel- 
ly’s Ferry up Lookout Valley, he conceived the plan of striking this force 
by surprise during the night. Ifhe succeeded in routing this foree—Hook- 
er’s right flank—an easy matter as it seemed to him then—he would pursue 
the advantage thus gained by extending his attack against Hooker’s centre 
and left. It was an admirable conception. But there was an important ele- 
ment involved in its execution which Longstreet was not, and could not be 
aware of, namely, Geary’s precise knowledge of every movement which he 
might order from “ Signal Rock.” For some months the Federal officers 
had been in possession of the signal code of the enemy, and every flourish 
of Longstreet’s signal torches on the top of Lookout, directing the assault, 
was at the same moment as significant to Geary as it was to Longstreet’s 
commanders. 

Thus, when, a little after midnight on the morning of the 29th, Law’s di- 
vision attacked Geary, the latter was fully prepared. Between the force at 
Wauhatchie and Howard’s right was an interval of three miles. For three 
hours Geary defended his position without assistance, and repulsed every 
charge of the enemy, finally driving him from the field.1_ The success of 
the enemy at this point might have easily defeated the entire movement of 
Hooker. Of the two roads leading to Kelly’s Ferry from Lookout Valley, 
Howard held one and Geary the other; the abandonment of one of these 
roads would have seriously imperiled the force holding the other. 

A portion of Howard’s command had in the mean time been engaged 
on Geary’s left with equal success, and Longstreet was compelled to with- 
draw his command east of Lookout Creek. He still continued, however, to 
hold Lookout Mountain. Hooker’s success, gained at the expense of only 
437 men, recovered Lookout Valley, and gave Grant two good roads to 
Bridgeport from Brown’s Ferry—one thirty-five miles long, running through 
Wauhatchie, Whiteside, and Shellmound; the other, from Brown’s to Kel- 
ly’s Ferry, a distance of eight miles by wagon, and thence by boat to Bridge- 
port. The enemy’s position on Lookout commanded these roads, but the 
batteries which had been posted on Moccasin Point, north of the river, pre- 
vented the Confederate artillery from inflicting any serious damage to the 
supply trains. ‘The siege of Chattanooga had been raised, and Bragg from 
this time was put upon the defensive. The only aggressive movement pos- 
sible to him was that which he now attempted against Burnside with Long- 
street’s column; and this movement, unsuccessful in its special object, only 
accelerated his ruin. Longstreet’s campaign against Knoxville was proba- 
bly the result of President Davis’s visit to Bragg’s army, October 12. 


* “For almost three hours, without assistance, he repelled the repeated attacks of vastly supe- 
rior numbers, and in the end drove them ingloriously from the field. At one time they had en- 
veloped him on three sides, under circumstances that would have dismayed any officer endowed 
with an iron will and the most exalted courage. Such is the character of General Geary.” — 


Hooker's Report. 
fieae| 


When Grant first heard of the proposed movement against Knoxville, he 
seems to have regarded it as unfavorable to the development of his own 
plans, and intended to immediately attack Missionary Ridge in order to de- 
tain Longstreet. But after a reconnoissance he found that such an assault 
did not promise success, and determined to await the arrival of Sherman’s 
troops, now well on their way from Memphis. In the mean time he estab- 
lished between himself and Burnside a good understanding as to the plan 


JOHN W. GEARY. 


558 aa HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ NOVEMBER, 1863. 


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NovemBeER, 1863. ] THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 559 


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560 


of operations which he was now about to adopt. He confided to him the 
whole scheme of his movements against Bragg, and promised to send a force 
to the relief of Knoxville as soon as he had carried it out. Two things 
strike us forcibly in his correspondence with Burnside: first, the clearness 
of his plans, which read more like a history of his brief campaign, rather 
than a scheme of movements contemplated ; and, secondly, his confidence 
as to their success. He almost seems to look regretfully after Longstreet’s 
force, as if, by marching northward, it was escaping its share in the destruc- 
tion which he was preparing for Bragg’s entire army. 

The Confederate army was intrenched upon the western slopes of Mission- 
ary Ridge, and stretched across Chattanooga Valley to the western slopes 
of Lookout Mountain, which, since Longstreet’s departure, had been held by 
the divisions of Walker, Stevenson, and Cheatham.? His line of works, 
twelve miles in length, was occupied by less than 50,000 effective troops. 
His army was outnumbered by Grant’s in about the same proportion that it 
had exceeded Rosecrans’s at the battle of Chickamauga Creek. Nor was this 
inferiority in numbers balanced by superiority of position. His line, though 
apparently strong, was too much extended for the number of its defenders, 
and was really very weak. If he held the two ridges, his centre must be 
left vulnerable; the exposure of either of his flanks, by the abandonment 
of Lookout Mountain or Missionary Ridge, must be soon followed by an en- 
tire withdrawal of his army from before Chattanooga. Yet, so confident 
was he of the strength of his position, that when Grant moved upon his 
works he was just on the point of sending Cleburne’s and Buckner’s divi- 
sions to re-enforce Longstreet. 

Grant’s plan of attack was brilliant, but exceedingly simple in its general 
features. It involved an assault upon the strongest points in the enemy’s 
line—its two extremes—by Hooker and Sherman, to be followed by a crush- 
ing blow from Thomas upon its centre. 

But Sherman’s army was not yet upon the field. It was now nearly two 
months since, just after the battle of Chickamauga, Sherman had been or- 
dered to re-enforce Rosecrans. His corps, the Fifteenth, about 16,000 
strong, consisted of four divisions, under P. J. Osterhaus, Morgan L. Smith, I. 
M. Tuttle, and Hugh Ewing.’ Osterhaus’s division had embarked for 
Memphis on the 23d. he other divisions followed a day later. The last 
of the fleet reached Memphis on the 4th of October. As soon as he reach- 
ed Memphis, General Sherman was ordered to proceed with his own corps, 
and as many troops as could be spared from the line of the Memphis and 
Charleston Railroad, to Athens, Alabama. He was to look out for his own 
supplies. Osterhaus by this had got as far as Corinth, and J. E. Smith was 
on the way from Memphis. On the 11th of October the rear of the column 
was put in motion, and Sherman started in person for Corinth, escorted by the 
Thirteenth Regulars. At Collierville, about twenty-five miles east of Mem- 
phis, a Confederate cavalry force was encountered, and the general, with 
his staff, narrowly escaped capture. D.C. Anthony was defending the post 
with the Sixty-ninth Illinois against the enemy, who numbered about 8000 
horse, with eight guns, under General Chalmers, Sherman's escort joined 
Anthony, and the Confederates were repulsed. Sherman reached Corinth 
on the 12th, and sent Blair forward with the divisions of Osterhaus and Mor- 
gan L. Smith. The railroad was repaired as the troops advanced. A Con- 
federate cavalry force, about 5000 strong, kept in Sherman’s front. Under 
these circumstances, his progress was necessarily slow. Anticipating that 


2 On the 14th of November he telegraphed to Burnside: 

‘Your dispatch and Dana’s” [in regard to the preference for Knoxville as the point to be held] 
“just received. Being there, you can tell better how to resist Longstreet’s attack than I can di- 
rect. With your showing, you had better give up Kingston at the last moment, and save the 
most productive part of your possession. Every arrangement is now made to throw Sherman’s 
force across the river just at and below the mouth of Chickamauga Creek as soon as it arrives. 
Thomas will attack on his” [the enemy’s] ‘‘left at the same time, and together it is expected to 
carry Missionary Ridge, and from there rush a force on to the railroad between Cleveland and 
Dalion. Hooker will at the same time attack, and, if he can, carry Lookout Mountain. The en- 
emy now seems to be looking for an attack on his left flank. This favors us. To further confirm 
this, Sherman’s advance division will march direct from Whiteside to Trenton. The remainder 
of the force will pass over a new road just made from Whiteside to Kelly’s Ferry, thus being con- 
cealed from the enemy, and leave him to suppose the whole force is going up Lookout Valley. 
Sherman’s advance has only just reached Bridgeport. The rear will only reach there on the 16th. 
This will bring it to the 19th as the earliest day for making the combined movement as desired. 
Inform me if you think you can sustain yourself till that time. I can hardly conceive of the en- 
emy breaking through at Kingston, and pushing for Kentucky. If they should, however, a new 
problem would be left for solution. Thomas has ordered a division of cavalry to the vicinity of 
Sparta. I will ascertain if they have started, and inform you. It will be entirely out of the 
question to send for 10,000 men, not because they can not be spared, but how could they be fed 
after they got one day east of here?” 

On the 15th he telegraphed again as follows: 

I do not know how to impress on you the necessity of holding on to East Tennessee in strong 
enough terms. According to the dispatches of Mr. Dana and Colonel Wilson, it would seem that 
you should, if pressed to do it, hold on to Knoxville, and that portion of the valley you will 
necessarily possess holding to that point. Should Longstreet move his whole force across the Lit- 
tle Tennessee, an effort should be made to cut his pontoons on that stream, even if it sacrificed 
half the cavalry of the Ohio Army. By holding on, and placing Longstreet between the Little 
Tennessee and Knoxville, he should not be allowed to escape with an army capable of doing any 
thing this winter. I can hardly conceive the necessity of retreating from East Tennessee. If I 
did it at all, it would be after losing most of the army, and then necessity would suggest the route. 
I will not attempt to lay out a line of retreat. Kingston, looking at the map, I thought of more 
importance than any one point in East Tennessee. But my attention being called more closely to 
it, I can see that it might be passed by, and Knoxville, and the rich valley about it, possessed, 
ignoring that place entirely. I should not think it advisable to concentrate a force near Little 
‘Tennessee to resist the crossing, if it would be in danger of capture ; but I would harass and em- 
barrass progress in every way possible, reflecting on the fact that the Army of the Ohio is not the 
only army to resist the onward progress of the enemy.” 2 See map on page 565. 

37 : : ( First Brigade, C. K. Woods. 

First Division, P. T. Osterhaus : | Raced Briga de, J. A. Williamson. 
( First Brigade, Giles A. Smith. 
{ Second Brigade, J. A. D. Lightburn. 

( First Brigade, J. A. Mower. 

Tuirp Division, J. W. Tuttle: Second Brigade, R. B. Buckland. 

¢ Third Brigade, J. J. Wood. 
First Brigade, J. M. Corse. 
Fourtn Division, Hugh Ewing: Second Brigade, Colonel Loomis. 
U Third Brigade, J, R. Cockrell. 

Tuttle’s (Third) division was left with McPherson at Vicksburg, and its place taken by J. E. 
Smith’s (of the Seventeenth Corps), which was also styled the Third Division. This division con- 
sisted of three brigades, commanded by General Matthias, J. B. Raum, and J. J. Alexander. 


Seconp Division, Morgan L. Smith : 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ NOVEMBER, 1863. 


resistance would be made to his crossing of the Tennessee, he had requested 
Admiral Porter to send him two gun-boats, which he found ready upon his 
arrival at Eastport. Blair, after considerable skirmishing, drove the enemy 
from his front, and occupied Tuscumbia on the 27th. 

In the mean time Sherman had been notified of his appointment to the 
command of Grant’s former department, and had made such a disposition 
of the troops in his rear as would secure Mississippi and West ‘Tennessee, 
leaving the former under McPherson’s, and the latter under Hurlbut’s con- 
trol. Blair was assigned to the command of the Fifteenth Corps, and Gen- 
eral George W. Dodge was ordered to organize from the Sixteenth a select 
force of 8000 men, with which he was to follow Sherman eastward. Ewing, 
on the 27th, was ordered to cross his division at Eastport, and advance to 
Florence. On the same day, a messenger, having floated down the river 
from Chattanooga, reached Sherman with orders to stop the work on the 
railroad, and advance toward Bridgeport. On the 1st of November Sher- 
man crossed the river in person, passed to the head of the column at Flor- 
ence, and, leaving the rear to be brought up by Blair, marched toward the 
Elk River. Not having time for ferriage or bridge-building, it was neces- 
sary to advance up that stream as far as Fayetteville, where the command 
crossed. Here Sherman received orders to bring the Fifteenth Corps to 
Bridgeport, leaving Dodge’s command on the railroad at Pulaski. Blair was 
instructed to conduct the first and second divisions, by way of Larkinsyille, 
to Bellefonte, while Sherman took a more northern route, va Winchester 
and Decherd, reaching Bridgeport by night on the 18th of November. Tel- 
egraphing to General Grant information of his arrival and of the disposition 
of his divisions, he was summoned to Chattanooga. Proceeding by boat to 
Kelly’s Ferry, he reached Grant’s headquarters on the 16th. Here his part 
in the coming drama was explained to him, and he was shown the enemy’s 
fortified position on Missionary Ridge; the point which he was to attack, 
and the details of his march across the river at Brown’s Ferry, around the 
mountains north of the river to the mouth of Chickamauga Creek, were here 
determined upon. The entire movement of his corps, after crossing Brown’s 
Ferry till it emerged upon Bragg’s right flank, was so arranged as to be con- 
cealed from the enemy by covering mountains. He saw all the arrange- 
ments which had been made for him in anticipation. ‘ Pontoons,” says 
Sherman, in his report, “with a full supply of bulks and chesses, had been 
prepared for the bridge over the Tennessee, and all things prearranged with 
a foresight that elicited my admiration. From the hills we looked down 
upon the amphitheatre of Chattanooga as on a map, and nothing remained 
but for me to put my troops in the desired position.” To convince the en- 
emy that his left was the especial point of attack, a division of Sherman’s 
corps was to make a feint against Lookout Mountain from a point in the vi- 
cinity of Trenton. Sherman, from this visit to Chattanooga, was also en- 
abled to understand the necessity of the utmost expedition on his part. 
The whole army he found “ impatient for action, rendered almost acute by 
the natural apprehension felt for the safety of General Burnside in Hast Ten- 
nesseee.”? 

It was expected that Sherman would be in position on the 19th, but the 
difficult roads delayed his movements. J. E. Smith’s division was the first 
to cross. Morgan L. Smith’s division crossed to the north bank at Brown’s 
Ferry on the 21st. Ewing’s was ready to cross, when the bridge broke, and 
occasioned a delay of two days. Ewing crossed on the 23d, when the bridge 
again broke, with Osterhaus on the south bank. It was therefore determ- 
ined to leave Osterhaus to support Hooker, while Jeff C. Davis was sent to 
Sherman in his place. It was evident that Sherman could not participate 
in the battle before the 24th. 

But, in the mean while, deserters reported that Bragg was about to fall 
back. A letter received by flag of truce from the Confederate commander, 
warning General Grant to withdraw from Chattanooga whatever non-com- 
batants still remained, seemed to corroborate these reports. Grant had no 
idea of suffering Bragg to retreat without a battle, and determined to attack 
before Sherman’s arrival. 

Howard’s corps had been brought to Chattanooga, and this corps, with 
Granger’s and Palmer’s, was ordered to assail the enemy’s centre with such 
vigor as to develop his lines and detain him in front. In obedience to this 
order, Granger and Palmer, with Howard in support, drove in the enemy’s 
pickets on the 28d, and carried his first line of works between Chattanooga 
and Citico Creeks. Although Thomas’s operations had been made in full 
view of the Confederate pickets, no attack was expected by the enemy, The 
Federal troops, clad in their best uniforms, and accompanied by their bands 
of music, thus rapidly mustering in open view, seemed to be parading for a 
grand review rather than for an assault upon the outposts of Missionary 
Ridge. The sentries occupying the advanced rifle-pits watched the display 
without alarm, but about noon they discovered, to their amazement, that 
the spectacle was one in which they were more intimately concerned as act- 
ors than as spectators. At 1 o'clock P.M. Wood’s and Sheridan’s divisions, 
of Granger's corps, advanced in front and under the guns of Fort Wood, 
Palmer occupying at the same time a threatening position on their right, 
while Howard was held in reserve on their left. Sheridan and Wood ad- 
vanced at double-quick, and drove first the enemy’s pickets, then their re- 
serves, and, capturing about 200 men, including nine commissioned officers, 
carried Orchard Knob before the Confederates had fairly recovered from 
their surprise. Upon this important position Granger intrenched himself, 
and the advance of the troops on his left and right obliterated the front line 
of the Confederate works in Thomas’s front. This success was won with a 
loss of 111 men. ‘But the next day promised work of a more serious char- 
acter. 


1 Sherman’s Report. 


562 


It now became evident to Bragg that an attempt would be made against 
his right flank, with a view of severing his communication with Longstreet. 
To strengthen this portion of his line, Walker’s division was withdrawn 
from the western slope of Lookout Mountain, leaving Stevenson and Cheat- 
ham to hold the left. 

During the night of the 23d, Giles A. Smith’s brigade, of Morgan L. 
Smith’s division, consisting of about 3000 men, manned the boats of which 
the pontoon bridge was to be constructed, and, dropping down the river at 
midnight, captured the Confederate pickets above the North Chickamauga, 
and landed below the mouth of the creek. By means of these boats and 
the steamer Dunbar, the rest of the division, together with John E. Smith’s, 
were ferried across before daylight, so that on the morning of the 24th 
Sherman had a force of 8000 men ready to advance against the enemy’s 
right. The whole valley between Citico and Chickamauga Creeks was an 
immense corn-field. Through this valley Howard moved on the forenoon 
of the 24th to connect with Sherman. The pontoon bridge had in the mean 
time been constructed, under “ Baldy” Smith’s immediate supervision, “I 
have never,” says Sherman, “beheld any work done so quickly, so well; 
and I doubt if the history of the war can show a bridge of that extent 
(namely, 1850 feet) laid down so noiselessly and well in so short atime. I 
attribute it to the genius and intelligence of General W. F. Smith.” By 1 
o'clock P.M. the whole corps had crossed, and Davis’s division was prepared 
to co-operate, as a reserve force, in the attack on Missionary Ridge. 

Sherman’s three divisions were now ordered to advance, M. L. Smith on 
the left, J. E. Smith in the centre, and Ewing on the right. A drizzling rain 
began to fall, and the clouds, resting upon the river, and low down upon 
the mountain sides, cloaked Sherman’s movement. By 8 o’clock the north- 
ern spurs of the ridge were gained without loss. The enemy had not occu- 
pied these hills (north of the railroad tunnel) with any considerable force. 
Sherman fortified the heights gained by his troops, and brought up his ar- 
tillery. He had supposed, from the map, that the ridge was continuous, but 
he now found that he was separated from the enemy by a deep gorge. The 
enemy attempted, later in the day, to regain the hill, attacking Sherman’s 
left. The attack was repulsed, but in the fight Giles A. Smith was severely 
wounded, and carried to the rear. 

While Sherman was thus confronting the enemy across the railroad on 
Missionary Ridge, Hooker had made better progress in his movement against 
the Confederate left on Lookout Mountain. The idea ofan advance from 
Lookout Valley had been abandoned when Howard’s corps was withdrawn 
from Hooker on the 22d. Indeed, Hooker, wishing to be with that portion 
of his command which would be in the fight, was on the point of following 
Howard, when he was ordered to remain and make a demonstration against 
Lookout Mountain, to divert the attention of the enemy from Sherman's 
movements. His command consisted of Geary’s division of the Twelfth 
Corps, Osterhaus’s of the Fifteenth, and Cruft’s of the Fourth, with a small 
detachment of cavalry, making an aggregate of about 10,000 men. It was 
a conglomerate organization, no one of these three divisions having ever 
before seen either of the others. The presence of Osterhaus’s division at 
this point led General Grant to resume his original plan, and he ordered 
Hooker to make a determined attack, and to carry the mountain if possible. 

The enemy’s pickets lined the east bank of Lookout Creek. His main 
force, under Cheatham, was encamped in a hollow midway up the slope of 
the mountain. The summit east of the palisaded crest was held by three 
brigades of Stevenson’s division. The Confederate position was well pro- 
tected by batteries and rifle-pits against an attack from the Tennessee or 
from the valleys on either side, and in the valleys also were strong lines of 
earth-works. 

Geary, who had ascended Lookout Creek, supported by Whittaker’s bri- 
gade of Cruft’s division, crossed near Wauhatchie at 8 A.M. on the 24th, sur- 
prising and capturing the Confederate picket of 42 men on the river bank, 
and moved down the valley, his right keeping close up under the palisades, 
and thus avoiding the batteries on the crest, Osterhaus, with Cruft’s other 
brigade (Grose’s), at the same time gained a bridge on the road just below 
the point where the railroad to Chattanooga crosses the creek, and began to 
repair it, The enemy, not aware of the force marching in its rear, filed 
down from his encampment and moved into his rifle-pits in Osterhaus’s 
front, a small force taking a position behind the embankment, which en- 
abled it to enfilade the road which the Federal troops must take if they 
crossed the creek at this point. Holding the enemy here, another crossing 
was prepared 800 yards above. Batteries were posted enfilading the route 
by which the Confederates had left their encampment, and also preventing 
their sending re-enforcements to oppose Geary. 

Before noon Geary had advanced close up to the Confederate rear. 
Grose’s brigade, with another (Wood’s) of Osterhaus’s division, sprang across 
the creek and connected with Geary’s left. All the batteries opened, and 
those of the enemy who escaped their fury were captured by the Federals in 
their rear. Meanwhile Geary, winding around the palisades, passed, says 
Hooker, “ directly under the muzzles of the enemy’s guns on the summit, 
climbing over ledges and boulders, up hill and down, driving the enemy 
from his camp, and from position after position.” 

By noon Geary’s advance rounded the peak of the mountain. Direc- 
tions had been given to halt here, as it was not known to what extent the 
Confederates farther to the east might have been re-enforced. But there 
was no such thing as “halt” for troops who, fired with success, were pressing 
on toward the consummation of their victory! Passing around to the east- 
ern slope of the mountain, Osterhaus on the left, Cruft in the centre, and 
Geary on the right, Hooker’s columns met with no formidable resistance 
until they emerged from the woods against the enemy’s intrenchments, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| NOVEMBER, 1863. 


which ran diagonally across an open field covering the road which leads up 
the mountain from Chattanooga to Summertown. Here progress was for a 
time interrupted. Much had been already gained. Upward of 2000 pris- 
oners had been captured, and communication was now open across Chat- 
tanooga Creek with General Thomas. But Hooker’s success-thus far had 
been mainly the result of strategy. The enemy had been surprised. But 
for this, Lookout Mountain could easily have been held against Hooker's 
10,000 men. The main object of the battle at this point had been secured. 
All that remained was to make the victory decisive by breaking Cheat- 
ham’s line on the eastern slope of the mountain, thus cutting off the bri- 
gades still holding the summit. 

During the operations thus far the batteries on Moccasin Point, north of 
the Tennessee, had been engaging the enemy’s artillery on the extreme point 
and highest peak of Lookout. The heavy clouds, which in the morning 
had enveloped the mountain’s summit, and thus, to some extent, favored 
Hooker’s movement, had gradually settled into the valley, veiling it com- 
pletely from view. Thus the battle of the afternoon was literally ‘‘a Battle 
above the Clouds.” 

The Confederate line had been contracted in order to give it greater 
strength, so that there was a considerable interval between the plateau 
which it held and the palisades. Geary, taking advantage of this interval, 
got in upon the enemy’s left flank, and an advance being made by Cruft and 
Osterhaus in front, the entire line was carried. But it was not held by the 
Federals undisturbed. No sooner had it been occupied by them than the 
enemy turned upon it and made an assault. In the continual skirmishing 
which had been going on, Hooker's troops had now nearly exhausted their 
ammunition, and unless a fresh supply could be had from some source it 
seemed probable that the position which had been gained would have to be 
abandoned. Hooker had sent for ammunition, but it had been delayed. 
Just in time, fortunately, Carlin’s brigade of Johnson’s division arrived from 
Thomas, having crossed Chattanooga Creek, and brought with it 120,000 
rounds strapped on the backs of the men. This fresh brigade relieved 
Geary’s exhausted troops. The enemy was repulsed, driven back from the 
last position where he could make a stand, and hurled over the rocky 
heights down into the valley. 

By this time the darkness upon the mountain rendered farther progress 
extremely dangerous, and Hooker’s troops encamped for the night on the 
slope which they had so gallantly won. Lookout Mountain had been cap- 
tured. The only drawback to the utmost completion of the victory was 
the fact that a route was left open for the retreat of Stevenson’s brigades 
from the crest above. Before daylight the colors of the Highth Kentucky 
waved from the peak of Lookout. But the enemy had abandoned his en- 
campment, leaving behind him, in the hurry of his flight, all his camp and 
garrison equipage. 

The morning of November 25th found Bragg’s entire army stretched 
along Missionary Ridge from Tunnel Hill to Rossville, the valley of the 
Chattanooga being entirely abandoned. Lieutenant General Hardee com- 
manded the right wing, consisting of Cleburne’s, Walker’s, Cheatham’s, and 
Stevenson’s divisions. The left wing—consisting of Breckinridge’s old di- 
vision,! and those of Stewart and Anderson—was under General Breckin- 
ridge. The breastworks at the foot of the rugged slope were occupied by 
pickets, while the infantry and artillery stretched along the ridge. Where 
the ascent was easy, special fortifications had been constructed to resist an 
assailing force. The troops on Breckinridge’s right had been beaten at 
Lookout Mountain, had taken their position hurriedly, and had not yet re- 
covered from the demoralization of defeat. Breckinridge’s left was refused 
at McFarland’s Gap, occupying the breastworks in which the Federals had 
stood in their retreat from McLemore’s Cove two months before. This 
point connected the old battle-field of Chickamauga with that upon which 
the opposing forces were now contending. 

About midnight on the 24th orders came from Grant, whose headquarters 
were on Orchard Knob, for Sherman to attack at daylight the next morn- 
ing. Sherman was early in the saddle. The clouds of the previous day 
had cleared away, and his own position, as well as that of the enemy, was 
fully revealed to him as he rode along from Lightburn’s brigade on the left 
to the position held by Ewing’s division on the right. The hill held by the 
enemy on his front was of steep ascent, its crest narrow and wooded. Cle- 
burne’s position was well protected by log breastworks, and a higher hill be- 
yond was hela by the enemy, commanding the disputed ground, Three 
brigades—Lightburn’s, Alexander's, and Cockrell’s—one from each division, 
were to hold the hill, and Corse’s brigade, of Ewing’s division, on the right 
centre, was to form the assaulting column, assisted by a regiment from Light- 
burn, and three brigades—Loomis'’s, of Ewing’s, and Matthias’s and Raum’s, 
of John E. Smith’s divisions. Morgan L. Smith, with his remaining bri- 
gade, was to connect with Corse’s left, and move around the eastern base of 
the ridge. 

Corse moved to the attack at sunrise, and, advancing to within eighty 
yards of the enemy’s intrenchments, established himself upon a secondary 
ridge. To this point the reserves were brought up. His preparations hav- 
ing been completed, Corse assaulted the works on Tunnel Hill. A severe 
conflict of more than an hour’s duration ‘followed, the issue of which was 
that, after gaining and losing ground, Corse made no progress beyond the 
ee 


1 Generals Polk and Hill had been relieved for disobedience of orders in the Chickamauga 
campaign, We also miss Hindman and Buckner. Walker, too, is absent, his division being 
commanded by General Gist. Hardee comes from Enterprise, Mississippi, where he had at the 
end of August taken command of “the paroled prisoners of Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Tex- 
as, and Louisiana, recently forming the garrisons of Vicksburg and Port Hudson.” These pris- 
oners had not been exchanged up to the time of which we are writing. All of Stevenson’s di- 
vision, including its commander, must have violated their parole. 


November, 1863. } THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 563 


4 TOP OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, SUNRISE, NOVEMBER 25 1863 RESEL BATTERY GN THE TOP OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 


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PH E CREST OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. | 


564 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ NOVEMBER, 1863. 


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566 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ NOVEMBER, 18653. 


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THE STORMING OF MISSIONARY RIDGE, 


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NovemBER, 1863. ] 


position originally taken. Morgan L. Smith, in the mean time, had made 
considerable progress on the eastern slope. Loomis’s brigade had got abreast 
of the tunnel, and, by diverting the enemy’s attention, afforded some relief 
to General Corse. The two reserve brigades (those of John E. Smith) sup- 
porting Corse’s movement had been repulsed, but the real attack was sus- 
tained. The enemy had brought to this part of the field extensive re-en- 
forcements, and the most that Sherman could do was to maintain his posi- 
tion until the success of Thomas and Hooker, on the centre and right, should 
give him an opportunity to attack with advantage. 

But the centre and right of the Federal army had been delayed. Thom- 
as’s attack was to depend upon the movements of Hooker. The latter was 
unexpectédly retarded in his movement from Lookout Mountain. Oster- 
haus’s division began its march to Rossville at 10 o’clock, and the rest of 
Hooker’s command followed, with the exception of two regiments left upon 
the summit of Lookout. On arriving at Chattanooga Creek it was found 
that the enemy had destroyed the bridge, and here Hooker was delayed for 
full three hours. Osterhaus was soon got across, and, pushing on to the gap 
in Missionary Ridge, flanked the enemy at this point, capturing artillery, 
ammunition, and wagons. Hooker’s entire command was ready for the at- 
tack upon the enemy’s left by 8 30 P.M. Cruft advanced upon the ridge, 
Osterhaus to the east of it, and Geary, with the artillery, along the valley, 
against the western slope. 

Thomas in the mean time had sent Baird’s division to the support of Sher- 
man, on Granger’s left. This division got into position at 230 P.M. Thomas 
then assaulted the enem;’s line with his whole force, driving the enemy from 
his rifle-pits at the foot of the hill on the centre of his line. The troops to 
the right of Wood advanced up to the crest, and gained the summit of the 
ridge, capturing large numbers of the enemy in their trenches.! Against 
Sherman, and Baird’s and Wood’s divisions, the enemy still held his ground; 
but Hooker was well up against his left, which now, attacked in front and 
flank, was entirely routed, leaving behind forty pieces of artillery. Here a 
large number of prisoners, driven by Hooker against Palmer and Johnson, 
were captured. Osterhaus alone took 2000 prisoners. It was not until 
nightfall, however, that the enemy’s right was dislodged, and the entire ridge 
abandoned. 

At daylight on the 26th Sherman and Hooker pursued the enemy’s 
routed columns, the former by way of Chickamauga Station, the latter by 
Greysville and Ringgold. The rear-guard, under Gist, was overtaken and 
broken up, and three more guns captured. Hooker's force came upon Cle- 
burne in a gap in Taylor’s Ridge, near Ringgold, and, attacking him, was se- 
verely repulsed, losing 65 killed and 3867 wounded. Finally Clebume was 
flanked and driven from his strong position, leaving 180 killed and wound- 
ed on the field. There was no farther pursuit. Grose’s brigade visited the 
battle-field of Chickamauga, and buried the remains of many of the Federal 
dead, which had been left by Bragg to lie mouldering where they had fallen. 

Bragg attributes his defeat to a disgraceful panic on the part of his men.’ 


1 General Thomas gives the following description of this movement: 

*‘ Our troops advancing steadily in a continuous line, the enemy, seized with panic, abandoned the 
works at the foot of the hill and retreated precipitately to the crest, whither they were closely followed 
by our troops, who, apparently inspired by the impulse of victory, carried the hill simultaneously 
at six-different points, and so closely upon the heels of the enemy that many of them were taken 
prisoners in the trenches. We captured all their cannon and ammunition before they could be re- 
moved or destroyed. After halting a few moments to reorganize the troops, who had become 
somewhat scattered in the assault of the hill, General Sherman pushed forward inspursuit, and 
drove those in his front who escaped capture across Chickamauga Creek. Generals Wood and 
Baird, being obstinately resisted by re-enforcements from the enemy’s extreme right, continued 
fighting until darkness set in, but steadily driving the enemy before them, In moving upon 
Rossville, Genera: .iooker encountered Stewart’s division and other troops. Finding his left flank 
threatened, Stewart attempted to escape by retreating toward Greysville; but some of his force, 
finding their retreat threatened in that quarter, retired in disorder toward their right, along the 
crest of the ridge, where they were met by another portion of General Hooker’s command, and 
were driven by these troops in the face of Johnson’s division of Palmer’s corps, by whom they were 
- nearly all made prisoners.” 

2 The following is General Bragg’s report of the battle: 

‘ Headquarters Army of Tennessee, Dalton, Georgia, 30th November, 1863. 
‘General S. Coorgr, Adjutant and Inspector General, Richmond : 

‘¢ Srr,—On Monday, the 23d, the enemy advanced in heavy force, and drove in our picket line 
in front of Missionary Ridge, but made no farther effort. 

“On Tuesday morning early they threw over the river a heavy force opposite the north end of the 
ridge, and just below the mouth of the Chickamauga, at the same time displaying a heavy force in our 
immediate front. After visiting the right, and making dispositions there for the new development 
in that direction, I returned toward the left, to find a heavy cannonading going on from the enemy’s 
batteries on our forces occupying the slope of Lookout Mountain, between the crest and the river. 
A very heavy force soon advanced to the assault, and was met by one brigade only, Walthall’s, 
which made a desperate resistance, but was finally compelled to yield ground. Why this com- 
mand was not sustained is yet unexplained. The commander on that part of the field, Major Gen- 
eral Stevenson, had six brigades at his disposal. Upon his urgent appeal, another brigade was 
_ dispatched in the afternoon to his support—though it appeared his own forces had not been 
brought into action—and I proceeded to the scene. 

“‘ Arriving just before sunset, I found that we had lost all the advantages of the position. Or- 
ders were immediately given for the ground to be disputed until we could withdraw our forces 
across Chattanooga Creek, and the movement was commenced, This having been successfully 
accomplished, our whole forces were concentrated on the ridge, and extended to the right to meet 
the movement in that direction. 

“On Wednesday, the 25th, I again visited the extreme right, now under Lieutenant General 
Hardee, and threatened by a heavy force, while strong columns could be seen marching in that di- 
rection. A very heavy force in line of battle confronted our left and centre. 

“On my return to this point, about 11°A.M., the enemy’s forces were being moved in heavy 
masses from Lookout and beyond to our front, while those in front extended to our right. They 
formed their lines with great deliberation, just beyond the range of our guns, and in plain view of 
our position. 

“Though greatly outnumbered, such was the strength of our position that no doubt was enter- 
tained of our ability to hold it, and every disposition was made for that purpose. During this 
time they had made several attempts on our extreme right, and had been handsomely repulsed, 
with very heavy loss, by Major General Cleburne’s command, under the immediate direction of 
Lieutenant General Hardee. By the road across the ridge at Rossville, far to our left, a route was 
open to our rear. Major General Breckinridge, commanding on the left, had occupied this with 
two regiments and a battery. It being reported to me that a force of ithe enemy had moved in 
that direction, the general was ordered to have it reconnoitred, and to make every disposition nec- 
essary to secure his flank, which he proceeded to do, 

“ Abont half past 3 P.M., the immense force in the front of our left and centre advanced in 
three lines, preceded by heavy skirmishers. Our batteries opened with fine effect, and much con- 
fusion was produced before they reached musket range. In a short time the roar of musketry be- 
— very heavy, and it was soon apparent that the enemy had been repulsed in my immediate 

ont. 

“While riding along the crest congratulating the troops, intelligence reached me that vur line 


THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN. 567 


The real causes were the weakness of his line—a weakness not of position, 
but of numbers—and the demoralization which had resulted from the defeat 
on Lookout Mountain. 

The Federal losses in the battles of the 28d, 24th, 25th, and 26th were 
757 killed, 4529 wounded, and 330 missing: total, 5616. The Confederate 
loss in killed and wounded was probably much less; but Bragg’s loss in 
prisoners alone amounted to 6142, of whom 239 were commissioned officers; 
7000 stand of small arms had also been captured by Grant’s army. By 
these battles Bragg’s army must have been diminished by at least 10,000 
men. Grant probably had engaged about 65,000 men, and Bragg between 
40,000 and 45,000. 

General Bragg’s defeat terminated the contest for Chattanooga and East 
Tennessee. The tidings of Grant’s victory electrified the loyal portion of 
the country, and President Lincoln, on the 7th of December, issued a proc- 
lamation recommending the people “to assemble at their places of worship, 
and render special homage and gratitude to Almighty God for this great 
advancement of the national cause.” From this time the prospects of the 
Southern Confederacy were indeed desperate. The resources of the South- 
ern States were rapidly being exhausted, while the national armies were 
being recruited by immense numbers, at whose backs stood thousands more 
ready to take the field the moment their services should become necessary. 
Thus closed the year 1863. It had begun with the disaster at Fredericks- 
burg, followed soon by the defeat at Chancellorsville; but the victories of 
Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Missionary Ridge crowned it with imperishable 


glory.! 


was broken on my right, and the enemy had crowned the ridge. Assistance was promptly dis- 
patched to that point, under Brigadier General Bate, who had so successfully maintained the 
ground in my front, and I proceeded to the rear of the broken line to rally our retiring troops and 
return them to the crest to drive the enemy back. General Bate found the disaster so great that 
his small force could not repair it. About this time I learned that our extreme left had also given 
way, and that my position was almost surrounded. Bate was immediately directed to form a sec- 
ond line in the rear, where, by the efforts of my staff, a nucleus of stragglers had been formed upon 
which to rally. 

“Lieutenant General Hardee, leaving Major General Cleburne in command of the extreme 
right, moved toward the left when he heard the heavy firing in that direction. He reached the 
right of Anderson’s division just in time to find it had nearly all fallen back, commencing on its 
right, where the enemy had first crowned the ridge. By a prompt and judicious movement, he 
threw a portion of Cheatham’s division directly across the ridge, facing the enemy, who was now 
moving a strong force immediately on his left flank. By a decided stand here, the enemy was en- 
tirely checked, and that portion of our force to the right remained intact. All to the left, how- 
ever, except a portion of Bate’s division, was entirely routed, and in rapid flight, nearly all the ar- 
tillery having been shamefully abandoned by its infantry support. Every effort which could be 
made by myself and staff, and by many other mounted officers, availed but little. A panic, which 
I had never before witnessed, seemed to have seized upon officers and men, and each seemed ta 
be struggling for his personal safety, regardless of his duty or his character. In this distressing 
and alarming state of affairs, General Bate was ordered to hold his position, covering the road for 
the retreat of Breckinridge’s command, and orders were immediately sent to Generals Hardee and 
Breckinridge to retire their forces upon the dépot at Chickamauga. Fortunately, it was now near 
nightfall, and the country and roads in our rear were fully known to us, but equally unknown to 
the enemy. The routed left made its way back in great disorder, effectually covered, however, by 
Bate’s small command, which had a sharp conflict with the enemy’s advance, driving it back. 
After night, all being quiet, Bate retired in good order, the enemy attempting no pursuit, Lieu- 
tenant General Hardee’s command, under his judicious management, retired in good order and 
unmolested. 

‘‘ As soon as all the troops had crossed, the bridges over the Chickamauga were destroyed, tc 
impede the enemy, though the stream was fordable in several places. 3 

‘«No satisfactory excuse can possibly be given for the shameful conduct of our troops on the left 
in allowing their line to be penetrated. The position was one which ought to have been held by 
a line of skirmishers against any assaulting column; and, wherever resistance was made, the en- 
emy fled in disorder, after suffering heavy loss. Those who reached the ridge did so in a condi- 
tion of exhaustion, from the great physical exertion in climbing, which rendered them powerless 
and the slightest effort would have destroyed them. 

‘‘ Having secured much of our artillery, they soon availed themselves of our panic, and, turning 
our guns upon us, enfiladed our lines both right and left, rendering them entirely untenable. Had 
all parts of the line been maintained with equal gallantry and persistence, no enemy could ever 
have dislodged us; and but one possible reason presents itself to my mind in explanation of this 
bad conduct in veteran troops, who had never before failed in any duty assigned them, however 
difficult and hazardous. They had for two days confronted the enemy, marshaling his immense 
forces in plain view, and exhibiting to their sight such a superiority in numbers as may have in- 
timidated weak minds and untried soldiers. But our veterans had so often encountered similar 
hosts when the strength of position was against us, and with perfect success, that not a doubt 
crossed my mind, As yet, I am not fully informed as to the commands which first fled, and 
brought this great disaster and disgrace upon our arms. Investigation will bring out the truth 
however, and full justice shall be done to the good and the bad. : 

‘¢ After arriving at Chickamauga, and informing myself of the full condition of affairs, it was 
decided to put the army in motion for a point farther removed from a powerful and victorious 
army, that we might have some little time to replenish and recuperate for another struggle. The 
enemy made pursuit as far as Ringgold, but was so handsomely checked by Major General Cle- 
burne and Brigadier General Gist, in command of their respective divisions, that he gave us but 
little annoyance, 

‘¢Our losses are not yet ascertained, but in killed and wounded it is known to have been very 
small. Jn prisoners and stragglers I fear it is much larger. 

‘“The chief of artillery reports the loss of forty (40) pieces. 

‘¢T am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
‘Braxton Brace, General Commanding.” 


President Davis also seems to have concurred with General Bragg in attributing the blame to 
the troops. In his message to Congress (December 7th, 1863) he says: 

‘¢ After a long and severe battle, in which great carnage was inflicted on him, some of our troops 
inexplicably abandoned positions of great strength, and by a disorderly retreat compelled the com- 
mander to withdraw the forces elsewhere successful, and, finally, to retire with his whole army to 
a position some twenty or thirty miles to the rear. It is believed that if the troops who yielded to 
the assault had fought with the valor which they had displayed on previous occasions, and which 
was manifested in this battle on other parts of the lines, the enemy would have been repulsed 
with very great slaughter, and our country would have escaped the misfortune, and the army the 
mortification, of the first defeat that has resulted from misconduct by the troops.” 

1 Near the close of 1863 General Grant issued the following congratulatory order to his soldiers: 

‘*Chattanooga, December 10th, 1863. 

‘¢The general commanding takes this opportunity of returning his sincere thanks and con- 
gratulations to the brave armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, the ‘Tennessee, and their comrades 
from the Potomac, for the recent splendid and decisive successes achieved over the enemy. Ina 
short time you have recovered from him the control of the Tennessee River from Bridgeport to 
Knoxville. You dislodged him from his great stronghold upon Lookout Mountain, drove him 
from Chattanooga Valley, wrested from his determined grasp the possession of Missionary Ridge, 
repelled with heavy loss to him his repeated assaults upon Knoxville, forcing him to raise the 
siege there, driving him at all points, utterly routed and discomfited, beyond the limits of the 
state. By your noble heroism and determined courage you have most effectually defeated the 
plans of the enemy for regaining the possession of the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, Yor 
have secured positions from which no rebellious power can drive or dislodge you. For all this 
the general commanding thanks you collectively and individually. The loyal people of the United 
States thank and bless you. ‘Their hopes and prayers for your success against this unholy rebel- 
lion are with you daily. Their faith in you will not be in vain, Their hopes will not be blasted. 
Their prayers to Almighty God will be answered. You will yet go to other fields of strife; and 
with the invincible bravery and unflinching loyalty to justice and right which have characterized 
you in the past, you will prove that no enemy can withstand you, and that no defenses, however 
formidable, can check your onward march.” 


568 HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ NOVEMBER, 1863. 


CAPTURED CONFEDERATE CANNON IN FRONT OF GENERAL THOMAS’S HEADQUARTERS. 


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Fepruary, 1864. ] 


CHAPTER XXXVILI. 
SHERMAN’S MERIDIAN CAMPAIGN, 


Object of the Meridian Expedition.—Condition of the Confederate Commissary.—Sherman’s Plan. 
—Co-operative Column under W. S. Smith.—Sherman starts from Vicksburg February 3d, 1864. 
—His third Visit to Jackson.—The Confederate Forces, under Polk, in the Department of 
Mississippi.—Polk retires into Alabama.—Sherman’s March unopposed.—He enters Meridian 
on the 14th.—Defeat of Smith’s Column by General Forrest.—Sherman’s Return to Vicksburg. 
—Forrest’s Raid into Tennessee. —The Fort Pillow Massacre.—Expeditions sent against Gen- 
eral Forrest from Memphis, under Sturgis and A, J. Smith. 

ais CE the capture of Vicksburg there had been no important mili- 

tary movements in Mississippi during 1863. About the middle of 

August a small force of 1600 men, sent from General Hurlbut’s command, 

had penetrated through the northern portion of the state to Grenada, where 

it captured and destroyed over 50 locomotives and about 500 cars, Gener- 
al McPherson two months later, with about 8000 men, comprising Logan’s 
and Tuttle’s divisions, and Colonel Winslow’s cavalry, pushed out from 

Vicksburg nearly to Canton, driving back Wirt Adams’s cavalry and three 

brigades of Confederate infantry. Finding himself confronted by a supe- 

rior force of the enemy, he retreated to Vicksburg. 

After Bragg’s defeat a more formidable expedition was organized by Gen- 
eral Sherman, having for its object the completion of the work which had 
been begun by the reduction of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. By the cap- 
ture of those strong-holds the river itself had been conquered, and Arkansas, 
Louisiana, and Tennessee had been cut off from any possible connection 
with the main theatre of the war, which was now confined to Virginia, the 
two Carolinas, Georgia, Northern Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. Win- 
ter had proclaimed a truce, so far as conflicts between the main armies were 
concerned. But the possession by the national troops of the east bank of 
the Mississippi furnished a convenient basis for a winter campaign in Mis- 
sissippi and Alabama. Such a campaign would be an important prepara- 
tion for the advance upon Atlanta in the following spring. Ifthe reader 
will examine the map he will observe that, by the successful issue of the 
Chattanooga campaign, the entire network of railroads north of and includ- 
ing the road running from Memphis eastward to Virginia, had been secured 
by the national government. By General Grant’s victory not only had 
Bragg’s army been defeated and driven, but had been deprived of one of 
the chief sources upon which it had relied for subsistence.’ It was forced 


1 Says the Knoxville Register (published at Atlanta, Georgia, after the Federal occupation of 
East Tennessee), ‘‘If any one doubts the necessity which would compel President Davis to sacri- 
fice Richmond, Charleston, and Mobile, all to reacquire East Tennessee, he need only ask the 
commissary general by what agencies and from what sources the armies of the South have been 
sustained during the first years of the war. East Tennessee furnished the Confederate States with 
25,000,000 pounds of bacon. Last year the State of Tennessee fed the army.” The Richmond 
Examiner of October 31st corroborates this testimony in the following terms: ‘‘ Except what was 
furtively obtained from Kentucky, the whole army supply of pork came from East Tennessee, and 
the contiguous counties of the adjoining states. The product of corn in that region was very 
heavy, and no portion of the Confederacy, equal in extent, afforded as large a supply of forage 
and winter pasturage.” 

The following circular, issued in November, 1863, from the office of the chief commissary in 
Florida, indicates the beginning of a sad era for the armies of the Confederacy : 

“ Office of Chief Commissary, Quincy, Fla., November 2, 1863. 

‘Tt has been a subject of anxious consideration how I could, without injury to our cause, expose 
to the people throughout the state the present perilous condition of our army. To do this through 
the public press would point out our source of danger to our enemies. ‘To see each one in person, 
or even a sufficient number to effect the object contemplated, is impossible; yet the necessity of 
general and immediate action is imperative to save our army, and with it our cause, from disaster. 
The issues of this contest are now transferred to the people at home. If they fail to do their duty 
and sustain the army in its present position, it must fall back. If the enemy break through our 
present line, the wave of desolation may roll even to the shores of the Gulf and Atlantic. In dis- 
cipline, valor, and the skill of its leaders, our army has proven more than a match for the enemy. 
But the best-appointed army can not maintain its position without support at home. The people 
should never suffer it to be said that they valued their cattle and hogs, their corn and money, more 
than their liberties and honor, and that they had to be compelled to support an army they had 
sent to battle in their defense. We hope it will not become necessary to resort to impressments 
among a people fighting for their existence, and in defense of their homes, and country, and in- 
stitutions. We prefer rather to appeal to them by every motive of duty and honor—by the love 
they bear their wives and daughters—by the memory of the heroie dead, and the future glory and 
independence of their country, to come to its rescue in this darkest hour of its peril. 

«A country which can afford to send forth in its defense the flower of its youth, and the best of 
its manhood, can afford, and are in honor bound to sustain them at any cost and sacrifice of money 
and property. They have sacrificed home and ease, and suffered untold hardships, and with their 
lives are now defending every thing we hold most sacred. Florida has done nobly in this contest. 
Her sons have achieved the highest character for their state, and won imperishable honors for 
themselves. ‘These brave men are now suffering for want of food. Not only the men from Flori- 
da, but the whole army of the South, are in this condition. Our honor as a people demands that 
we do our duty to them. They must be fed. The following extracts from official letters in my 
possession do but partially represent the present condition of the armies of Generals Bragg and 
Beauregard, and their gloomy prospect for future supplies : 

“Major J. F. Cumming, who supplies General Bragg’s army, writes, ‘It is absolutely and 
vitally important that all the cattle that can possibly be brought here shall be brought as prompt- 
ly as possible.” And again, on the 5th of October, he says, ‘I can not too strongly urge upon you 
_ the necessity, yes, the urgent necessity, of sending forward cattle promptly. It appears that all 
other sources are exhausted, and that we are now dependent upon your state for beef for the very 
large army of General Bragg. I know you will leave no stone unturned, and I must say all is 
now dependent on your exertions, so far as beef is concerned. In regard to bacon, the stock is 
about exhausted—hence beef is our only hope. I know the prospect is very discouraging, and it 
only remains with those of us having charge of this important work to do all we can to exhaust 
our resources; and when we have done this, our country can not complain of us. If we fail to do 
all that can be done, and our cause shall fail, upon us will rest the responsibility ; therefore let 
us employ every means at our command.’ Again, on the 6th, he says, ‘ Major A. can explain to 
you the great and absolute necessity for prompt action in the matter ; for, major, I assure you 
that nearly all now depends on you.’ And on the 19th of October he says, ‘ Captain Townsend, 
A. C.S., having a leave of absence for thirty days from the Army of Tennessee, I have prevailed 
~ on him to see you and explain to you my straitened condition, and the imminent danger of our 
army suffering for the want of beef.’ And on the 20th of October he wrote, ‘The army to-day is 
on half-rations of beef, and I fear within a few days will have nothing but bread to eat. This is 
truly a dark hour with us, and I can not see what is to be done. All that is left for us to do is 
to do all we can, and then we will have a clear conscience, no matter what the world may say.’ 

“Major Locke, Chief Commissary of Georgia, wrote, ‘I pray you, major, to put every agency 
in motion that you can to send cattle without a moment's delay toward the Georgia borders. The 
troops in Charleston are in great extremity. We look alone to you for cattle; those in Georgia 
are exhausted.’ 

“Major Guerin, Chief Commissary of South Carolina, wrote, ‘We are almost entirely depend- 
ent on Florida, and it is of the last importance, at this time, that the troops here should be subsist- 
ed.’ Again he says, ‘ As it is, our situation is full of danger from want of meat, and extraordi- 
nary efforts are required to prevent disaster.’ And on the 9th of October he says, ‘We have now 
40,000 troops and laborers to subsist. ‘The supply of bacon on hand in the city is 20,000 pounds, 
and the cattle furnished by this state is not one tenth of what is required. My anxieties and ap- 
prehensions, as you may suppose, are greatly excited.’ 

«Major Millen, of Savannah, on the 10th of October says, ‘I assure you, major, that the stock 
of bacon and beef for the armies of the Confederate States is now exhausted, and we must depend 


TE 


SHERMANS MERIDIAN CAMPAIGN. 


569 


to mainly depend upon Florida for its meat, while its supply of corn was 
principally derived from the rich valleys of the Alabama and Tombigbee 
Rivers. ‘The Confederate Army of the West was already cut off from the 
immense cattle-growing region west of the Mississippi, and from the corn 
and bacon of Tennessee. It was proposed to still farther restrict its de- 
pendencies by operations, during the winter of 1863-4, directed against the 
railroads leading to Atlanta from Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Thus 
the campaigns undertaken in the beginning of 1864 by Seymour in Flori- 
da, and Sherman in Mississippi, were calculated to have an important bear- 
ing upon the progress of the main Federal army southward in the spring 
and summer. 

Probably the principal object of Sherman’s expedition against the rail- 
roads west of Atlanta was to prevent the possibility of the future concentra- 
tion of a Confederate army on the east bank of the Mississippi. The de- 
struction of these railroads would render it impossible for the enemy to ap- 
proach the river with artillery and trains, and the occupation of prominent 
points in the interior would subject any Confederate infantry column, seek- 
ing to gain a position on the river, to an attack in its rear. In this way 
Sherman’s army would be liberated from the necessity, hitherto imposed 
upon it, of remaining in strong force at Vicksburg, or some other point on 
the Mississippi. 

The plan adopted by General Sherman was the following: He was 
himself to move from Vicksburg with four divisions of infantry—two of 
McPherson’s and two of Hurlbut’s corps—and Colonel Winslow’s cavalry 
brigade, and, advancing westward, was to destroy the Southern Mississippi 
Railroad. At Meridian, General William Sooy Smith, General Grant’s chief 
of cavalry, was to meet him with all the cavalry of the department, having 
advanced along the line of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad from Memphis, 
destroying the road as he moved. General Smith had a long ride of 250 
miles, which he was expected to accomplish in ten days, starting from Mem- 
phis on or before the 1st of February, moving by way of Pontotoc, Okalona, 
and Columbus, and reaching Meridian on the 10th. He was instructed to 
disregard all small detachments of the enemy, and to advance rapidly to his 
appointed destination. Simultaneously with these movements, the Eleventh 
Illinois and a colored regiment, with five tin-clad gun-boats, were sent up 
the Yazoo to create a diversion and to protect the plantations along the 
banks of that river; and another force, under Brigadier General Hawkins, 
was to patrol the country toward the Big Black, in the rear of Vicksburg, 
and to collect 50 skiffs, by means of which detachments of 200 or 800 men 
might be moved at pleasure through the labyrinth of bayous between the 
Yazoo and the Mississippi, for the purpose of suppressing the bands of guer- 
rillas then infesting that region. 

Sherman began his march on the 8d of February. Hurlbut moved across 
the Big Black by way of Messenger’s Ferry, and McPherson by the railroad 
bridge six miles below. The two columns, with the cavalry, numbered 
about 25,000 men. On the 5th both columns met the enemy, Hurlbut’s at 
Joe Davis’s plantation, and McPherson’s at Champion Hills, and there was 
skirmishing all day, with small loss on either side, but without materially 
impeding the progress of the troops, who the next day entered Jackson. 
This was the third time that Sherman’s troops had entered and occupied the 
capital of Mississippi, and it is fair to presume that this third occupation 
pretty nearly completed the work of destruction so shamelessly indulged in 
on two previous occasions." 


(Ge ane pert ene er a ee ae 
entirely upon what we may gather weckly. Starvation stares the army in the face—the hand- 
writing is on the wall.’ On the 26th of October he says, ‘ From the best information I have, the 
resources of food (meat) of both the Tennessee and Virginia armies are exhausted, ‘The remark 
now applies with equal force to South Carolina and Georgia, and the army must henceforth de- 
pend upon the energy of the purchasing commissaries, through their daily or weekly collections. 
T have exhausted the beef cattle, and am now obliged to kill stock cattle.’ 

‘<From these you perceive that there is too much cause for the deep solicitude manifested by 
the writers. They should excite the fears and apprehensions of every lover of his country. Truly 
the responsibility upon us is great, when we are expected to feed these vast armies, whether the 
producers will sell to us or not. The slightest reflection would teach any one that it is impossible 
to provide for such armies by impressments alone. The people must cheerfully yield their sup- 
plies, or make up their minds to surrender their cause. It is their cause. It is not the cause of 
the government. The government is theirs. The army, the government, you and I, and every 
one, and every thing we have, are staked upon this contest. ‘To fail is total and irretrievable ruin, 
universal confiscation of every thing, and abject and ignominious submission and slavery to the 
most despicable and infamous race on earth. Whoever has any other thought but to fight on, at 
any cost of life and property, until we achieve our independence, or all perish in the struggle, de- 
serves to be the slave of such an enemy. But, under the guidance of Providence, our cause is 
safe in the hands of our army, provided we do our duty at home. But Providence will not help a 
people who will not help themselves. Our enemies have no hope of conquering us by arms. Their 
only hope is that we will be untrue to ourselves, and in the blind pursuit of gain, lose sight of our 
country, and thus suffer our army, and with it our cause, to perish. How stands the case? You 
know the resources of Tennessee are lost to us; the hog cholera and other causes have cut short 
the prospect in Georgia and other states. It is ascertained that the last year’s crop of bacon is 
about exhausted, and it is certain that the crop of this will be much shorter than that of last year. 
Now two large armies look almost solely to Florida to supply one entire article of subsistence. 
The entire surplus of this year’s crop of bacon throughout the Confederacy, even when husbanded 
with the utmost economy, will be inadequate to the demands of the government. This makes it 
the duty of every man to economize as much as possible—to sell not a pound to any one else 
while there is any danger of our army suffering, and to pledge at schedule rates his entire surplus 
—bacon, beef, sugar, and sirup—to the government. I solemnly believe our cause is hopeless un- 
less our people can be brought to this point. 

“T have thought it my duty to address this confidential circular to the principal men in various 
sections of the state, and invoke their aid and co-operation with the purchasing commissaries and 
government agents in their districts, in inaugurating and putting into operation some system by 
which our armies can be more promptly supplied, and all of our resources which are necessary 
secured to the government. The appeals to me are more and more urgent every day; the press- 
ure upon our state is very great. Should she now respond to the call made upon her resources as 
she has upon the bloodiest battle-ficld of the war, the measure of her glory will be full. But if 
we withhold our supplies, we cripple our army, and render it impossible for them to advance after 
achieving the most signal victories. ‘The people at home must put themselves upon a war footing. 
This they have never yet done. They must sow, and plant, and gather for the government. 
Then, and not till then, will the bright rays of peace break through the clouds of war which over- 
hang us. P. W. Waite, Major and Chief Commissary.” 

1 ‘The Northern accounts of Sherman’s march indicate its character in this respect. The fol- 
lowing extract is taken from “A National Account,”’ published in volume viii. of the Rebellion 
Record: 

“Tt was the expectation, when the expedition started out, that they would draw most of theit 
supplies, and all their forage for horses and mules, from the country. There was very little diffi- 
culty in finding enough for our purpose, even in tho most barren parts of the country we passed 


LONGITUDE WEST Sit FROM Git—ENWwiCH 
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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


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MAP OF MISSISSIPPI. 


Sherman’s troops marched with little other baggage than their ammuni- 
tion and twenty days’ provisions, and the rapidity of his movements met 
with very few obstacles from the enemy, who was too weak to oppose to 
them any formidable resistance. The entire Confederate force in the De- 
partment of Mississippi (now under General Polk’s command), amounted to 
less than 16,000 effective men. The most which General Polk could do 
was to transport the supplies accumulated at the several railway stations 
into Alabama, behind the Tombigbee River. 

Thus unopposed by the enemy, Sherman’s march to Meridian was simply 
a promenade. He crossed the Pearl River on the pontoons which the ene- 


through. There was nothing left, however, after our passage, and in many instances the people 
must suffer for want of food.’’ 

This was no doubt legitimate warfare, but we question whether the same excuse may be urged 
for the destruction of property at Jackson, described as follows by a soldier of Sherman’s army 
(F. McC., of the Sixteenth Towa): 

*: It was truly a vivid picture of war to see the streets filled with armed men, squares of large 
brick buildings on fire, furniture of every description, from rocking-cradles to pianos, clothing, 
books—in fact, almost every article of domestic utility and ornament, piled upon the sidewalks. 
Women and children running hither and thither, pictures of the most abject despair. There was 
no protection given the town, and but little mercy shown, as this was the third time our army had 


been compelled to come here, and we judge General Sherman rightly concluded that he would ob- 
viate all necessity of having to come again.” 


my had left behind in his hurried retreat from Jackson. On his route he 
was joined by thousands of negroes—men, women, and children—who 
swelled the vast column of the march. The railroad was completely demol- 
ished along the route. On the 14th, having marched 150 miles in 11 days, 
Sherman entered Meridian. 

But where was General Smith, due four days ago? While the enemy 
was giving Sherman ‘“‘a wide berth,” he had not been blind to the import- 
ance of cutting off the supporting column of cavalry on its way to Meridian 
from Memphis. In fact, it was only Smith’s junction with Sherman that 
Polk really feared. That must be prevented at all hazards. The accession 
of this cavalry force to Sherman’s army would be the preliminary to a suc- 
cessful advance to Selma and Montgomery, and where not? Polk, covering 
his infantry behind the Tombigbee, ordered his cavalry to join Forrest, to 
whom was assigned the difficult task of heading off Smith’s column. 

Associated with General Smith was General B. F. Grierson, who had be- 
come thoroughly acquainted with the country on his previous raid. The 
column had not left Memphis till the 11th, and thus the enemy had been 
given time to organize his forees for effective resistance. The Federal force 
numbered 7000 men, and to oppose this Forrest had at length collected to- 


Feprvuary, 1864 | 


SS Ws 


mene 


W. 8. SMITI. 


gether about the same number at Okalona, nearly 100 miles north of Me- 
ridian. Up to this point Smith and Grierson continued their march without 
serious resistance. 'lhus far they were permitted by the enemy to revel in 
a carnival of devastation, destroying corn estimated by the millions of bush- 
els (one account makes it 1,000,000 bushels, another 3,000,000), and two or 
three thousand bales of cotton. Either by lack of discipline, owing to the 
character of such a march, or on account of the sudden and formidable op- 
position encountered, the Federal command did not behave well when on 
the 22d it reached Okalona, as was its wont in the presence of the enemy. 
Almost the first onset of Forrest’s cavalry was decisive. Six guns were 
lost by the Federals in the first attack. Probably even after the first re- 
verse the Confederates would have been checked had it not been for the 
impediment to Smith’s fighting force of the crowd of camp-followers, who 
gave way to panic, and fled to the rear, sweeping with them a portion of 
the troops coming into position. It was with great difficulty that Smith 
covered his retreat and saved his trains. The Fourth Missouri Cavalry, 
acting as rear-guard, stood well its ground, checking the enemy until night- 
fall. Under cover of night the Federals fell back to Okalona (the battle 
had been fought south of that place, on the border of the prairie country), 
where order was restored. Smith and Grierson, after losing over 800 men 
and a large number of horses, continued their retreat over the country 
which for ten days they had been laying waste. 

This disaster, of course, forbid any farther advance on the part of Sher- 
man, who had in the mean time been destroying the railroads centring in 
Meridian.! He then, with one of his columns, marched northward to Can- 
ton, continuing his work of destruction in that direction. Finding that the 
column from Memphis had been driven back, he returned to Vicksburg. 
His loss had been probably about 200 men. He brought away with him 
1000 white and 5000 colored refugees. He had done the enemy very great 
injury, which, unfortunately, in a large measure, fell upon the population 
rather than the army; had, by the destruction of the railroads between Vicks- 
burg and Meridian, secured the east bank of the Mississippi against any fu- 
4ure attack on the part of the enemy—one of the chief objects of the raid— 
and had learned a lesson in regard to the facility of marching through the 
southern portion of the Confederacy, which was of the greatest value to him 
at a later period of the war. 

It is possible that, but for the failure of Sherman’s supporting cavalry 
column, an attempt would have been made in conjunction with Farragut’s 
naval force against Mobile. Farragut did indeed make a strong demon- 
stration against Mobile, assaulting Fort Powell, and losing a gun-boat in the 
operation. But this attack was only a feint, to divert attention from a pet 
project which the government was at this time nursing, and which regarded 
affairs on the other side of the Mississippi. 

Forrest did not stop with his defeat of Smith and Grierson at Okalona. 
If he could meet all the cavalry of Grant’s department in the open field, 
what was to hinder him—now that the garrisons of Tennessee were con- 
tinually being weakened by the concentration of forces for the spring cam- 
paign—from moving into Western Tennessee and Kentucky? He passed 


1 “The dépéts, store-houses, arsenals, offices, hospitals, hotels, and cantonments in the town 
were burned, and, during the next five days, with axes, sledges, crow-bars, clam-bars, and fire, 
Hurlbut’s corps destroyed on the north and east 60 miles of ties and iron, one locomotive, and 
eight bridges; and McPherson's corps, on the south and west, 55 miles of railway, 53 bridges, 
61,075 feet of trestle-work, 19 locomotives, 28 steam-cars, and 3 steam saw-mills. Thus was com- 
pleted the destruction of railways for 100 miles from Jackson to Meridian, and for 20 miles 
around the latter place, in such a manner that they could not be used against us in the approach- 
ing campaigns.”—Bowman’s Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 163. 


SHERMAN’S MERIDIAN CAMPAIGN. 


57) 


| over the frontier of Tennessce late in March, and his expedition throughout 


was characterized by brutality and cowardice such as is not surpassed in 
the record of even savage warfare. It is possible that his command was 
infuriated by the devastation which had marked the progress of Sherman’s 
Mississippi expedition. But this is no fair excuse for such conduct as that 
which it is now our duty to expose. Wherever Sherman’s troops departed 
from the recognized customs of war, the reader will bear us witness that we 
have offered no excuse in their behalf. But if against them rebuke natu- 
rally rises to our lips, our cheeks burn with shame for the brutal capabili- 
ties of our human nature as we follow the career of General Forrest from 
his entrance into Tennessee to the massacre at Fort Pillow. 

Forrest advanced from Okalona northward by the Mobile and Ohio Rail- 
road. His command numbered between 5000 and 6000 men.’ The force 
which stood in his way, even if he looked to Cairo as his destination, did not 
amount to more than half his own. Jackson, in Tennessee, was captured 
on the 23d of March. Forrest’s line of march was west of the Tennessee 
River, toward the Mississippi. He captured Union City, near the northern 
border of Tennessee, on the 24th of March. This post had been occupied 
by Colonel Hawkins with about 500 men. Hawkins was attacked by over 
three times that number, but easily repulsed four several charges of the 
enemy. Then a flag of truce was sent demanding a surrender, and throw- 
ing upon Colonel Hawkins the consequence of a refusal. Against the 
wishes of the garrison the demand was complied with, although a relieving 
force of 2000 men was within six miles of him. His conduct was probably 
influenced by the fear that the enemy in his front would soon be strongly 
re-enforced? 

The Mississippi from Paducah to Island No. 10, about 160 miles, together 
with the adjacent portions of Tennessee and Kentucky, was under the com- 
mand of Brigadier General Mason Brayman. His whole foree—distributed 
at Paducah, Cairo, Columbus, Hickman, Island No. 10, and Union City— 
amounted to 23829 men, three fourths of whom were negroes. General 
Hurlbut, in command of the department, had, in compliance with orders 
from the War Department, sent all his veteran regiments home on furlough. 
All his cavalry was gone save about 2000. He did not dare to leave Mem- 
phis exposed, and was therefore able to afford very little assistance to the 
garrisons on the Mississippi River against which Forrest was moving. As 
soon as Forrest approached Jackson, Grierson, with his cavalry, was sent out 
to develop his force, and soon reported that the enemy “ was a little too 
strong for him.” 

From Union City Forrest moved upon Hickman, about fourteen miles dis- 
tant on the Mississippi. The garrison at this point was withdrawn. The 
enemy then advanced to Wayfield, Kentucky, which is about equally dis- 
tant from Paducah, Cairo, and Columbus. He was at the centre of a circle, 
about the edge of which General Brayman’s forces were situated. The lat- 


* Hurlbut thinks it could not have been less than 8000.—Report on the Conduct of the War. 

* General Hurlbut says, ‘‘ Contrary to the entreaties, prayers, and advice of all his officers and 
all his men, he did surrender his post with a relieving force within six miles of him, and surren- 
dered it, as I have no doubt, from pure cowardice.”—Report on the Conduct of the War. It was a 
tame surrender, doubtless, but other testimony before the committee fully relieves Colonel Haw- 
kins cf the charge of cowardice. 


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MAP ILLUSTRATING FORREST'S TENNESSEE EXPEDITION, 


572 


ter could only await attack, and send re-enforcements to such weak points 
in turn as the emergency might demand. ‘One evening,” he says, “I sent 
400 men to Columbus, expecting trouble there, and the next morning had 
them at Paducah, seventy-five miles distant.” No such thing as an offens- 
ive movement against Forrest could of course be contemplated, and the lat- 
ter remained for three weeks subsisting upon captured stores in the very 
heart of a region which, almost from the beginning of the war, had been se- 
ceurely held by the national government. On the 25th of March an attack 
was made on Paducah, held by Colonel 8. G. Hicks with a garrison of 650 
men. ‘The garrison retired into Fort Anderson, and there made a stand, 
assisted by two gun-boats, effectually repelling the enemy’s assaults, For- 
rest then, failing to make an impression upon the defenders of the fort, de- 
manded an unconditional surrender, closing his communication to Colonel 
Hicks in these words: “If you surrender you shall be treated as prisoners 
of war, but if ] have to storm your works you may expect no quarter.” Hicks 
refused, stating, like a faithful soldier, that he had been placed there by his 
government to defend that post, and he should do so. Three assaults from 
the enemy followed, each of which was repulsed with heavy loss to the as- 
In the last, one of the Confederate general officers, General Thomp- 
son, was killed.? The next day Forrest retired, having suffered a loss of 
nearly 1500 men. The national loss was 14 killed and 46 wounded? Co- 
lumbus, on the Mississipp}, stood out as defiantly as had Padueah, and the 
enemy retired without making an attack. 

General Forrest appeared before Fort Pillow, 65 miles above Memphis, on 
the 12th of April. The garrison at this point consisted of 19 officers and 
588 men, of whom 262 were negroes, commanded by Major L. F. Booth. 
The attack was sudden, no intimation of it being given before the pickets 
were driven in. Major Booth was killed early in the engagement, and Ma- 
jor W. F. Bradford succeeded to the command, and withdrew the forces from 
their outer intrenchments into the fort. The fort was situated on a high 
bluff, which descended precipitately to the river’s edge. On either side was 
a ravine—the one below the fort containing several private stores and a few 
dwellings, constituting what is called the town. In front of the fort was an 
open space of level ground. The artillery defense consisted of 6 guns. The 
troops fought gallantly, aided by a gun-boat, and up to 2 P.M. the enemy had 
not gained any decisive advantage. A flag of truce was then sent In, con- 
veying a demand for the unconditional surrender of the fort. Major Brad- 
ford asked an hour for consideration. Shortly a second flag appeared, and 
Bradford was allowed 20 minutes; if not out of the fort by that time an as- 
sault would be made. Bradford replied that he would not surrender. Dur- 
ing all this time the enemy, regardless of his own flag of truce, was gaining 
an advantageous position for the assault. His forces were now within 100 
yards of the fort, closely surrounding it. As soon as Major Bradford’s re- 
ply was received, the bugle was sounded, and the Confederates, with a yell, 
rushed over the fortifications, raising the cry of “ No quarter!” The troops 
composing the garrison, black and white, threw down their arms and sought 
to escape by running down the steep bluff on the river side, hiding behind 
trees, logs, bushes—any thing which could afford them cover against the 
maddest fiends which at that moment the sun shone upon. No wonder they 
fled, as it soon clearly appeared it was not a contest of men with men, but 
of men with brutal, fiendish murderers. The captured fort and its vicinity 
became at once a human shambles. Without discrimination of age or sex, 
and without mercy, men, women, and children were butchered until night 
put an end to the horrible tragedy, which was again renewed on the follow- 
ing morning. Not even sleep could quench the fiery hate of Forrest’s men. 
Even the officers, with a few exceptions, assisted in the bloody carnival. It 
was exactly three years to a day since the attack on Fort Sumter had been 
made, and the same violence which had incited men to treason against their 
government was perhaps fitly displayed on this anniversary by the shame- 
less massacre of United States soldiers at Fort Pillow.* 


sailants. 


1 Report on the Conduct of the War. 

2 General Sherman writes to Colonel Hicks from Nashville, April 5th, 1864: 

‘Your defense at Paducah was exactly right. Keep cool, and give the enemy a second edition 
if he comes again. I want Forrest to stay just where he is, and the longer the better. Don’t 
credit any of the foolish and exaggerated rumors that are put afloat by design. I know what For- 
rest has, and will attend to him in time.” 

6 «The operations of the enemy at Paducah were characterized by the same bad faith and 

treachery that seemed to have become the settled policy of Forrest and his command. The flag 
of truce was taken advantage of there, as elsewhere, to secure desirable positions which the rebels 
were unable to obtain by fair and honorable means, and also to afford opportunities for plundering 
private stores as well as government property. At Paducah the rebels were guilty of acts more 
cowardly, if possible, than any they have practiced elsewhere. When the attack was made, the 
officers of the fort and of the gun-boats advised the women and children to go down to the river 
for the purpose of being taken across out of danger. As they were leaving the town for that pur- 
pose, the rebel sharp-shooters mingled with them, and, shielded by their presence, advanced and 
fired upon the gun-boats, wounding some of our officers and men. Our forces could not return 
the fire without endangering the lives of the women and children. The rebels also placed women 
in front of their lines as they moved on the fort, or were proceeding to take positions while the flag 
of truce was at the fort, in order to compel our men to withhold their fire out of regard for the 
lives of the women who were made use of in this most cowardly manner.” — Report on the Conduct 
of the War. 
“3 We have not described this disgraceful tragedy in its details. The following extract from the 
report of the Committee on the Conduct*of the War will enable the reader to examine its features 
more minutely. All the statements made are supported by abundant and unimpeachable evi- 
dence : 

«Then followed a scene of cruelty and murder without a parallel in civilized warfare, which 
needed but the tomahawk and scalping-knife to exceed the worst atrocities ever committed by 
savages. The rebels commenced an indiscriminate slaughter, sparing neither age nor sex, white 
nor black, soldier or civilian. The officers and men seemed to vie with each other in the devilish 
work ; men, women, and even children, wherever found, were deliberately shot down, beaten, and 
hacked with sabres; some of the children, not more than ten years old, were forced to stand up 
and face their murderers while being shot; the sick and the wounded were butchered without 
mercy, the rebels even entering the hospital building and dragging them out to be shot, or killing 
them as they lay there unable to offer the least resistance. All over the hill-side the work of mur- 
der was going on; numbers of our men were collected together in lines or groups and deliber- 
ately shot ; some were shot while in the river, while others on the bank were shot and their bodies 
kicked into the water, many of them still living, but unable to make any exertions to save them- 
selves from drowning. Some of the rebels stood on the top of the hill, or a short distance down 
its side, and called to our soldiers to come up to them, and as they approached, shot them down in 
cold blood ; if their guns or pistols missed fire, forcing them to stand there until they were again 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ APRIL, 1864. 


Forrest, in the face of his own statement that, while he lost only 20 kill- 
ed and 60 wounded, he buried 228 Federals on the evening of the assault, 
coolly claims that all these were killed in fair fight! After this affair the 
enemy retreated into Mississippi. A fortnight later General 8. D. Sturgis, 
with 12,000 men, was sent after Forrest, but the movements of the enemy 
were so rapid that he easily escaped this pursuing column. Early in June 
Sturgis was again sent against Forrest, with instructions to find and defeat 
his command, in order to prevent its junction with General Johnston, then re- 
sisting General Sherman’s advance in Northern Georgia. The Federal col- 
umn dispatched for this purpose consisted of 9000 infantry (including most 
of A. J. Smith’s division), and 3000 cavalry under General Grierson. The 
campaign was terribly mismanaged by Sturgis. After advancing through 
West Tennessee and Northern Mississippi to Guntown on the Mobile Rail- 
road, Grierson’s cavalry encountered Forrest, pushing his cavalry back on 
his infantry, which was strongly posted on a semicircular ridge, protected 
by a creek in front. Sturgis, with the infantry, was five or six miles be- 
hind. Getting information of Grierson’s position, he pushed his command 
forward at double-quick, and as it was a very hot day, the troops, upon con- 
fronting the enemy, were thoroughly exhausted. To make matters still 
worse, the train of over 200 wagons was allowed by Sturgis to rush forward 
with his men, filling the road and impeding their movements. No rest was 
civen the troops, who were immediately sent to the support of the cavalry 
already engaged. No attempt was made to turn the enemy’s strong posi- 
tion, and from the attack which was made no other consequence could be 
expected than that which followed. Both cavalry and infantry were soon 
routed, and driven in disorder back upon and over the abandoned train. 
The pursuit was momentarily checked at Ripley, but was continued with 
some vigor almost to Memphis. In this expedition Sturgis lost between 
3000 and 4000 men, most of whom were captured. 

A month later (July 7th) another command was sent against Forrest, con: 
sisting of the same number of men, but this time under command of A.J. 


prepared to fire. All around were heard cries of ‘No quarter!’ ‘No quarter!’ ‘Kill the damned 
niggers; shoot them down!’ All who asked for mercy were answered by the most cruel taunts 
and sneers. Some were spared for a time, only to be murdered under circumstances of greater 
cruelty. No cruelty which the most fiendish malignity could devise was omitted by these murder- 
ers. One white soldier, who was wounded in one leg so as to be unable to walk, was made to stand 
up while his tormentors shot him ; others who were wounded and unable to stand were held up and 
again shot. One negro, who had been ordered by a rebel officer to hold his horse, was killed by him 
when he remounted ; another, a mere child, whom an officer had taken up behind him on his 
horse, was seen by Chalmers, who at once ordered the officer to put him down and shoot him, 
which was done. The huts and tents in which many of the wounded had sought shelter were set 
on fire, both that night and the next morning, while the wounded were still in them—those only 
escaping who were able to get themselves out, or who could prevail on others less injured than 
themselves to help them out; and even some of those thus seeking to escape the flames were met 
by those ruffians and brutally shot down, or had their brains beaten out. One man was deliber- 
ately fastened down to the floor of a tent, face upward, by means of nails driven through his cloths 
ing and into the boards under him, so that he could not possibly escape, and then the tent set on 
fire; another was nailed to the side of a building outside of the fort, and then the building set on 
fire and burned. ‘The charred remains of five or six bodies were afterward found, all but one so 
much disfigured and consumed by the flames that they could not be identified, and the identifica- 
tion of that one is not absolutely certain, although there can hardly be a doubt that it was the 
body of Lieutenant Akerstrom, quartermaster of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, and a native 
Tennesseean ; several witnesses who saw the remains, and who were personally acquainted with 
him while living, have testified that it is their firm belief that it was his body that was thus 
treated. 

“These deeds of murder and cruelty’ceased when night came on, only to be renewed the next 
morning, when the demons carefully sought among the dead lying about in all directions for any 
of the wounded yet alive, and those they found were deliberately shot. Scores of the dead and 
wounded were found there the day after the massacre by the men from some of our gun-boats who 
were permitted to go on shore and collect the wounded and bury the dead. The rebels themselves 
had made a pretense of burying a great many of their victims, but they had merely thrown them, 
without the least regard to care or decency, into the trenches and ditches about the fort, or the 
little hollows and ravines on the hill-side, covering them but partially with earth. Portions of 
heads and faces, hands and feet, were found protruding through the earth in every direction. 
The testimony also establishes the fact that the rebels buried some of the living with the dead, a 
few of whom succeeded afterward in digging themselves out, or were dug out by others, one of 
whom your committee found in Mound City Hospital, and there examined. And even when your 
committee visited the spot, two weeks afterward, although parties of men had been sent on shore 
from time to time to bury the bodies unburied and rebury the others, and were even then engaged 
in the same work, we found the evidences of this murder and cruelty still most painfully apparent ; 
we saw bodies still unburied (at some distance from the fort) of some sick men who had been met 
fleeing from the hospital, and beaten down and brutally murdered, and their bodies left where they 
had fallen. We could still see the faces, hands, and feet of men, white and black, protruding out 
of the ground, whose graves had not been reached by those engaged in reinterring the victims of 
the massacre; and although a great deal of rain had fallen within the preceding two weeks, the 
ground, more especially on the side and at the foot of the bluff, where the most of the murders 
had been committed, was still discolored by the blood of our brave but unfortunate men, and the 
logs and trees showed but too plainly the evidences of the atrocities perpetrated there. 

‘Many other instances of equally atrocious cruelty might be enumerated, but your committee 
fecl compelled to refrain from giving here more of the heart-sickening details, and refer to the 
statements contained in the voluminous testimony herewith submitted. Those statements were 
obtained by them from eyewitnesses and sufferers ; many of them, as they were examined by your 
committee, were lying upon beds of pain and suffering, some so feeble that their lips could with 
difficulty frame the words by which they endeavored to convey some idea of the cruelties which 
had been inflicted on them, and which they had seen inflicted on others. 

“How many of our troops thus fell victims to the malignity and barbarity of Forrest and his 
followers can not yet be definitely ascertained. ‘Two officers belonging to the garrison were absent 
at the time of the capture and massacre. Of the remaining officers but two are known to be 
living, and they are wounded and now in the hospital at Mound City. One of them, Captain Pot- 
ter, may even now be dead, as the surgeons, when your committee were there, expressed no hope 
of his recovery. Of the men, from three hundred to four hundred are known to have been killed 
at Fort Pillow, of whom at least three hundred were murdered in cold blood after the post was 
in possession of the rebels, and our men had thrown down their arms and ceased to offer resist- 
ance, Of the survivors, except the wounded in the hospital at Mound City, and the few who suc- 
ceeded in making their escape unhurt, nothing definite is known ; and it is to be feared that many 
have been murdered after being taken away from the fort. 

‘Tn reference to the fate of Major Bradford, who was in command of the fort when it was cap- 
tured, and who had up to that time received no injury, there seems to be no doubt. The general 
understanding every where seemed to be that he had been brutally murdered the day after he was 
taken prisoner. : 

“There is some discrepancy in the testimony, but your committee do not see how the one who 
professed to have been an eyewitness of his death could have been mistaken. There may be 
some uncertainty in regard to his fate. 

‘« When your committee arrived at Memphis, Tennessee, they found and examined a man (Mr. 
McLagan) who had been conscripted by some of Forrest’s forces, but who, with other conscripts, 
had succeeded in making his escape. He testifies that while two companies of rebel troops, with 
Major Bradford and many other prisoners, were on their march from Brownsville to Jackson, 
Tennessee, Major Bradford was taken by five rebels—one an officer—led about fifty yards from 
the line of march, and deliberately murdered in view of all there assembled. He fell—killed in- 
stantly by three musket-balls, even while asking that his life might be spared, as he had fought 
them manfully, and was deserving of a better fate. The motive for the murder of Major Brad- 
ford seems to have been the simple fact that, although a native of the South, he remained loyal to 
his government.” 


Aprit, 1864. ] SHERMAN’S MERIDIAN CAMPAIGN. 573 


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[AUGUST, 1864. 


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VORREST’S RAIDERS ATTACKING IRVING PRISON, 


Smith, who advanced to Tupelo, where the enemy, about 14,000 strong, was 
then concentrated. A battle was here fought (July 14th), in which the en- 
emy, thrice attacking the Federal lines, was each time repulsed. It was a 
drawn battle, and Smith, without advancing farther, retreated to Memphis, 
whence he again set out with 10,000 men on the 4th of August, moving by 
way of Holly Springs to the Tallahatchie River. But this time Forrest was 
not to be found, and Smith, after remaining in this vicinity for several days, 
again returned to Memphis, and was sent to the Department of the Missouri. 

While General Smith was looking for Forrest in Mississippi, the latter had 
moved upon Memphis with 8000 men. He charged into the town on the 
morning of August 18th. He had heard that Generals Hurlbut, Wash- 
burne, and Buckland made their quarters at the Gayoso Hotel, but, paying 
them a visit at that place, he found them “not at home.” He captured sev- 
eral staff and other officers, however, and about 300 soldiers. A number of 
Confederate prisoners were confined in Irving Prison. Failing in an at- 
tempt to gain possession of this prison, General Forrest left the town, and 
beat a hasty retreat back into Mississippi. 


(SoU EE ER ET OE 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
THE FLORIDA EXPEDITION. 

Gillmore lands 10,000 Men at Jacksonville. —Object of the Expedition in large measure Political. 
—Lincoln’s Amnesty Proclamation.—The President’s Motives.—The Enemy surprised. —Num- 
ber of Confederate Troops in Florida.—The Federal Troops occupy Baldwin.—Gillmore re- 
turns to Hilton Head.—His Instructions to General Seymour disregarded by the latter. —The 
Battle of Olustee.—Seymour’s Blunder.—Disastrous Termination of the Expedition. 

HILE Sherman was advancing upon Meridian, a force of 10,000 men 

was landed at Jacksonville, on the eastern coast of Florida. These 

were a portion of the Tenth Army Corps, under General Q. A. Gillmore, 
who, on the 16th of July, 1863, had succeeded General Hunter in command 
of the troops operating in South Carolina. The object of this Florida expe- 
dition was in large measure a political one. President Lincoln had included 

in his first message to the Thirty-eighth Congress (December 7th, 1868) a 

proclamation of amnesty, offering a free pardon to all such rebels as would 

take an oath to support the Federal Constitution and Union, “ and abide by 
and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebel- 
lion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, 
or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court.” Hxcep- 
tions were made in the cases of those who were or had been officers or agents 
of the Confederate government; of those who had left judicial stations un- 
der the United States, or seats in Congress, or had resigned commissions in 
the Federal army or navy to take part in the rebellion; of Confederate mil- 
itary and naval officers above the rank of colonel in the army or lieutenant 
in the navy; and of all who had in any way treated white or black soldiers 
otherwise than as prisoners of war. It was also proclaimed that, as soon as 
in any of the Confederate States ‘a number of persons, not less than one 
tenth in number of the votes cast in such state at the presidential election 
of 1860, each having taken the oath aforesaid, and not having since violated 

it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the state existing im- 

mediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall 

re-establish a state government which shall be republican, and in nowise 
contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of 
the state; and the state shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitu- 


tional provision which declares that ‘the United States shall guarantee to 
every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect 
each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature or the 
executive (when the Legislature can not be convened), against domestic vi- 
olence.” The President entertained somewhat extravagant expectations as 
to the results of this proclamation. It is not necessary to say that he had 
no partisan motive in issuing it; he only wished to begin the reorganization 
of governments in the Southern States. The movement was premature; 
perhaps it was ill considered. If successful, some foreign complications 
might be avoided; but, so far as any real reconstruction was concerned, that 
could only come as the consequence of final victory in the war. Unfortu- 
nately, the President’s too sanguine hopes conduced to the embarrassment of 
military operations. Expeditions were undertaken which distracted forces 
from vital centres, and which, contemplating nothing beyond the possession 
of a small slice of territory in Florida and Texas, and being undertaken with 
numbers only adequate to such a result, had not the remotest connection 
with the progress of the war from a military stand-point. The disastrous re- 
sults of these expeditions are not fairly attributable to the President’s plan ; 
but, apart from their unfortunate results, no such half-military and half-po- 
litical projects were in place. 

The objects sought to be attained by the Florida expedition are thus 
stated by General Gillmore : 

1. To procure an outlet for cotton, lumber, timber, ete. 

2. To cut off one of the enemy’s sources of commissary supplies. 


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8. To obtain recruits for any colored regiments. 

4. To inaugurate measures for the speedy restoration of Florida to her al- 
legiance, in accordance with instructions which I had received from the 
President by the hands of Major John Hay, Assistant Adjutant General. 

The troops, consisting of twelve regiments—one half of them colored 
troops—under the immediate command of Brigadier General Truman Sey- 
mour, left Hilton Head on the 6th of February, and landed the next day at 
Jacksonville, at the mouth of St. John’s River. The landing of this force 
was a complete surprise to the enemy. In the Confederate Departments of 
South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, there were at this time about 33,000 
effective troops. Of these there were about 5000 in Florida, under the com- 
mand of General Finnegan. The progress of the Federal troops from Jack- 
sonville to Baldwin, in the interior, met with no opposition. Finnegan made 
an attempt to stand at Camp Vinegar, seven miles west of Jacksonville, but 
on the approach of the Federal columns he abandoned his position, hav- 
ing sunk the steamer St. Mary’s, and burned 270 bales of cotton. On the 
morning of the 9th General Gillmore reports: ‘“ We have taken, without the 
loss of a man, about 100 prisoners, eight pieces of artillery in serviceable or- 
der and one well supplied with ammunition, and other valuable property to 
a large amount.” Baldwin, which the Federal troops now occupied, was 
eighteen miles west of Jacksonville, and was the point of junction of two 
railroads, one running from Fernandina, a short distance north of Jackson- 
ville, southwestwardly to Cedar Keys, on the western coast: the other from 
Jacksonville, across the northern part of the state to Tallahassee, the state 
capital. A portion of Seymour’s command, under Colonel Henry, pursued 
the enemy almost to Lake City. 

General Gillmore had accompanied the expedition in person, and remained 
until the 15th, when he returned to Hilton Head. On the 11th he had in- 
structed General Seymour not to risk a repulse by an advance on Lake City, 
but, if possible, to hold Sanderson (forty miles west of Jacksonville), and, 
at any rate, the south fork of the St. Mary’s. The next day he ordered the 
entire force to concentrate at Baldwin. Before his departure for Hilton 
Head he made arrangements for the construction of fortifications at Jack- 
sonville, Baldwin, and on the south fork of the St. Mary’s. At that time it 
was understood that no advance should be made without farther instructions 
from Gillmore, nor until the defensive works were well advanced.” 

General Gillmore was therefore astonished by receiving a communication 
from Seymour on the 18th (dated the 17th), stating that he intended to ad- 
vance to the Suwanee River, 100 miles distant from Jacksonville, and that 
he was already moving his troops westward. Not being able to accumu- 
late supplies sufficient to permit him to make the movement, Seymour de- 
clared his purpose to move without supplies, even if compelled to retrace 
his steps to procure them. He urged Gillmore to prevent any force re-en- 
forcing the enemy from Georgia by a naval demonstration against Savan- 
nah. He asked, also, for a general to be sent him to command his advanced 
troops. General Gillmore, having no intention to occupy the western part 
of Florida, at once dispatched General Turner, his chief of staff, to Jackson- 
ville to prevent the movement. Upon arriving in Florida with a letter to 
Seymour from Gillmore protesting against the advance of the former, Tur- 
ner found that the troops were already at Olustee, and engaged with the 
enemy.® 


1 The following letter was addressed to General Gillmore by President Lincoln, January 13th, 
1864: 

‘* Major General GILLMORE: ; 

“JT understand an effort is being made by some worthy gentlemen to reconstruct a legal state 
government in Florida. Florida is in your department, and it is not unlikely that you may be 
there in person. I have given Mr. Hay a commission of major, and sent him to you with some 
blank books and other blanks, to aid in the reconstruction. _ He will explain as to the manner of 
using the blanks, and also my general views on the subject. It is desirable for all to co-operate, 
but if irreconcilable differences of opinion shall arise, you are master. I wish the thing done in 
the most speedy way possible, so that when done it may be within the range of the late proclama- 
tion on the subject. ‘The detail labor will of course have to be done by others, but I shall be greatly 
obliged if you will give it such general supervision as you can find consistent with your more 
strictly military duties. A. Lincoty.” 


On the 31st of January General Gillmore issued the following order: 
‘* Headquarters Department of the South, Hilton Head, South Carolina, January 31st, 1864. 
‘In accordance with the provisions of the presidential proclamation of pardon and amnesty, 
given at Washington on the 8th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1863, and in pursuance 
of instructions received from the President of the United States, Major John Hay, Assistant Ad- 
jutant General, will proceed to Fernandina, Florida, and other convenient points in that state, for 
the purpose of extending to the citizens of the State of Florida an opportunity to avail themselves 
of the benefit of that proclamation, by offering for their signature the oath of allegiance therein 
prescribed, and by issuing to all those subscribing to said oath certificates entitling them to the 
benefits of the proclamation. Fugitive citizens of the State of Florida within the limits of this de- 
partment will have an opportunity to subscribe to the same oath, and secure certificates in the of- 
fice of the post commander at Hilton Head, South Carolina. 
‘“By command of Major General Q. A. GintmorE. 
“KE. W. Smiru, Assistant Adjutant General.” 


2 General Gillmore’s Report. 

* The following are copies of the letters—General Seymour’s announcing his movement, and 
General Gillmore’s reply: 

‘Headquarters Department of the South, February 17th, 1864. 

‘GENERAL,—The excessive and unexpected delays experienced with regard to the locomotive, 
which will not be ready for two days yet, if at all, has compelled me to remain where my com- 
mand could be fed. Not enough supplies could be accumulated to permit me to execute my in- 
tention of moving to the Suwanee River. 

“But I now propose to go without supplies, even if compelled to retrace my steps to procure 
them, and with the object of so destroying the railroad near the Suwanee that there will be no 
danger of carrying away any portion of the track. 

‘* All troops are therefore being moved up to Barber’s, and probably by the time you receive 
this I shall be in motion in advance of that point. 

‘That a force may not be brought from Georgia (Savannah) to interfere with my movements, 
it is desirable that a display be made in the Savannah River; and I therefore urge that upon the 
reception of this, such naval force, transports, sailing vessels, etc., as can be so devoted, may ren- 
dezvous near Pulaski, and that the iron-clads in Warsaw push up with as much activity as they 
can exert. 

“T look upon this as of great importance, and shall rely upon it as a demonstration in my 
favor. 

“There is reason to believe that General Hardee is in Lake City, now possibly in command, 
and with some force at his disposal. 

**But nothing is visible this side of Sanderson. Saddles, etc., for mounting the Seventh New 
Hamphshire as rapidly as possible, are greatly needed, and I shall send a portion of that regiment 
to this point as soon as it can be spared subsequent to my advance. 


THE FLORIDA EXPEDITION. 


575 


General Seymour had begun his movement on the 18th, and expected no 
encounter with the enemy before reaching Lake City. On the night of the 
19th he halted at Barber’s, a small station on the railroad 30 miles west of 
Jacksonville. The Confederate General Finnegan had, in the mean time, 
been apprized of the hostile movement, and, instead of awaiting attack at 
Lake City, he preferred to choose his own battle-ground, and advanced to 
Olustee, about 15 miles eastward, where his army took a strong position on 
a swamp which runs southward some distance from Ocean Pond, a small 
lake north of the railroad. His centre was protected by the swamp; his 
right rested on an earthwork protected by rifle-pits, while his left was post- 
ed on a slight elevation, sheltered by pines, and still farther guarded by cav- 
alry. It was a position absolutely impregnable against double the numbers 
which held it, and the force under General Seymour was only about equal 
to that of the enemy; his only advantage was in artillery, of which he had 
sixteen pieces to the enemy’s four.) 

Seymour, without knowing any thing of the enemy’s position, advanced 
from Barber’s on the 20th, and, after a wearisome march of 15 miles over 
the sandy road, came suddenly upon the enemy’s pickets near Olustee. The 
road at this point crossed the railroad to the right, to avoid the swamp on 
the south side. There was also a swamp on the right of the road, and be- 
tween these two swamps lay the sole approach to the enemy’s position. The 
action commenced about 2 o’clock P.M. The Federal troops, tired by their 
long march, went into battle under a great disadvantage. The artillery was 
pushed up so far to the front that both the gunners and horses were shot 
down with such rapidity that some of the guns were abandoned and others 
rendered useless. The infantry, poorly armed, were put in regiment by 
regiment as it arrived on the ground. There was no tactics, and the situa- 
tion gave no opportunity for any. The road was so narrow that many of 
the men had to wade knee-deep in mud and water in order to get into ac- 
tion. One regiment after another went in beyond the swamps, and each 
fired away its ammunition, and, exposed to a murderous fire from the enemy, 
retired, giving place to another. The Seventh Connecticut, under the brave 
Colonel J. R. Hawley (late governor of Connecticut), held the advance after 
the preliminary skirmish. The field soon becomes too hot for this regiment, 


“‘T have sent for the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts entire to come to this point. The Tenth 
Comnecticut (eight companies) is to remain at St. Augustine, two companies to go to Picolata. 

“T shall not occupy Picolata or Magnolia at this moment; when I do, portions of the Twenty- 
fourth Massachusetts will be sent from Jacksonville. The Fifty-fifth Massachusetts will remain 
here for the present, or until the Twenty-fourth relieves it. 

‘*'The Second South Carolina and Third South Carolina are at Camp Shaw (late Finnegan), for 
instruction and organization. 

“The First North Carolina will be left at Baldwin, detaching three companies to Barber’s, 

‘Colonel Barton will have the Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth, and One Hundred and Fifteenth ; 
Colonel Hanlay will have the Seventh Connecticut, Seventh New Hampshire, and Eighth United 
States Colored ; Colonel Montgomery the Third United States and Fifty-fourth Massachusetts 
Colored ; Colonel Henry the cavalry and Elder’s battery, and Captain Hamilton the artillery. As 
soon as possible, Metcalf’s section will be sent back. At present I should like to use it. 

“Colonel Goss is ordered to keep six companies in motion from Fernandina constantly, and at 
least five days out of seven (every seven) toward and beyond Camp Cooper. 

‘Nothing appears to have been done upon the locomotive while at Fernandina. 
ported to me. 

‘‘The prompt use of a locomotive and a printing-press with this movement were of the most 
vital importance, and will continue so to be. I trust both will be economized. 

“And I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

““T, Seymoor, Brigadier General Commanding. 
‘“t Brigadier General 8S. W. Turner, Chief of Staff: 

‘*Send me a general for the command of the advanced troops, or I shall be in a state of con- 

stant uncertainty. TASH! 
‘* Hilton Head, South Carolina, February 18th, 1864. 
‘* Brigadier General T. Seymour, Commanding District of Florida: 

‘*T am just in receipt of your two letters of the sixteenth and one of the seventeenth, and am 
very much surprised at the tone of the latter, and the character of your plans as therein stated. 
You say that by the time your letter of the seventeenth should reach these headquarters, your 
forces would be in motion beyond Barber’s, moving toward the Suwanee River, and that you shall 
rely upon my making a display in the Suwanee River ‘with naval force, transports, and sailing 
vessels,’ and with iron-clads up from Warsaw, etc., as a demonstration in your favor, which you 
look upon as of ‘great importance.’ All this is upon the presumption that the demonstration 
can and will be made, although contingent not only upon my power and disposition to do so, but 
upon the consent of Admiral Dahlgren, with whom I can not communicate in less than ten days. 
You must have forgotten my last instructions, which were for the present to hold Baldwin and 
the St. Mary’s south prong as your outposts to the westward of Jacksonville, and to occupy Pico- 
lata and Magnolia on the St. John’s. 

“Your prospect distinctly and avowedly ignores these operations, and substitutes a plan which 
not only involves your command in a distant movement without provisions, far beyond a point 
from which you once withdrew on account of precisely the same necessity, but presupposes a sim- 
ultaneous demonstration of ‘ great importance’ to you elsewhere, over which you have no control, 
and which requires the co-operation of the navy. It is impossible for me to determine what your 
views are with respect to Florida matters, and this is the reason why I have endeavored to make 
mine known to you so fully. From your letter of the eleventh instant from Baldwin (a very sin- 
gular letter, by the way, and which you did not modify or refer to at all when you afterward saw 
me), I extract as follows : 

‘**T am convinced that a movement upon Lake City is not, in the present condition of trans- 
portation, advisable, and, indeed, that what has been said of the desire of Florida to come back 
now is a delusion. This movement is in opposition to sound strategy,’ etc. 

** And again: ‘The Union cause would have been far more benefited by Jeff Davis having re- 
moved this railroad to Virginia, than by any trivial or non-strategic success you may meet. By 
all means, therefore, fall back to Jacksonville.’ 

**So much from your letters of the eleventh; and yet, five days later, you propose to push for- 
ward without instructions and without provisions, with a view to destroying the railroad which 
you say it would have been better for Jeff Davis to have got; and furthermore, you say in your 
letter of the sixteenth: ‘There is but little doubt in my mind (but) that the people of this state, 
kindly treated by us, will soon be ready to return to the Union. They are heartily tired of the 
war.’ 

‘*As may be supposed, I am very much confused by these conflicting views, and am thrown 
into doubt as to whether my intentions with regard to Florida are fully understood by you. I will, 
therefore, reannounce them briefly. 

‘Ist. I desire to bring Florida into the Union under the President’s proclamation of December 
8th, 1863, as accessory to the above. 

‘‘2d. To revive the trade on the St. John’s River. 

‘*3d. To recruit my colored regiments, and organize a regiment of Florida white troops; and, 

“4th. To cut off in part the enemy’s supplies drawn from Florida. 

‘* After you had withdrawn your advance, it was arranged between us, at a present interview, 
that the places to be permanently held for the present would be the south prong of the St. Mary’s, 
Baldwin, Jacksonville, Magnolia, and Picolata, and that. Henry’s mounted forces should be kept 
moving as circumstances might justify or require. This is my plan of present operations. A 
raid to tear up the railroad west of Lake City will be of service, but I have no intention to occupy 
now that part of the state. 

‘Very respectfully, etc., Q. A. Gitimor®, Major General Commanding. 
** Roper N. Scorr, Captain of U. S. Infantry, A. D. C. 

“ Headquarters of the Army, Washington, March 16th, 1864." 

? Only about half of Seymour’s force was engaged, the rest being left to hold the posts on the 
coast and St. John’s River. 


So it is re- 


576 


and the Seventh New Hampshire is brought up to its support, and this be- 
coming confused, the Eighth United States colored regiment comes into ac- 
tion, some of the men with empty guns, standing its ground with heavy loss 
for nearly two hours. Barton’s brigade of New York troops has at length 
formed on the right of the line, and Colonel Montgomery, with the Fifty- 
fourth Massachusetts and First North Carolina (colored), has got into posi- 
tion on the left. All the troops, black and white, fight nobly ; but their loss 
had already been heavy, particularly in officers. Along the railroad an un- 
interrupted stream of wounded men flows to the rear, and hundreds more 
of wounded are left behind upon the field, as the line now is driven back, 
having lost nearly thirteen hundred men in this brief battle. The enemy 
has lost little over half that number, and nothing but the exhaustion of his 
ammunition holds him back from pursuit. 

Such was the battle of Olustee, fought against orders, and upon the ene- 
my’s chosen field. General Seymour was present in the hottest of the fight, 
but neither his bravery nor that of his troops could avert the disaster which 
followed inevitably from the very conditions of the conflict. With this de- 
feat active operations in Florida terminated, though the Federal troops con- 
tinued to hold their position upon the coast. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 


Another semi-Political Expedition.—Diplomatic Considerations.—Apprehensions of French In- 
tervention.—Every military Motive in favor of a Campaign against Mobile.—The Government 
decides in favor of a Campaign in Texas. —The Sabine Pass Expedition ; its Failure.—Coast 
Operations.—Occupation of Brazos Santiago, November 2, 1863; of Brownsville, November 
6th; of Point Isabel, November 8th; of Aransas Pass, November 17th; and of Cavallo Pass, 
November 19th.—Mistake made in continuing a trans-Mississippi offensive Campaign.—Hal- 
leck advises a Movement on Shreveport.—Banks’s Opinion of the Conditions necessary to a 
successful Red River Campaign.—These Requirements not met.—Halleck leaves the whole Af- 
fair to be settled between Banks, Sherman, and Steele-—Banks ought to have decided against 
the Movement.—Extent of his Responsibility—Sherman meets Banks at New Orleans.—He 
sends A. J. Smith’s Command to General Banks.—Steele not prepared.—Kirby Smith’s Com- 
mand.—Banks being detained at New Orleans, General Franklin is intrusted with the immedi- 
ate command of the Expedition.—Franklin reaches Alexandria March 25th, 1864.—Admiral 
Porter’s Co-operation.—Capture of Fort De Russy.—Difficulty in getting the Gun-boats over the 
Rapids at Alexandria.—Dépot established at Alexandria, and Grover’s Division detached to 
guard it.—Ellet’s Marine Brigade recalled to Vicksburg.—T. K. Smith’s division used for the 
Protection of Transports.—The Military Branch reduced by 8500 men on account of these De- 
tachments.—Cotton Seizures. —The Army reaches Natchitoches April 2d and 3d, while the Navy 
proceeds to Grand Ecore.—The Difficulty of Navigation increases.—The Advance toward 
Mansfield.—Skirmishing with Confederate Cavalry.—The Enemy encountered beyond Pleasant 
Hill.—Banks arrives at the Front and ventures an Engagement.—He makes a great Mistake. 
—Federal Defeat at Sabine Cross-roads.—Causes of the Disaster.—A Stand made at Pleasant 
Groye.—Emory repulses the Enemy and covers the Retreat.—The Retreat continued to Pleas- 
ant Hill.—Battle of Pleasant Hill, April 9th—Importance of this Conflict.—It is decided 
against the Confederates.—Retreat continued to Grand Ecore.—Admiral Porter’s Troubles.— 
The Confederate Infantry charge upon the Gun-boats, and are worsted.—The Army and Fleet 
return to Alexandria.—On the way General Banks defeats the Enemy at Cane River.—The 
Fleet can not pass the Rapids, and is relieved by Lieutenant Colonel Bailey’s Dams.—The 
Army retreats to Simmsport.—Operations of General Steele’s Co-operative Column.—Review 
of the military Operations in Arkansas in 1863.—Quantrell’s Raid.—Capture of Little Rock by 
General Steele.—Steele advances upon Shreveport from the North.—A Slow March.—Fight at 
Prairie d’Anne.—Steele hears of Banks’s Reverse, and retreats to Little Rock. —The Political 
Situation in Arkansas as affected by the Campaign. 


}\ROM the Florida expedition we turn naturally to the Red River cam- 
paign. This latter was also urged by the government without much 
regard to its military importance. The motives which led to its inception 
were more complex than those which led to the Florida expedition. In 
addition to political reasons, there were diplomatic considerations of still 
greater importance. In defiance of the Monroe Doctrine—a doctrine first 
promulgated in President Monroe’s message of December 2, 1828, and in- 
dorsed by the whole American people, and which pronounced any interfer- 
ence with the affairs or destiny of any portion of the New World by the 
powers of the Old a hostile measure to this country, “dangerous to our 
peace and safety”—three European nations, France, England, and Spain, had 
in 1861 embarked upon an expedition against Mexico. The originally de- 
clared purposes of this joint expedition had appeared to be perfectly legiti- 
mate. ‘The civil commotions in Mexico had endangered the liberties of for- 
eign residents in that country, and undermined the security for its large lia- 
bilities by debt to foreign powers. The expedition proposed simply to rem- 
edy these abuses. The United States government, although its grievances 
were greater than those of either of the allied powers, except Great Britain, 
had refused to participate in the expedition, but acceded the legitimacy of 
its objects as openly declared. Afterward, however, the character of the 
movement against Mexico was essentially changed. England and Spain 
withdrew from the alliance, and the Emperor Napoleon entered upon the 
execution of a scheme which was intended to revolutionize the Mexican 
government, and to erect an empire upon the ruins of the republic. This 
was a policy hostile to this country, and, taken in connection with Louis 
Napoleon’s expressed desire to unite with the British government in the rec- 
ognition of the Confederacy, excited serious apprehension. It was deemed 
necessary, therefore, that the Federal government should occupy and strong- 
ly hold some point in Texas, in order to meet any emergency which might 
arise out of this foreign complication. 

Both General Banks and General Grant, after the capture of Port Hudson 
and Vicksburg, were in favor of an immediate expedition against Mobile. 
There were good military reasons for such a movement. The full reward 
for the sacrifice of the army which had purchased the Mississippi could only 
be realized by leaving the entire trans-Mississippi region—at least all below 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ AUGUST, 1863. 


the Arkansas River—out of the field of active military operations. The 
navy, with the co-operation of a few small garrisons, not amounting in the 
aggregate to more than 20,000 men, would have held the Mississippi against 
any operations of the enemy. The coast of Texas should have been occu- 
pied, and held by about 10,000 men. There should also have been an army 
of 20,000 men to keep down guerrillas in Missouri and Arkansas, and to 
prevent the enemy from advancing north of the Arkansas. Thus a Federal 
army, amounting in all to 50,000 men, would have maintained the defensive 
on and west of the Mississippi, and 50,000 men’ would thus have been lib- 
erated for the more important, because more decisive operations in Tennes- 
see, Georgia, and Alabama. The campaign against Mobile, if it had been 
undertaken immediately after the opening of the Mississippi, would have ac- 
complished four important results: 

1. It would have relieved Rosecrans—then operating against Chattanoo- 
ga—more effectively than any other movement could have done. 

2. It would have forestalled Sherman’s Meridian raid. 

3. It would have resulted in the possession of Mobile and of the fertile 
valleys of the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers, upon which the Confederate 
Army of the West mainly relied for corn, and would have secured the Mis- 
sissippi River against hostile operations from the east. 

4. It would have acquired the best possible base for co-operative move- 
ments in the event either of an advance of the Federal armies southward 
upon Atlanta, or westward from South Carolina and Florda. Its success 
would have justified more formidable expeditions in the two latter states in 
the winter of 1863-1864, and these would in turn have materially weakened 
Lee’s army in Virginia. 

These advantages were fully appreciated by General Grant. But the 
government decided in favor of a trans-Mississippi campaign, the motives 
for which were purely of a diplomatic and political character. The earliest 


1 The entire Federal force west of the Mississippi numbered at least 100,000 men. 

2 For farther illustration, we copy the correspondence on this subject between Generals Banks, 
Halleck, and Grant. 

On the 18th of July, 1863, Banks writes to Grant: 

“(Tt is my belief that Johnston, when defeated by you. . . . . . . will fall back upon Mobile. 
Such is also the expectation of the rebels. The capture of Mobile is of importance, second only 
in the history of the war to the opening of the Mississippi. I hope you will be able to follow him. 
I can aid you somewhat by land and by sea, if that should be your destination. Mobile is the 
last strong-hold in the West and Southwest. No pains should be spared to effect its reduction.” 

On the 26th of July he writes to Halleck : 

‘There is still strength in Mobile and in Texas which will constantly threaten Louisiana, and 
which ought to be destroyed without delay. The possession of Mobile and the occupation of 
Texas would quiet the whole of the Southwest, and every effort should be made to accomplish 
this. Its importance can hardly be overestimated.” 

And again, July 30: 

“Information from Mobile leads us to believe that the force at that point is now about 5000, 
which is engaged industriously on the land side in strengthening the position. My belief is that 
Johnston’s forces are moving to the East, and that the garrison of Mobile will not be strength- 
ened, unless it be by paroled men from Vicksburg and Port Hudson; while the rebel army of the 
East is occupied at Charleston and at Richmond by our forces, it would be impossible for them to 
strengthen Mobile to any great extent. It seems to be a favorable opportunity for a movement 
in that direction. An attack should be made by land. Troops can be transported by the river 
to Mobile, with the intervention of a march of 25 miles from Portersville, on the west side of the 
bay and the rear of the city. We have outlines of their works, an1 can estimate very well their 
strength. I am confident that a sudden movement, such as can be made with 15,000 or 20,000 
men on this line, will reduce that position with certainty and without delay. The troops of the 
West need rest, and are incapable of long or rapid marches. It is therefore impracticable to at- 
tack Mobile except by the river and Mississippi Sound. A portion of General Grant’s forces 
could be transported there with but little labor to themselves, and the place could be invested be- 
fore the enemy could anticipate our movement.” 

On August 1 he writes: 

“The possession of Mobile gives the government the control of the Alabama River and the line 
of railways east and west from Charleston and Savannah to Vicksburg, via Montgomery, and 
places the whole of the State of Mississippi and Southern Alabama in position to return to the 
Union. If the rebel government loses this position, it has no outlet to the Gulf except Galveston. 
The operation need not last more than 30 days, and can scarcely interfere with any other moye- 
ments East or West. I understand it to meet with Gencral Grant’s approval, if it be consistent 
with the general plans of the government, upon which condition only I urge it.” 

August 10, Banks writes to Grant: 

‘‘T have the honor to inclose you some memoranda concerning Mobile. I still think it of the 
utmost moment that that post should be in our hands. Except for Johnston’s army, we should 
have no difficulty. He seems to occupy a position intended to cover Mobile, and if he is in force 
30,000 or 40,000 strong, as I suppose, he could embarrass the operations against that point very 
seriously. I am unable, however, to see how he can hold his position in the Southwest with Rose- 
crans’s army pressing down upon the rebel centre. A line extending from Mobile to Richmond, in 
the present shattered condition of the rebel armies—the right, centre, and left having been disas- 
trously defeated—it seems to me impossible that they can maintain their positions if Rosecrans, 
with a heavy force, pushes down upon their centre, or if Charleston shall fall into our hands 
through the operations of the fleet and army combined. A successful movement in either direc- 
tion, from Charleston or by Rosecrans, will cut their centre, and place Bragg and Johnston with 
their forces between the troops under Rosecrans, your troops, and mine at New Orleans. I do not 
believe that that condition of things can be maintained.” 

Halleck, on the 12th of August, replies to Banks’s dispatches in regard to Mobile: 

‘<I fully appreciate the importance of the operation proposed by you in these dispatches, but 
there are reasons other than military why those heretofore directed should be undertaken first. On 
this matter we have no choice, but must carry out the views of the government.” 

The operations ‘‘ heretofore directed” were against Texas. 

On the 8th of January, 1864, Halleck writes to Grant: 

““In regard to General Banks’s campaign against Texas, it is proper to remark that it was un- 
dettaken less for military reasons than as a matter of state policy. As a military measure simply, it 
perhaps presented less advantage than a movement on Mobile and the Alabama River, so as to threaten 
the enemy's interior lines, and effect a diversion in favor of our armies at Chattanooga and in Last 
Tennessee. But, however this may have been, it was deemed necessary, as a matter of political or 
state policy connected with our foreign relations, and especially with France and Mexico, that our 
troops should occupy and hold at least a portion of Texas. The President so considered, for rea- 
sons satisfactory to himself and to his cabinet, and it was therefore unnecessary for us to inquire 
whether or not the troops could have been employed elsewhere with greater military advantage.” 

When General Banks assumed the command of the Gulf Department, his instructions from 
General Halleck (dated November 9, 1862) allude to operations to be undertaken after the open- 
ing of the Mississippi in the following terms: : 

“The river being opened, the question arises how the troops and naval forces there can be em- 
ployed to the best advantage. Two objects are suggested as worthy of your attention: 

“First, on the capture of Vicksburg, to send a military force directly East to destroy the rail- 
roads at Jackson and Marion, and thus cut off all connection by rail between Northern Mississippi 
and Mobile and Atlanta. The latter place is now the chief military dépot of the rebel armies in 
the West. 

“‘ Second, To ascend, with a naval and military force, the Red River as far as it is naviga- 
ble, and thus open an outlet for the sugar and cotton of Northern Louisiana. Possibly both of 
these objects may be accomplished, if the circumstances should be favorable. It is also suggest- 
ed that, having Red River in our possession, it would form the best base for operations in Texas.” 

On July 24, 1863, Halleck writes to Banks: i 

‘“‘T suppose the first thing done by your army, after the fall of Port Hudson, was to clean out 
the Teche and Atchafalaya counties. That being accomplished, your next operations must de- 
pend very much upon the then condition of affairs. Texas and Mobile will present themselves to 
your attention. The navy are very anxious for an attack upon the latter place, but I think Tex- 


. 


Ss 


7 


1863.J 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 


577 


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SOY SAN WS 
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NATHANIEL P, BANKS, 


instructions which General Banks received, pointing to Texas as the imme- 
diate field of operations, were issued during the last week in July, 1863, 
shortly after the reduction of Port Hudson, They were not definite as to 


as much the most important. It is possible that Johnston may fall back toward Mobile, but I 
think he will unite with Bragg. While your army is engaged in cleaning out Southwestern Lou- 
isiana, every preparation should be made for an expedition into Texas. Should Johnston be 
driven from Mississippi, General Grant can send you considerable re-enforcements.” 

July 31, 1863, he writes: 

“Tt is important that we immediately occupy some point or points in Texas. Whether the 
movement should be made by land or water is not yet decided....... If by water, Admiral 
Farragut will co-operate. The Navy Department recommends Indianola as the point of landing. 
It seems to me that this point is too distant, as it will leave the expedition isolated from New Or- 
leans. If the landing can be made at Galveston, the country between that place and New Or- 
leans can soon be cleared out, and the enemy be prevented from operating successively upon those 
places. In other words, you can venture to send a larger force to Galveston than to Indianola. 
I merely throw out these suggestions, without deciding upon any definite plan till I receive your 
answer to the former dispatch” [that of July 24]. 

On the 6th of August Halleck sends the following dispatch to Banks, via Vicksburg : 

“There are important reasons why our flag should be restored in some point of Texas with the 
least possible delay. Do this by land, at Galveston, at Indianola, or at any other point you may 
deem preferable. If by sea, Admiral Farragut will co-operate. There are reasons why the move- 
ment should be as prompt as possible.” 

On the 10th, four days later, Halleck explains this order thus: 

‘That order, as I understood it at the time, was of a diplomatic rather than of a military char- 


the plan to be pursued, insisting only upon the occupation of some portion 
of Texas. Distinctly permission was given Banks to choose his own object- 
ive. The movement was again urged in a dispatch from Halleck, dated 


acter, and resulted from some European complications, or, more properly speaking, was intended 
to prevent such complications.” 

Perhaps the following from General Banks to Halleck, August 17, 1863, will throw some light 
upon the nature of these ‘‘ foreign” complications : 

“T think it my duty to represent that among the French residents of this city [New Orleans] 
there is evidently an expectation of some assistance from the government of France. This comes 
informally from the conversation of the French residents here, but too frequently to leave room 
for doubt that they have some grounds upon which to ground the remarks that are commonly 
made. ‘This is undoubtedly the conversation of the officers of the French frigate Catinet, which 
has recently arrived at this port. I do not think it is more than mere surmise on their part, but 
have thought it worth while to direct the provost-marshal general of the department to investi- 
gate the subject and to report the facts as they are, of which I shall give you due notice” 

August 20, Halleck writes: 

‘¢Mexican and French complications render it exceedingly important that the movement or- 
dered against Texas should be undertaken witbout delay.” 

On the 28th he writes: 

‘Your note in regard to reports in New Orleans respecting French intervention only confirms 
what we have already received from cther sources. While observing every caution to give no 
cause of offense to that government, it will be necessary to carefully observe the movements of its 
fleets, and to be continually on your guard. You will readily perceive the object of our immedi- 
ately occupying some part of Texas.” 


578 


August 6th, and Admiral Farragut’s co-operation was promised, if the attack 
should be upon the coast. General Banks immediately made preparations 
for a movement against Houston by way of Sabine Pass. Grant, in obedi- 
ence to orders from Washington, now sent the Thirteenth Corps to the De- 
partment of the Gulf. Including these re-enforcements, Banks had by the 
first of September an army of 30,000 men." 

If the reader will examine the map of Texas, he will find that state inter- 
sected by rivers—the Neches, Trinidad, San Jacinto, Brazos, Colorado, Guada- 
lupe, San Antonio, and Nueces—which run from the elevated region of North- 
ern Texas into the Gulf. The Red River, forming the northern boundary 
of the state, runs through Louisiana into the Mississippi; while the Rio 
Grande, separating Texas from Mexico, flows into the Gulf. On the east- 
ern or Louisiana border runs the Sabine River, empyting, as does also the 
Neches, into Lake Sabine, which, by a narrow pass of the same name, com- 
municates with the Gulf, From Sabine Pass, at the eastern extremity of 
the Texan coast, to Brazos Santiago, near the mouth of the Rio Grande, is 
about 375 miles. About 70 miles west of Sabine Pass is the entrance to 
Galveston Bay, which receives the waters of the Trinidad. Galveston Island 
stretches from the entrance of the harbor some 380 miles southwesterly. 
Houston lies west of Galveston Bay, about 40 miles inland, and by its cen- 
tral position as the junction of all the roads between the bay and the Rio 
Brazos, commands Galveston and the large and fertile district south of 
Montgomery. From the entrance to Galveston Bay to Velasco, the mouth 
of the Rio Brazos, is about 40 miles; following down the coast from this 
point, we reach Cavallo Pass, the entrance to Matagorda Bay, with which 
Aransas Bay communicates, the inlet to the latter being distant about 50 


1 Report on the Conduct of the War, Red River Campaign, p. 3. 


‘ 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1863. 


miles from Cavallo Pass. Into Aransas Bay flows the Guadalupe and San 
Antonio Rivers. Corpus Christi Bay, shut out from the gulf by Mustang 
Island, joins Aransas. From its inlet to Brazos Santiago is about 90 miles. 
Forty miles up the Rio Grande lies Brownsville, opposite Matamoras. The 
population and the commerce of the state is concentrated in a belt of coun- 
ties along the Red and Sabine Rivers and the coast. This belt is narrow 
on the north and east as far as Shelbyville, where it widens, and from the 
coast stretches inland from 150 to 200 miles. It will readily be seen that 
the occupation of this coast by the Federal forces would command the most 
valuable portion of Texas, while it would also fully meet the peculiar diplo- 
matic emergency which then confronted the government.! 

The expedition sailed from New Orleans on the 5th of September, under 
the command of Major General W. B. Franklin. The military force con- 
sisted of 5000 men of the Nineteenth Corps, the number being limited to 
suit the means of transportation at hand. The naval force consisted of four 
light-draught gun-boats—the Clifton, Arizona, Sachem, and Granite City— 
under the command of Lieutenant Crocker. The aim of the expedition was 
to secure Sabine City at the mouth of Sabine River. The Pass was strong- 
ly protected by works, and the only chance of piercing or capturing these 
was by surprising the enemy. It was supposed that the defenses of these 
works consisted of two 84-pounders, a battery of field-pieces, and two boats 
converted into rams. The arrangement made between the naval and mili- 
tary commanders contemplated an attack at early dawn on the morning of 


1 «The occupation of Houston would place in our hands the control of all the railway commu- 
nications with Texas; give us command of the most populous and productive part of the state; 
enable us to move at any moment into the interior in any direction, or to fall back upon the island 
of Galveston, which could be maintained with a very small force, holding the enemy upon the 
coast of Texas, and leaving the Army of the Gulf free to move upon Mobile, in accordance with 
my original plan, or wherever it should be required.” —Banks’s Report. 


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November, 1863. | 


September 7th by the gun-boats, assisted by about 180 sharp-shooters from 
the army. After driving the enemy from the works, and repulsing the 
rams, the troops were to land under cover of the gun-boats, and capture the 
town. The gun-boats, originally lightly-built merchant vessels, were mere 
shells as against a well-defended fortress, and it was not expected that they 
would have any such encounter. If resistance was offered, General Frank- 
lin was instructed to land his troops ten or twelve miles below the Pass, and 
advance by land against the fortifications.’ 

The plan proposed was not carried out, and the expedition proved an ut- 
ter failure. There was over a day’s delay in getting into position, and for 
28 hours the fleet was open to the observation of the enemy, who was thus 
given abundant time for preparation. Captain Crocker, with foolhardy dar- 
ing, ventured upon a direct attack at 3 P.M. on the 8th. Of course the 
gun-boats were unable to make any impression upon the works. At 6 A.M. 
the Clifton stood in the bay, and opened upon the fort, which deigned no 
reply. The other boats soon followed, and in the afternoon the Sachem, fol- 
lowed by the Arizona, advanced up tne eastern channel of the Pass to draw 
the fire of the fort, while the Clifton and Granite City moved up the west- 
ern channel to cover the landing of a division under General Weitzel. The 
fort was silent until the gun-boats were clean abreast of it, when a fire was 
opened upon them from eight guns. The Clifton on one side, and the 
Sachem on the other, ran aground in the shallow water under the enemy’s 
guns, and, being disabled, were compelled to surrender. The garrison of the 
fort consisted only of 47 men—not more than sufficient to man the guns— 
but it did its work as efficiently as if it had numbered a thousand. It was 
with great difficulty that the Arizona and Granite City escaped. With 
these vessels Franklin probably might still have landed the expedition be- 
low the pass, but no such attempt was made, and the troops returned on the 
11th to New Orleans.” 

The concentration of the enemy forbade any attempt to repeat the move- 
ment. Banks now directed his attention to the chances for a movement 
overland into Texas, either across Southern Louisiana to the Sabine, or up 
the Red River to Shreveport. For this purpose his troops were rapidly 
transferred to the Bayou Teche region. But neither of the movements in 
view were found practicable. That from the Teche to the Sabine proceed- 
ed over a barren country, with little water, for a distance of 300 miles from 
New Orleans. The route to Shreveport was 200 miles longer, through a 
country equally destitute of supplies, having been repeatedly overrun by 
both armies, and occupied by a hostile population. In either movement the 
army must depend entirely upon wagon transportation. 

In the mean time General Herron had been sent to Morganzia, on the Mis- 
sissippi, above Port Hudson, but on the opposite side. He had established 
a post several miles inland, garrisoned with about 700 men, under command 
of Major Montgomery. On the night of September 30th this force was sur- 
prised by a detachment of the enemy, who crossed the bayou, surrounded 
the Federal camp, and captured the artillery and 400 infantry. 

The government urged the prompt occupation “of some point in Texas.” 
If it could not be by land, it must be by sea. Accordingly, General Banks 
again turned to the coast, and organized a small expedition, to be under the 
command of Major General N. J. T. Dana, for the occupation of the lower 
Rio Grande. The concentration of the enemy in the southeastern part of 
Texas seemed to favor this movement. 

Dana’s expedition, consisting of 4000 men and three gun-boats—the Mo- 
nongahela, Virginia, and Owasco—and accompanied by General Banks, left 
New Orleans October 26th. The all-important affair of raising the flag on 
some portion of the soil of Texas was at length accomplished on the 2d of 
November. On that day Brazos Santiago was occupied, and on the next the 
enemy was driven from his position, and the troops ordered up the Rio 
Grande to Brownsville, which was occupied without resistance on the 6th. 
The establishment of communications with the mouth of the river was assist- 
ed by the friendly offices of the Mexican government, who furnished boats for 
this purpose. General Dana was left in command of Brownsville, and 
Banks began to operate against the coast adjacent to Brazos. Point Isabel 
was occupied on the 8th, and by means of boats troops were transported to 
Mustang Island, off Corpus Christi Bay. Aransas Pass, east of this island, 
was occupied on the 17th by a detachment under General T. E. G. Ransom, 
the works defending the point having been taken by assault, with 100 pris- 
oners and three guns. On the 19th General C. C. Washburne, of the Thir- 
teenth Corps, moved upon Pass Cavallo, commanding the entrance to Mata- 
gorda Bay, and defended by strong works and a force of about 2000 men. 
Fort Esperanza was invested, and, after a brief but gallant resistance, the en- 
emy blew up his magazines, partially dismantled the works, and evacuated 
the position, retreating to the main land by way of the peninsula near the 
mouth of Rio Brazos. 

Thus, in about three weeks from the occupation of the mouth of the Rio 
Grande, General Banks was in possession of the whole coast of Texas, with 
the exception of the works at the mouth of Rio Brazos and the island of 
Galveston, which were still firmly held by the enemy, who would not aban- 
don them without a desperate struggle. In order to gain possession of these 
remaining points on the coast—more important than all the others combined 
—it would be necessary to move inland, and attack them from the rear. 
In this case the enemy must be encountered in full force. At this point the 
misfortune of Franklin’s failure to obtain Sabine City was painfully evident 


1 Banks’s Report. These instructions must have been verbal. The written orders allude to no 
other than a direct attack. 

2 ««Had a landing been effected, even after the loss of the boats, in accordance with the origi- 
nal plan, the success of the movement would have been complete, both as it regarded the oceupa- 
tion of Sabine Pass, and operations against Houston and Galveston. The enemy had at this time 


all his forces in that quarter, and less than a hundred men on the Sabine.” —Banks’s Report. 


= 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 


579 


in its full extent, and the regret which it occasioned General Banks was in- 
tense and lasting. Still he felt confident that, by withdrawing the forces 
which he had left in the Teche region to the coast, he might succeed in his 
cherished plans against Houston and Galveston. He asked Halleck for re- 
enforcements to secure this object, which he deemed of the utmost import- 
ance.? 

All the diplomatic or political measures involved in General Banks’s 
Texas campaign had been successfully carried out. Henceforth the prob- 
lem was purely military. Unquestionably the best solution of this problem 
would have been upon the theory of a defensive trans-Mississippi campaign. 
Upon this theory General Banks would have been allowed to complete his 
operations against Galveston, and after that would have simply held the 
coast of Texas with a few small garrisons, and so much of the Teche coun- 
try as would suffice for the protection of New Orleans on the western side. 
The remainder of his army, with as many troops from the armies north of 
the Arkansas as could be spared after guarding against Kirby Smith’s ad- 
vance north of that river, would have been withdrawn to the east of the Mis- 
sissippi, where they would have been occupied in offensive operations: first, 
during the winter, in conjunction with Sherman’s troops, against Mobile, and 
the railroads connecting Atlanta with Montgomery in Alabama, and with 
Tallahassee in Florida; and, secondly, in the spring of 1864 against Atlanta, 
co-operating with the army advancing upon that point from Chattanooga. 
No greater military mistake could have been made than that which was in- 
volved in an offensive trans-Mississippi campaign. By such a campaign all 
that had been gained strategically by the possession of the Mississippi Riv- 
er would be thrown away. For what was the real strategic importance of 
this possession except in so far as it made the trans-Mississippi region, then 
in the hands of the enemy, and also the trans-Mississipp1 armies of the Con- 
federacy, of as little worth to the Confederacy as if they had not existed? 
But to send large Federal armies into this region for offensive operations 
was to neutralize the vast advantage gained by this isolation—was to give 
the trans-Mississippi territory all the value to the Confederacy which it 
could possibly have had if the great river had still remained within Confed- 
erate control. 

It was precisely this mistake which the government now insisted upon 
making. While General Banks was perfecting his plans for the capture of 
Galveston, he was diverted from that movement by the urgency with which 
preparations for an advance up the Red River were recommended by Hal- 
leck and other officers. As we have seen, the political designs of the cam- 


 “T intended to withdraw my troops to the island of Galveston, which could have been held 
with perfect security by less than 1000 men, which would have left me free to resume operations, 
suggested in August and September, against Mobile. The Rio Grande and the island of Galves- 
ton could have been held with 2000 or 3000 men. This would have cut off the contraband 
trade of the enemy at Matamoras and on the Texas coast. The forces occupying the island of 
Galveston could have been strengthened by sea at any moment from Berwick’s Bay, connecting 
with New Orleans by railway or by the river, compelling the enemy to maintain an army near 
Houston, and preventing his concentrating his forces for the invasion of Louisiana, Arkansas, or 
Missouri. The occupation of the Rio Grande, Galveston, and Mobile would have led to the cap- 
ture or destruction of all the enemy’s river and sea transportation on the Gulf coast, and left the 
Western Gulf blockading squadron, numbering 150 vessels, and mounting 450 guns, free to pursue 
the pirates that infested our coast and preyed upon our commerce. ‘The army would have been 
at liberty to operate on the Mississippi, or to co-operate with the Army of the Tennessee by the 
Alabama River and Montgomery in the campaign against Atlanta. . ... It would have ena- 
bled the government to concentrate the entire forces of the Department of the Gulf, as occasion 
might require, at any point on the river or coast, against an enemy without water transportation 
or other means of operation than by heavy land marches, or to move by land into the rebel states 
east or west of the Mississippi. The winter months offered a favorable opportunity for such en- 
terprise.”— Banks’s Report. 

* In order to illustrate the details of the inception of the Red River campaign more fully than 
is possible in the text, we give the substance of the correspondence submitted as evidence before 
the Committee on the Conduct of the War. General Halleck, from the beginning, was partial to 
operations on the line of the Red River as preferable to movements on the Texan coast, 

August 10, 1863, he writes: 

‘Tn my opinion, neither Indianola nor Galveston is the proper point of attack. If it is neces- 
sary, as urged by Mr. Seward, that the flag be restored to some one point in Texas, that can be best 
and most safely effected by a combined military and naval movement up the Red River to Alex- 
andria, Natchitoches, or Shreveport, and the military occupation of Northern Texas. This would 
be merely carrying out the plan proposed by you at the beginning of the campaign [the begin- 
ning of the Louisiana campaign, in the spring of 1863], and, in my opinion, far superior in its mili- 
tary character to the occupation of Galveston or Indianola. Nevertheless, your choice is left un- 
restricted. In the first place, by adopting the line of the Red River you retain your connection 
with your own base, and separate still more the two points of the rebel confederacy. Moreover, 
you cut Northern Louisiana and Southern Arkansas entirely off from supplies and re-enforcements 
from Texas. They are already cut off from the rebel states east of the Mississippi. If you occupy 
Galveston or Indianola you divide your own troops, and enable the enemy to concentrate all his 
forces upon either of these points, or on New Orleans.” 

To this Banks replies, August 26: 

**To enter Texas from Alexandria or Shreveport would bring us at the nearest point to Hern- 
ville, in Sabine county, or Marshall, in Harrison, due west of Alexandria and Shreveport respect~ 
ively. These points are accessible only by heavy marches, for which the troops are hardly prepared 
at this season of the year; and the points occupied would attract but little attention; and if our 
purpose was to penetrate farther into the interior, they would become exposed to sudden attacks 
of the enemy, and defensible only by a strong and permanent force of troops. 

‘«The serious objection to moving on this line in the present condition of the forces of this de- 
partment is the distance it carries us from New Orleans—our base of operations necessarily—and 
the great difficulty and the length of time required to return, if the exigencies of the service 
should demand, which is quite possible. In the event of long absence, Johnston threatens us from 
the Kast. ‘The enemy will concentrate between Alexandria and Franklin, on the Teche, until our 
purpose is developed. As soon as we move any distance, they will operate against the river and 
New Orleans. It is true we could follow up such a movement by falling on their rear, but that 
would compel us to abandon the position in Texas, or leave it exposed with but slender defenses 
and garrison. ‘This view is based, as you will see, upon the impossibility of moving even to Alexan- 
dria, at the present low stage of the rivers, by water, and the inability of the troops to accomplish 
extended marches.’ 

September 30, after the failure of the Sabine Pass Expedition, General Halleck writes: 

‘The failure of the attempt to land at Sabine is only another of the numerous examples of the 
uncertain and unreliable character of maritime descents. The chances are against their success.” 

General Banks writes, October 16: 

‘“'The movement upon Shreveport and Marshall is impracticable at present. It would require 
a march from Brashear City of between four hundred and five hundred miles. The enemy de- 
stroying all supplies in the country as he retreats, and the low stage of the water making it im- 
possible for us to avail ourselves of any water communications, except upon the Teche as far as 
Vermillionville, it requires communication for this distance by wagon trains. Later in the season 
this can be done, making Alexandria the base of operations; but it could not be done now. The 
rivers and bayous have not been so low in this state for fifty years, and Admiral Porter informs 
me that the mouth of the Red River, and also the mouth of the Atchafalaya, are both hermetically 
sealed to his vessels by almost dry sand-bars, so that he can not get any vessels into any of the 
streams. It is supposed that the first rise of the season will occur early in the next month.” 

The following, from General Halleck to Banks, December 7, 1863, could only be construed by 
the latter as a censure of his coast operations: 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[NovVEMBER, 1863. 


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CONFEDERATE EVACUATION OF LROWNSVILLE, 


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November, 1863. ] 


paign had been effected. Both General Grant and General Banks would 
then have preferred, after securing Galveston, that all the troops which 


**In regard to your ‘ Sabine’ and ‘ Rio Grande’ expeditions, no notices of your intention to make 
them were received here till they were actually undertaken. ‘The danger, however, of dividing 
your army, with the enemy between the two posts, ready to fall upon either with his entire force, 
was pointed out from the first, and I have continually urged that you must not expect any consid- 
erable re-enforcements from other departments.” 

To this Banks replies, December 23: 

“*My orders from the department were to establish the flag of the government in Texas at the 
earliest possible moment. I understood that the point and the means were left at my discretion. 
It was implied, if not stated, that time was an element of great importance in this matter, and 
that the object should be accomplished as speedily as possible. In addition to the instructions re- 
ceived from your department upon this subject, the President addressed me a letter, borne by 
Brigadier General Hamilton, military governor of Texas, dated September 19, 1863, in which he 
expressed the hope that I had already accomplished the object so much desired, In the execution 
of this order, my first desire was to obtain possession of Houston; and the expedition which 
failed to effect a landing at the Sabine was designed to secure that object. The failure of that 
expedition made it impossible to secure a landing at that point. Iimmediately concentrated all 
my disposable force upon the Teche, with a view to enter ‘Texas by the way of Niblett’s Bluff, on 
the Sabine, or by Alexandria, at some more northern point. The low stage of water in all the 
rivers, and the exhaustion of supplies in that country, made it apparent that this route was im- 
practicable at this season of the year—I might say impossible within any reasonable time—and it 
would be accomplished by imminent peril, owing to the condition of the country, the length of 
marches, and the strength of the enemy, making this certain by thorough reconnoissance of the 
country ; but, without withdrawing my troops, I concluded to make another effort to effect a land- 
ing at some point upon the coast of Texas, in the execution of what I understood to be imperative 
orders. For this purpose I withdrew a small force stationed at Morganzia, on the Mississippi, 
which had been under command of General Herron, and was then under Major General Dana, and 
put them in a state of preparation for this movement. 

** Assisted by the commander of the naval forces, Commodore Bell, I directed a reconnoissance 
of the coast of Texas as far as Brazos Santiago, making my movements entirely dependent upon 
that report. A return from this reconnoissance was made October 16, and my troops being in read- 
iness for movement somewhere, without the delay of a single day, except that which the state of 
the weather made necessary, I moved for the Brazos. You will see from these facts that it was 
impossible for me to give you sufficient notice of this intention to receive instructions from you 
upon this subject; but as soon as I had received the information necessary, or arrived at the determ- 
ination to land at the Brazos, I gave you full information of all the facts in the case. It is my 
purpose always to keep you informed of all movements that are contemplated in this department, 
bat it did not seem to me to be possible to do more in this instance; and, upon a review of the 
circumstances, I can not now see where or when I could have given you more complete and satis 
factory information than my dispatches conveyed. 

““T repeat my suggestion that the best line of defense for Louisiana, as well as for operations 
against Texas, is by Berwick’s Bay and the Atchafalaya, and I also recall the suggestions made by 
you upon the same subject. But that line was impracticable at the time when I received your or- 
ders upon the subject of Texas. I ought to add that the line of the Atchafalaya is available for 
offensive or defensive purposes only when the state of the water admits the operations of a strong 
naval force. At the time when I made this suggestion to you it was impossible to get a boat into 
the Atchafalaya, either from Red River or from the Gulf, owing to the low stage of the water, and 
there were very few, if any, boats on the Mississippi or in this department that could have navi- 
gated these waters at that time. It was therefore impossible to avail myself of this natural line— 
first, for the reason that we had not sufficient naval force for this purpose, and that the navigation 
was impossible. As soon as the Mississippi and Red Rivers shall rise, the government can make 
ayailable the advantages presented by this line of water communication.” 

A week later Banks again writes, urging the importance of the capture of Galveston before en- 
tering upon the Red River campaign : 

“It is my desire, if possible, to get possession of Galveston. This, if effected, will give us con- 
trol of the entire coast of Texas, and require but two small garrisons, one on the Rio Grande, and 
the other on Galveston Island, unless it be the wish of the Department of War that extensive 
operations should be made in the State of Texas. A sufficient number of men can probably be 
recruited in that state for the permanent occupation of these two posts. It will relieve a very 
large number of nayal vessels, whose service is now indispensable to us, on the Mississippi and in 
the Gulf. This can oceupy but a short time, and, if executed, will leave my whole force in hand 
to move to any other point on the Red River, or wherever the government may direct. Once pos- 
sessed of Galveston, and my command ready for operation in any other direction, I shall await the 
orders of the government ; but I trust that this may be accomplished before undertaking any other 
enterprise. It is impossible, at this time, to move as far north as Alexandria by water. The Red 
River is not open to the navigation of our gun-boats, and it is commanded by Fort De Russy, 
which has been remounted since our occupation of Alexandria. This position must be turned by 
means of a large force on land before the gun-boats can pass. To co-operate with General Steele 
in Arkansas, or north of the Red River, will bring nearly the whole rebel force of Texas and Lou- 
isiana between New Orleans and my command, without the possibility of dispersing or defeating 
them, as their movement would be directed south, and mine to the north. It is necessary that 
this force should first be dispersed or destroyed before I can safely operate in conjunction with 
General Steele. Once possessed of the coast of Texas, and the naval and land forces relieved, I 
can then operate against the forces in Louisiana or Texas, and I can disperse or destroy the land 
forces in Louisiana, and safely co-operate with General Steele, or with any other portion of the 
army of the United States. It was in this manner that we captured Port Hudson. It would have 
been impracticable to proceed against Port Hudson from the Mississippi without having first dis- 
persed the army of Texas and Louisiana on the west of that river. 

“‘T bear in mind the danger consequent upon the division of forces, but must suggest to you 
that my department is extended, and many posts must be occupied; and while I would be very 
glad to keep my forces concentrated, it is impossible to do so. The orders of the government 
seemed to be peremptory that I was to occupy a position in Texas, and those which I have in 
view, Brownsville and Galveston, required as little force as any other positions in that state. To 
this fact it may be added that there were supplies and recruits which can not be found in any 
other portion of this department. In all my operations you may rely upon the bulk of my forces 
being kept together, and prepared for any movements of the enemy. It is possible, but not prob- 
able, that they may make a successful assault upon some of the isolated positions. We shall en- 
deayor to prevent this by all possible means. I repeat, that in any movements in which I engage 
I shall concentrate the available forces of my command, and peril nothing by an unnecessary di- 
vision. * * ok Kk OR 

“The true line of occupation, in my judgment, offensive and defensive, for this department is 
the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi. The Teche country, and that between the Atchafalaya and 
the Mississippi, can be defended only by the assistance of the navy. It is impossible for land 
forces to operate on that line successfully without the assistance of gun-boats. The best position 
that we could occupy will be to defend this line by the aid of a strong naval force of light and 
heavy draught gun-boats for the different waters in which they may operate, and the disposable 
land forces so held as to be able to move from one point to another in a body. We should then 
have one complete line of water navigation from the Rio Grande to Alexandria or Shreveport dur- 
ing the winter and spring, and from the mouth of the Mississippi to Key West, in the Gulf, and 
could throw our entire force against any point of the territory occupied by the enemy, without the 
possibility of their anticipating our movements or purposes. I am endeavoring constantly to se- 
cure means for offensive and defensive war upon this plan, and am confident that it can be very 
speedily accomplished.” 

Halleck, in his reply to Banks, January 11, 1864, makes no allusion to Galveston. He says: 

**T am assured by the Navy Department that Admiral Porter will be prepared to co-operate 
with you as soon as the stage of the water in the Southwest will admit of the use of his flotilla 
there. General Steele’s command is now under the general orders of General Grant, and it is 
hoped that he and General Sherman may also be able to co-operate with you at an early day. 
General Sherman is now on the Mississippi River, and General Grant expects to soon be able to 
re-enforce him. . . . . It has never been expected that your troops would operate north of 
the Red River, unless the rebel forces in Texas should be withdrawn into Arkansas; but it was 
proposed that General Steele should advance to Red River if he could rely upon your co-operation, 
and he could be certain of receiving supplies upon that line. Being uncertain on these points, he 
determined not to attempt an advance, but to occupy the Arkansas River as his line of defense. 

“*The best military opinions of the generals in the West seem to favor operations on the Red 
River, provided the stage of water will enable gun-boats to co-operate. I presume General Sher- 
man will communicate with you on this subject. If the rebels could be driven south of that river, 


it would serve as a shorter and better line of defense foreArkansas and Missouri than that now oc- | 
cupied by General Steele ; moreover, it would open to us the cotton and slaves of Northeastern 
I am inclined to think that this opens a better field of opera- | 


Louisiana and Southern Arkansas. 
tions than any other for such troops as General Grant can spare during the winter. I have writ- 
ten to him and also to General Steele upon the subject.” 

General Banks, it will be remembered, has all along conceded that the line of the Red River was 
the best base of operations against Texas, but it was only practicable at high water. There were 
also some important difficulties connected with an advance by this route which he considered it 
his duty to lay before General Halleck. Hence the following correspondence, Jan. 23 he writes 2 


(ia 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 581 


could be spared from the Department of the Gulf should be withdrawn to 
the east side of the Mississippi for operations against Mobile. General 


**With the forces you propose, 1 concur in your opinion, and with Generals Sherman and Steele, 
‘that the Red River is the shortest and best line of defense for Louisiana and Arkansas, and as a 
base of operations against Texas,’ but it would be too much for General Steele or myself to un- 
dertake separately. With our united forces, and the assistance of General Sherman, the success 
of movements on that line will be certain and important. I shall most cordially co-operate with 
them in executing your orders. With my own command I can operate with safety only on the 
coast of Texas, but from the coast I could not penetrate far into the interior, nor secure control 
of more than the country west of San Antonio. On the cther line, with commensurate forces, the 
whole state, as well as Arkansas and Louisiana, will be ours, and their people will gladly renew 
allegiance to the government. The occupation of Shreveport will be to the country west of the 
Mississippi what that of Chattanooga is to the east, and as soon as this can be accomplished the 
country west of Shreveport will be in condition for a movement into Texas. I have written to 
General Sherman and General Steele in accordance with these views, and shall be ready to act 
with them as soon as the Atchafalaya and Red River will admit the navigation of our gun-boats. 
Our supplies can be transported by the Red River until April, at least. In the mean time, the 
railway from Vicksburg to Shreveport ought to be completed, which would furnish communication 
very comfortably for the whole of Eastern Texas. I do not mean that operations should be de- 
ferred for this purpose, but, as an ultimate advantage in the occupation of these states and the es- 
tablishment of governments, it would be of great importance. 

“I inclose to you with this communication a very complete map of the Red River country and 
Texas, which embraces all the information we have been able to obtain up to this time. It has 
been prepared by Major D. C. Houston, of the Engineer Corps, and will show that we have not 
overlooked the importance of this line. Accompanying this map is a memorial which exhibits 
the difficulties that are to be overcome. To this I respectfully invite your attention. I have sent 
to General Sherman and General Steele copies of this map. 

“I shall be ready to move on Alexandria as soon as the rivers are up, most probably marching 
by Opelousas. This will be necessary to turn the forts on the Red River and open the way for the 
gun-boats. From that point I can operate with General Steele, north or south of Red River, in 
the direction of Shreveport, or from thence await your instruction. I do not think operations 
will be delayed on my account. I have received a dispatch from General Sherman, in which he 
expresses a wish to enter upon the campaign, but had not at that time received orders upon the 
subject. . . . . Ican concentrate on Red River all my force available for active service, ex- 
cept the garrisons at Matagorda and Brownsville, which will be small.” 

He adds, January 29: 

‘*T shall be ready to operate with General Sherman and General Steele as soon as I receive 
definite information of the time when they will be ready to move. I can take possession of Alex- 
andria at any time, but could not maintain the position without the support of the forces on the 
Upper Tver. = .7 te Pending information and orders in regard to the movement on Red 
River, but little change has occurred in the position of troops. . . . Anxiously waiting 
information and instructions in regard to operations on Red River, I have done nothing in Texas 
except provide for the security of the positions held.” 

The following is a copy of Major Houston’s memorial, dated January 22, 1864 : 

“*T have the honor to submit the following information concerning the routes from the Missis- 
sippi to the interior of Texas: 

“Table of Distances. 


Miles Milos 
Brashear City to Alexandria................. 174 Little Rock to Shreveport. ....cscceccsccceess 225 
Brashear City to Shreveport...............--- 344 Fort Smith to Shreveport. i. s0scccsecsecesics 300 
Natchez to Alexandria (via Harrisonburg)..... 80 Alexandria to Shreveport..........ecceecceee 170 
Natchez to Natchitoches...........ccsceceece 120 Alexandria to! Houston:...i2. ccs cose cateteneeee 270 
Vicksburg to Shreveport.......... Sosictticces as 148 Shreveport to Houston. .....65,. ccna Seve sede 295 


‘« The water via Red River commences falling about the Ist of May, and the navigation of the 
river for most of our gun-boats and transports is not reliable after that time. The months of 
March and April are unfavorable for operations in Northern and Eastern Texas, owing to the high 
stage of water in the Sabine, Nueces [meant for Neches], and Trinity [Trinidad] Rivers and their 
tributaries, and the overflow to which their banks are subject. The concentration of all the forces 
available for operations west of the Mississippi, in the vicinity of Shreveport, requires that the line 
of supply with the Mississippi be kept up. It would not be practicable to abandon the base with 
so large a force, with a line of operations of three hundred miles through a country occupied by 
the enemy to be overcome before communication could possibly be effected with points held by us 
on the coast. The water communication to Alexandria can not be depended on after the Ist of 
May, and it would be necessary to depend on the road from Natchez, a distance of eighty miles, 
and possibly from Harrisonburg, a distance of fifty miles. 

‘* Boats of a very light draught, say three or three and a half feet of water, may go to Alexan- 
dria during low water at ordinary seasons, but the larger majority of our boats and gun-boats are 
of greater draught than this. 

“The most reliable route would be by railroad from Vicksburg to Shreveport. The track is 
now laid from Vicksburg to Monroe.- The road is graded from Monroe to Shreveport, and mostly 
bridged ; the distance is ninety-six miles. There is a good wagon-road from Monroe to Shreve- 
port, crossing the Washita River and other streams. It would require at least three months to 
rebuild this railroad, which is indispensable to the supply of our army in Northeastern Texas. 

‘«To insure success and permanent results to the operations of a force to operate against Texas, 
or rather against the rebel forces west of the Mississippi, it is essential that the forces available for 
this purpose, viz., those now west of the Mississippi, and any additional forces that may be assign- 
ed, should be placed under the command of a single general. The rebel forces west of the Mississippi 
have a single head, and so should the force operating against them. 

‘* Preparations should be made to establish a line of supply independent of the water-courses, other- 
wise, by the time the forces are concentrated and ready to move forward, they will be compelled 
to halt until a new line of supply is established, thus giving the enemy a breathing spell, and an 
opportunity to harass our communications with their mounted troops. It is of vital importance in 
operations of this kind, where the distances traveled are so great, that there should be no delays, 
for our main security against raids on our communications consists in keeping the enemy so well 
occupied in taking care of himself that he will have no time or opportunity to trouble us. Hence 
the importance of thorough preparation and perfect concert of action among the different corps. 

‘¢ Suppose it is determined to concentrate the forces near Shreveport preliminary to a movement 
into Texas. This point is the principal dépét of the enemy west of the Mississippi. There are 
some machine-shops and dock-yards there, and the place is fortified by a line of works with a 
radius of two or three miles. The position is a strong one, being on a bluff, and commanding the 
eastern bank. This point suggests itself at once as the proper one for such a concentration. 
The most direct and only reliable line of supply to this point would be the road from Vicksburg to 
Monroe—railroad as far as Monroe, fifty-two miles, and a graded road the rest of the way, ninety- 
six miles. It would be necessary to put the road in running order, and procure materials for 
completing the road. ‘The security of this road requires that the enemy be driven out of Northern 
Louisiana and Southern Arkansas. This line could be held more easily than the Red River, which 
is very narrow and crooked, and has in many places high bluff banks, where field artillery could 
be placed to enfilade the channels, and have no fear of gun-boats. Such a point is Grand Ecore, 
where the bluff is one hundred and twenty feet high. This point, I have been informed by spies, 
is fortified. Concerning the mode of uniting the forces near Shreveport, I will mention no details, 
as it will depend much upon the enemy’s movements and the character of the routes in Southern 
Arkansas, which I have not had time to examine fully. Our forces there have doubtless the in- 
formation necessary to arrange this matter. These movements, however, should be so arranged as 
to drive the enemy out of Arkansas and Northern Louisiana. 

‘*T anticipate no danger from any large force moving on New Orleans, Louisiana, from Texas. 
In case of this movement, our forces would immediately come in on the rear of this force and cut 
it off. 

‘<The enemy will, I think, be unable to interfere seriously with our concentration of troops, and 
will then mass his whole force, except that at Galveston, near Shreveport, where he will fight, or 
retire on the line he may select. 

“Suppose our force to be united at Shreveport, which would probably be effected during the 
season of high water, and that arrangements have been perfected to supply the army by the road 
from Vicksburg via Monroe, Arkansas and Louisiana clear of rebels, and the enemy in retreat. 
T assume that he will do this, as our forces should be much larger than his, and that he will eon- 
tinue to retreat, knowing that we will be weakened thereby, while he can select a defensive posi- 
tion far from our base. Whatever way he takes we must follow, and expect to have our path dis- 
puted at every point, as he will be driven to desperate efforts. The numerous streams with high 
banks will afford him a favorable opportunity to retard our progress and effect a secure retreat to 
any point he may select. 

“‘Our subsequent movements can not well be foreseen. It does not seem probable that the 
enemy will retire to Houston unless his force is large, and he should propose to draw us into a 
trap. It is more probable that he will retire farther west, and use his cavalry to harass our flanks 
and rear, a species of war peculiarly adapted to Central and Western Texas. We should then be 
prepared for a most active campaign, and our force of cavalry should be especially large and efti- 
cient. 

“ Again recurring to the line of supply, it will be seen that the Vicksburg and Shreveport Road 
extends to Marshall, where there is an interval of 40 miles to Henderson, whence the road is 
completed to Galveston, The road from Marshall to Henderson, however, is graded, and could 


582 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[MaARcH, 1863. 


Banks was by no means averse to an offensive campaign west of the Missis- | this side of the Mississippi, between the mountains and the Atlantic and the 


sippi. In his evidence before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, 
he says: “If you cripple or scatter the enemy’s army of the James, he will 
take refuge first in the Appalachian range of mountains, and ultimately in 
the country west of the Mississippi, and there reorganize. Therefore it was 
wise and expedient for us first to have cleared that country and held it, so 


that they could not cross the Mississippi. The enemy should be held on 


be completed in a short time. In case the enemy shoul abandon the coast, this road will fall 
into our possession, and supplies could be obtained from two directions. Our colored troops, who 
are especially qualified for fighting guerrillas, would be usefully employed in guarding the entire 
line of the road from Vicksburg to Galveston. ‘Texas is said to be full of blacks, who will be a 
valuable auxiliary in our operations in that state. : 

“The campaign above sketched would, I believe, be a long one. Much preparation and labor 
will be required to insure the army against vexatious delays, which permit the enemy constantly 
to elude us. ; 

“J should estimate roughly that it would require until some time in May to effect the union of 
forces and be prepared with transportation for a movement into the interior. This would be about 
the commencement of the season most favorable for active operations in Texas. I suppose that 
by that time wagon trains will be provided to haul supplies from Monroe to Shreveport, that the 
railroad will be in running order to Monroe, and the work of completing the road well under way. 
The time required for subsequent operations can not be well estimated. It is highly probable 
that the rebel army will suffer greatly from desertion—an easy matter in active campaigning. 
The Arkansians will probably leave in the greatest numbers. Should their army, however, hold 
together, they will be able to prolong the contest some time. 

“The results of this campaign will be very great. As long as we are able to keep the enemy 
actively engaged in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana will be safe, and the process of reconstruction 
can be carried on without interruption ; and should those states establish loyal state governments, 
there can be no doubt that desertions would be very numerous. 

“This plan of operations has these advantages over that of operations from the coast of Texas. 
It also has the advantage of enabling us to bring a much larger force of cavalry into the field. 

‘It is, however, a much more difficult plan to execute, requires much more time, and is much 
more uncertain as to the time it will require to accomplish any of the objects undertaken, 

«<The movement by the coast of Texas possesses the great advantage of enabling us to deceive 
the enemy as to our intentions, which is not the case with the other plan. Our troops and supplies 
can be quickly moved by steamers to any point on the coast, landing can be threatened at differ- 
ent points, and the enemy kept in ignorance of our intentions. We now hold the harbor of Mata- 
gorda, the best on the coast next to Galveston. We have a secure point for the debarkation of 
troops and supplies. The distance by land to Houston is 150 miles, over good roads, three in 
number; one via Texana and Wharton; one via Matagorda and Columbia; the third along the 
beach to the mouth of Brazos River. Very little baggage need be required on the march, as the 
point of supply can be transferred to Brazos River and Sabine Pass in succession. A much less 
force would be required for this operation than the other. The rebel forces now in Arkansas will 
remain there as long as our forces are opposed to them, and we would only have to meet the force 
in Lower Texas. ‘To direct and draw off this force as much as possible, the following plan could 
be adopted: Every preparation should be made for debarking the troops at Matagorda and trans- 
ferring them to the main land. ‘The troops intended to be sent should be designated and collect- 
ed at New Orleans, so as to go aboard at a moment’s notice. The steamers should be got ready 
and the troops assigned. All the heavy material, artillery, horses, etc., should be placed on board 
the light-draught vessels, having only men and light stores to be lightened. A demonstration of 
gun-boats, and troops in transports, could then be made at Alexandria in moderate forces, the ef- 
fect of which would be to withdraw the enemy from Lower Texas. ‘This having been effected, 
the force at New Orleans should be sent with all dispatch to Texas, the forces marched to Hous- 
ton without delay, and Galveston be invested, and the garrison captured unless they hurriedly 
evacuated. This would give us entire control of the coast of Texas in a comparatively short 
time. 

‘For subsequent operations we would not be as well prepared as we would be at Shreveport 
with our forces concentrated. The object we started out with would have been accomplished, 
viz., the possession of the coast. The object proposed by the movement via Shreveport is much 
greater than the other, and hence requires more time and means. That direct object is no less 
than the complete destruction or scattering of the rebel forces west of the Mississippi, and it will 
be impracticable to stop short of this result. 

“To attempt simply to hold Shreveport as a post would subject us to continued annoyance as 
long as an organized force remains in Texas. ‘They would make continued raids on our flank 
and rear, and our resources would be gradually frittered away. The rebel army must be pursued 
till it is broken up, and then we can occupy the country and restore order. 

“‘T have written the above in some haste necessarily, and have endeavored to make my ideas 
clear, though they may be somewhat boldly expressed. A strict comparison between the two 
plans of operations can hardly be made, as their objects are different. The only question is, which 
can be most successfully carried out. ‘The results provided by the first plan are much more satis- 
factory, and they include those of the second. I do not believe, with some, in the impossibility of 
Jong land marches with a large force, but I am fully aware of the difficulties to be overcome, and 
the uncertainty of foreseeing results.” 

On the receipt of this memorial, General Halleck writes February 1: 

‘Your dispatches of January 23, transmitting report and map of Major Houston, are received. 
This report and map contain very important and valuable information. 

“The geographical theatre of the war west of the Mississippi indicates Shreveport as the most 
important objective point of the operations of a campaign for troops moving from the Teche, the 
Mississippi, and Arkansas Rivers. 

«Of course, the strategic advantages of this point may be more than counterbalanced by disad- 
vantages of communications and supplies General Steele reports that he can not advance to 
Shreveport this month unless certain of finding supplies on the Red River, and of having there 
the co-operation of your forces or those of General Sherman. 

‘Tf the Red River is not navigable, and it will require months to open any other communica- 
tion to Shreveport, there seems very little prospect of the requisite co-operation or transportation 
of supplies. It has, therefore, been left entirely to your discretion, after fully investigating the 
question, to adopt this line or substitute any other. It was proper, however, that you should have 
an understanding with Generals Steele and Sherman, as it would probably be hazardous for either 
of those officers to attempt the movement without the co-operation of other troops. 

“<Tf the country between the Arkansas and Red Rivers is impassable during the winter, as has 
been represented, it was thought that a portion of General Steele’s command might be temporarily 
spared to operate with Sherman from the Mississippi. The Department of Arkansas was there- 
fore made subject to the orders of General Grant. 

‘It is quite probable that the condition of affairs in East Tennessee, so different from what 
General Grant anticipated when he detached General Sherman, may have caused him to modify 
his plans, or, at least, to postpone their execution. This may also prevent your receiving the ex- 
pected aid from Sherman. Communications by the Mississippi River are so often interrupted, 
and dispatches delayed, that 1 am not advised where General Sherman now is, or what are his 
present plans. 

“¢So many delays have already occurred, and the winter is now so far advanced, that I greatly 
fear no important operations west of the Mississippi will be concluded in time for General Grant’s 
proposed campaign in the spring. This is greatly to be regretted, but perhaps is unavoidable, as 
all our armies are greatly reduced by furloughs, and the raising of new troops progresses very 
slowly. Re-enforcements, however, are being sent to you as rapidly as we can possibly get them 
ready for the field. 

“Have you not over-estimated the strength of the enemy west of the Mississippi River? All 
the information we can get makes the whole rebel force under Magruder, Smith, and Price much 
less than ours under you and General Steele. Of course you have better sources of information 
than we have here.” 

On the 11th of February General Halleck writes: 

“Your dispatches of January 29 and February 2 are received. In the former you speak of 
awaiting “orders” and ‘‘instructions” in regard to operations on Red River. If by this is meant 
that you are waiting for orders from Washington, there must be some misapprehension. ‘The sub- 
stance of my dispatches to you on this subject was communicated to the President and Secretary 
of War, and it was understood that, while stating my own views in regard to operations, I should 
leave you free to adopt such lines and plans of campaign as you might, after a full consideration 
of the subject, deem best. Such, I am confident, is the purport of my dispatches, and it certainly 
was not intended that any of your movements should be delayed to await instructions from here. 
It was to avoid any delay of this kind that you were requested to communicate directly with Gen- 
erals Sherman and Steele, and concert with them such plans of co-operation as you might deem 
best, under all the circumstances of the case. 

‘* My last communication from General Sherman is dated January 29, 1864, and received here 
to-day. He says the stage of water in Red River is such that he can not operate in that direction 
earlier than March or April, and that in the mean time he would operate on the east side of the 
Mississippi River. I think he had not then communicated with you.” 

Turning now for a moment from the correspondence between Halleck and Banks, we find that 


Gulf coasts.” Nor was he opposed to the line of the Red River as a base 
of operations against Texas. He repeatedly admitted that this was the short- 
est and best line for that purpose. But he did insist upon certain condi- 
tions as necessary to operations from this base. 

1. In the first place, the Red River campaign could not be undertaken un- 
til the waters of the river were high enough to admit Porter’s gun-boats 
and heavy-draught transports. 


the former, in his dispatches to General Grant on the subject of the trans-Mississippi campaign, 
clearly intimates that Banks’s operations west of the river must continue during the winter, and 
that, while he partially reeommends the Red River campaign, he leaves it to General Grant’s dis- 
cretion as to how far or in what manner he will allow Generals Steele and Sherman to co-operate. 
On January 8th he writes to Grant: 

‘Keeping in mind that General Banks’s operations in Texas, either on the Gulf coast or by 
the Louisiana frontier, must be continued during the winter, it is to be considered whether it will 
not be better to direct our efforts, for the present, to the entire breaking up of the rebel forces 
west of the Mississippi River, rather than divide them by operating against Mobile and the Ala- 
bama. If the forces of Smith, Pierce, and Magruder could be so scattered or broken as to enable 
Steele and Banks to occupy Red River as a line of defense, a part of their armies would probably 
become available for operations elsewhere. General Banks reports his present force as inadequate 
for the defense of his position and for operations in the interior; and General Steele is of the 
opinion that he can not advance beyond the Arkansas or Sabine unless he can be certain of co- 
operation and supplies on Red River. Under these circumstances, it is worth considering whether 
such forces as Sherman can move down the Mississippi River should not co-operate with the ar- 
mies of Steele and Banks on the west side. Of course, operations of any of your troops in that 
direction must be subordinate, and subsequent to those which you have proposed for East and 
West Tennessee. I therefore present these views at this time merely that they may receive your 
attention and consideration in determining upon your ulterior movements.” 

Again, on the 17th of January: 

“General Banks represents the condition of affairs in his department to be such as to require 
all the re-enforcements that we can possibly send him. As soon as I found that he had divided 
his forces by operating upon the Gulf coast, I urged that troops should be sent him from South 
Carolina, and that the attack on Charleston should be abandoned. It was decided otherwise. 
My opinion has been, and still is, that all troops not required to hold our position in Virginia and 
on the Atlantic coast should be sent to you and to General Banks for operations this winter, and 
as preparatory to a spring campaign. I hoped that by this means Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississip- 
pi, and Louisiana would be secured, and the rebel force in Texas be so reduced and hemmed in 
as to give us but little trouble hereafter. Our armies in the west and south could then have been 
so concentrated, or at least could have so co-operated as to inflict some terrible blows upon the 
rebels. But I fear that the unexpected condition of affairs in East Tennessee will prevent the ac- 
complishment of these objects, or at least a part of them, this winter, and that we must soon pre- 
pare for a spring campaign. The furloughing of so many troops has greatly reduced our forces 
in the North, but I hope to send some more to General Banks, ‘There is, however, much difficulty 
and delay in obtaining transportation by sea, This makes it still more important that the navi- 
gation of the Mississippi should be well protected, and that Sherman and Steele should so operate 
as to assist General Banks as much as possible. I leave it entirely to your judgment to determ- 
ine how and to what extent such assistance can be rendered.” 

Grant appears to have been willing that Sherman, after his Meridian campaign, should co-op- 
erate with General Banks in the movement on Shreveport, provided the time occupied in this op- 
eration would not interfere with the spring campaign against Atlanta. Sherman was himself very 
partial to the project. On the 31st of January he writes to General Banks: 

‘The Mississippi, though low for the season, is free from ice and in good boating order, but I 
understand Red River is still low. I had a man in from Alexandria yesterday, who reported the 
falls or rapids at that place impassable save to the smallest boats. 

‘*My inland expedition is now working, and will be off for Jackson, etc., to-morrow. The 
only fear I have is in the weather. . . . My orders from General Grant will not, as yet, justify 
me in embarking for Red River, though I am very anxious to operate in that direction. The 
moment I learned that you were preparing for it, I sent communication to Admiral Porter, and 
dispatched to General Grant at Chattanooga, asking if he wanted me and Steele to co-operate 
with you against Shreveport, and I will have his answer in time, for you can not do any thing till 
Red River has twelve feet of water on the rapids of Alexandria. That will be from March to 
June. I have lived on Red River, and know somewhat of the phases of that stream. The expe- 
dition on Shreveport should be made rapidly, by simultaneous movements from Little Rock on 
Shreveport, from Opelousas on Alexandria, and a combined force of gun-boats and transports 
directly up Red River. Admiral Porter will be able to have a splendid fleet by March 1. I think 
Steele could move with 10,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry. I could take about 10,000, and you 
could, I suppose, the same. Your movement from Opelousas simultaneous with mine up the river 
would compel Dick Taylor to leave Fort De Russy, near Marksville, and the whole could appear 
at Shreveport about a day appointed. I doubt if the enemy would risk a siege, although they 
are, I am informed, fortifying, and placing many heavy guns. It would be better for us that 
they should stand at Shreveport, as we might make large and important captures. 

“But I do not believe the enemy would fight a force of 30,000 men with gun-boats. I will be 
most happy to take part in the proposed expedition, and hope, before you have made up your dis- 
positions, I will have the necessary permission. . . . . I think by March 1 I could put afloat for 
Shreveport 10,000 men, provided I succeed in my present plan of clearing the Mississippi, and 
breaking up the railroad about Meridian.” 

By the 1st of March it is clear that the Red River campaign had been fully decided upon, so far 
as Generals Grant, Sherman, and Banks, and Admiral Porter were concerned. Banks writes to 
Halleck March 6th: 

‘Major General Sherman, of General Grant’s department, arrived in this city [New Orleans] 
on the evening of the Ist instant, having completed his expedition to Meridian to his entire satis- 
faction. He returned to Vicksburg on the evening of the 3d, to arrange for his co-operation in 
the Red River movement. Unless delayed by want of steam transportation, of which we have put 
every thing we have at his command, he will be ready to join me on the Red River by the 17th, 
where I hope to be at that date. He expects to furnish 10,000 men for that purpose. 

‘Captain Dunham, of my staff, returned from the headquarters of General Steele yesterday, 
bearing communications from him, copies of which will be forwarded to you. General Steele ap- 
pears to have changed the plan entertained when he last communicated with me. Copies of his 
dispatches at that time have been forwarded to you. He then proposed to move by the way of 
Monroe for the Red River. He is now apprehensive, in consequence of the reduction of his force, 
that he can only enter upon a movement for the diversion of the enemy in the direction of Arka- 
delphia, without any expectation of joining us at Shreveport, or any other position on the river. 
General Sherman and myself have earnestly urged him to abandon this idea, that, in any event, 
the three forces in the course of thirty days would meet at Shreveport. General Steele represents 
that he will have about 6000 men at his command. I respectfully request that orders may be 
given to him to co-operate with us upon the point named, in accordance with the plans originally 
proposed by you. I see nothing to defeat its success. Admiral Porter is ready to move up the 
river in co-operation with us as soon as his vessels can be admitted. General McClernand has 
been assigned to the command of the troops in Texas, and will leave for an examination of the 
posts at Matagorda Bay and Brownsville to-morrow. Brigadier General Ransom will have com- 
mand of the Thirteenth Army Corps, which participates in the movement on the Red River.” 

General Steele said the movement was earlier than he had anticipated. A large number of his 
troops were on furlough, and the presence of the remainder was necessary in order to secure the 
success of an election to be held March 14th. He writes to General Halleck March 12: 

“¢General Banks with 17,000, and 10,000 of Sherman's, will be at Alexandria on the 17th in- 
stant. This is more than equal for any thing Kirby Smith can bring against them. Smith will 
run. By holding the line of the Arkansas secure, I can soon free this state from armed rebels. 
Sherman insists upon my moving upon Shreveport to co-operate with the above-mentioned forces 
with all my effective foree. Ihave prepared to do so against my own judgment and that of the 
best-informed people here. The roads are most, if not quite impracticable; the country is desti- 
tute of provisions on the route we should be obliged to take. I made a proposition to General 
Banks to threaten the enemy’s flank and rear with all my cavalry, and to make a feint with in- 
fantry on the Washington Road. I yielded to Sherman, so far as this plan is concerned. Blunt 
wished me to move by Monroe to Red River ; Sherman wants me to go by Camden and Overton 
to Shreveport. ‘The latter is impracticable, and the former would expose the line of the Arkan- 
sas and Missouri to cavalry raids. Holmgs has a large mounted force. I agreed to move by Ark- 
adelphia or Hot Springs and Washington to Shreveport. I ean move with 7000, including the 
frontier. Our scouting-parties frequently have skirmishes with detached parties all over the state, 
and if they should form in my rear in considerable force I should be obliged to fall back to save 
my dépots, ete.” 

On the 13th of March Halleck advised Steele to co-operate with the movement of Banks and 
Sherman on Shreveport. The appointment of Grant as lieutenant general rendered Sherman’s 
presence necessary at Chattanooga, so that he did not in person direct the movements of his troops 
in the Red River campaign. 


Marcz, 1863.] 


2. It should be undertaken with a commensurate force. 

3. Time must be given sufficient for the accomplishment of its great ob- 
ject—the defeat of Kirby Smith’s armies. 

4, And as this prolongation of the campaign would compel the army, 
after the Ist of May at least, to depend upon some line of supply independ- 
ent of the water-courses, it was necessary that the railroad from Vicksburg 
to Shreveport should be put in running order. 

5. Finally, as forces from other departments must participate in the cam- 
paign, Banks urged the necessity that the operations of all should be under 
the control of a single general. 

All these conditions were distinctly insisted upon by General Banks, and 
the importance of each was fully explained. If they had all been met; if 
the campaign had been in season, undertaken with adequate forces, free from 
any arbitrary limitations in regard to time, supported by land communication 
with Vicksburg, and controlled by a single head, even then the difficulties 
encountered would have been as great as in any other campaign of the war. 
The requirements of the campaign could not be answered—at least not in 
the spring of 1864. 

1. The time at which the movement might commence could not be calcu- 
lated with certainty. It would have been-safe ordinarily to have predicted 
a sufficient rise of the Red River in March. But in 1864 it was not safe. 
The Mississippi and Red Rivers, during the winter, had been lower than they 
had been for years. It was reasonable, therefore, not only to anticipate un- 
usual delay in the spring flood, but also to doubt whether, when it came, it 
would answer the purpose. And,if the river had been left out of view; if 
the possibility of efficient naval support had been left to depend upon cir- 
cumstances, and reliance had been placed only upon the railroad from 
Shreveport, in that case not only must three months be occupied in putting 
the railroad in running order, but expeditions, which would occupy consider- 
able time, must be undertaken to clear Southern Arkansas of all such hostile 
forces as might, if left there, interrupt this land line of supply. It was im- 
possible, therefore, to count upon an early commencement of the campaign. 
And if not commenced early, it could not be undertaken at all, without in- 
terfering with the progress of the war east of the Mississippi.’ 

2. And this leads us to the second requirement—a sufficient force. No 
period of the war could have been more inopportune in this respect. The 
term of three years, for which the greater portion of the army had enlisted, 
was now expiring. It could not be safely asserted as certain that the ma- 
jority of the veteran soldiers would re-enlist, though that was a probable 
event. The solution of the important problem thus arising ought to have 
been anticipated by proper measures on the part of the government. Such 
measures had been tried, but the result was exceedingly unsatisfactory. The 
conscription of 1863 had furnished only a meagre re-enforcement to the na- 
tional armies. Thus, although General Halleck was partial to operations in 
the West, and especially partial in his estimate of the importance of the trans- 
Mississippi campaign, he found it extremely difficult to increase General 
Banks's command, He advised that operations in South Carolina be post- 
poned for this purpose; but the government took a different view. In 
North Carolina the defensive could hardly be maintained, and no troops 
could be withdrawn from that state. To farther deplete the Army of the 
Potomac was also impossible. General Longstreet, after abandoning the 
siege of Knoxville, had occupied a position which seriously threatened East 
Tennessee, and from General Grant’s department only about 10,000 men of 
Sherman’s army could be detached for operations elsewhere. This small 
corps, and a few regiments, chiefly of cavalry, which, with great difficulty, had 
been secured from the East by General Halleck, were all that could be sent 
to the Department of the Gulf, and Sherman’s troops could not co-operate 
with Banks until the conclusion of the Meridian expedition. The only 
other possible source of aid in the proposed Red River campaign must come 
from General Steele’s department. At the most, Steele could not bring to 
bear upon the campaign more than 10,000 men, and his column must be in- 
dependent of the direct movement on Shreveport. Advancing from Little 
Rock, his route to Shreveport was, at this season of the year, so difficult, and 
almost impracticable, that it might reasonably be apprehended that he would 
not be able to strike an effective blow. General Banks’s own force, which 
could be made available for the campaign, amounted to 15,000 or 17,000 
men.? Thus less than 40,000 troops could engage in the campaign, and only 
about 28,000 could be certainly counted upon in the event of an encounter 
with the enemy, should the latter determine to fight a battle below Shreve- 

ort. 
é 3. The time allowed for the campaign was limited to thirty days. It was 
for this period, and no longer, that Sherman’s troops were “ loaned” to Gen- 
eral Banks. This force was indispensable to the continuance of the cam- 
paign after reaching Shreveport. The difficulties incident to Steele’s ad- 
vance from Little Rock were so great that no absolute reliance could be 
placed upon that movement. The main dependence was upon A.J. Smith’s 


* General Grant’s idea of the Red River expedition is shown in the following extract from a let- 
ter, written by him to Sherman, dated Nashville, February 18, 1864: 

**While I look upon such an expedition as is proposed as of the greatest importance, I regret 
that any force has to be taken from east of the Mississippi for it. Your troops will want rest for 
the purpose of preparing for a spring campaign, and all the veterans should be got off on furlough 
at the very earliest moment. ... . 

“Unless you go in command of the proposed expedition, I fear any troops you may send with 
it will be entirely lost from farther service in this command. This, however, is not the reason for 
my suggestion that you be sent. Your acquaintance with the country, and otherwise fitness, were 
the reasons. I can give no positive orders that you send no troops up Red River, but what I do 
want is their speedy return, if they do go, and that the minimum number necessary be sent. . . .” 

* A large portion of his force, including all of his colored troops, was occupied in garrisoning 
posts, distributed as follows: 


lo Grands...c<scccsecsrs 3000 BAY WOR Sa crigdincs sac ese 791 Plaquemine (colored)... . 620 
FOS) CAVENO Soc sccce-cse 3277 WOW UTIBOBE i eassveccuscs 1125 Port Hudson (colored)... 9409 
Pe eo aeeee teevvee 900 Baton Rouge...........++- 6565 Total....+.... 20,687 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 


583 


command—that portion of Sherman’s troops which was loaned to Banks for 
amonth. If the campaign was not concluded within that time, it must evi- 
dently be abandoned, except in the very improbable event of Steele’s prompt 
arrival at Shreveport. The uncertainty of Steele’s success in advancing, 
and the limited time allowed for the co-operation of Sherman’s troops, made 
General Banks’s command the only one to be relied upon as a permanent 
force. 

4. This limitation as regards time of course made it out of the question 
to occupy several months in the establishment of communications between 
Vicksburg and Shreveport. For this reason, if for no other, the campaign 
must be concluded before the fall of the Red River, or be then abandoned. 

5. No attention whatever seems to have been given to General Banks’s 
suggestion that all the operations of the campaign should be under a single 
general. Four distinct commands were thus allowed to participate in the 
campaign — Porter’s, Steele’s, A. J.Smith’s, and Banks’s—each independent 
of the others. That this was the case was, in great part, General Banks’s 
fault. In accordance with military usage, he ought to have assumed the 
command of Smith’s troops. But he did not do so, and there was, therefore, 
no unity of command.! 

The whole affair seems rather to have happened than to have been order- 
ed. General Halleck had been recommending the campaign for months, but 
he would not assume the responsibility of ordering it. He left the decision 
entirely with Banks, Sherman, and Steele. The two former, in spite of cir- 
cumstances which made failure almost certain, while success was a bare pos- 
sibility, seem to have been confident of a fortunate issue. Partly from this 
confidence, and probably still more from the urgency with which Halleck 
had formerly pressed the matter, they entered upon the campaign. It is dif- 
ficult to conceive what objects they expected to attain within the space of a 
single month. It is conceded on all hands that, even if Shreveport were 
reached, nothing beyond that could be accomplished, and a speedy retreat to 
the Mississippi was inevitable? To march to Shreveport—the Richmond 
of the trans-Mississippi territory—to capture that place, possibly, and destroy 
its manufactories, and then to march back again—this certainly was no ob- 
ject commensurate with the risk or expense of the campaign, or with the 
forces employed. Halleck certainly dissuaded Banks from undertaking the 
movement unless, within the period allowed for its accomplishment, it prom- 
ised an important success. 

That the campaign ought not, under the circumstances, to have been un- 
dertaken, is evident. But upon whom rests the responsibility? This must 
lie between Halleck and Banks. Neither of them would have assumed the 
responsibility of ordering the movement. Banks very clearly stated the 
conditions upon which he could enter upon the campaign, and, upon consid- 
eration of this statement, Halleck ought to have abandoned the affair as im- 
practicable. But he did not. He communicated with General Sherman, 
and the latter seemed to favor the undertaking. He reported this opinion 
to Banks, and advised him to communicate with Generals Steele and Sher- 
man upon the subject. General Banks knew that his own decision was ab- 
solute in regard to the matter. He ought to have decided promptly against 
the movement. But, with the re-enforcements from Sherman, and General 
Steele's co-operation, he seems to have thought success possible. Besides, 
General Halleck’s scarcely disguised censure of his coast operations, and the 
urgency with which the latter had pressed the Red River route upon his at- 
tention from the beginning, seemed to render farther opposition on his part 
indecorous. The matter being left to his discretion, any such consideration 
ought not to have influenced him. He ought to have followed his better 
judgment. To do otherwise was an inexcusable exhibition of weakness. 
We are compelled, therefore, to assume that he either weakly yielded his 
consent, or that his judgment had been altered in view of the co-operation 
which he would receive, and by “the best military opinions of the generals 
in the West,” which Halleck urged as favorable to operations on the Red 
River.’ Whichever way we may determine, he certainly consented to the 
campaign, and is, in so far, responsible for its results. 


* General Sherman’s orders, issued to General Smith March 4, 1864, certainly contemplated that 
the latter would be under General Banks’s command, Sherman writes to Smith to join Banks at 
Alexandria. He says: ‘‘ You will meet him there, report to him, and act under his orders.’’—Sher- 
man’s Report to the Committee on the Conduct of the War, p. 7. 

? The evidence before the Committee on the Conduct of the War is conclusive on this point. 
General Banks says (p. 20): “TI believe, if any of our forces had taken Shreveport, they could not 
have held it for one month..... We might have gone there, destroyed the place, and then 
come back again; but I think if the enemy had allowed us to go up there, we should never have 
got back with the army to the fleet.” The question was asked, ‘‘ How could that have been sup- 
posed to conform to the idea of going into Texas with an army?” ‘To which Banks replied : 
‘That is not for me to say. It was the purpose of the expedition to occupy Shreveport, and hold 
it. General Steele’s forces were to hold it if we occupied it. But without some communication 
on that line, independent of river navigation, . . . . General Steele could not have got his sup- 
plies. It would have taken at least 10,000 men to hold Shreveport against the concentrated forces 
of the enemy. There was nothing in the country upon which he could subsist. They would have 
cut off his communications, and he would have been compelled to surrender. But there is another 
view of operations west of the Mississippi which, if I had had command of the forces, I should 
have been disposed to adopt. There were about 100,000 men west of the Mississippi, in Louisi- 
ana, Arkansas, and Missouri. If a campaign without limit of time had been set on foot, with the 
purpose of concentrating all disposable forces in these states, with means of supply independent 
of the river, and orders to follow up the enemy wherever he could be found, and then destroy him, 
we would have cleared the country west of the Mississippi of any organized force of the enemy ; 
then, by constructing a railroad from the Mississippi River to Shreveport, fortifying that place, and 
getting supplies there sufficient for a year, and leaving troops enough there to hold it, we could 
cover Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri. The occupation of Shreveport at the conclusion of such 
a campaign would have been an important achievement.” 

* General Banks says in his report: 

“Having made known my plan of operations on the coast, and fully stated, at different times, 
the difficulties to be encountered in movements by land in the direction of Alexandria and Shreve- 
port, I did not feel at liberty to decline participation in the campaign, which had been pressed upon 
my attention from the time I was assigned to the command of this department, and which was now 
supported by the concurrent opinions of the general officers in the West, on account of difficulties 
which might be obviated by personal conference with commanders, or by orders from the general- 
in-chief. It was not, however, without well-founded apprehensions of the result of the campaign, 
and a clear view of the measures (which I suggested) indispensable to success, that I entered upon 
this new campaign. . . . In the instructions I received from government, it was left to my discretion 
whether or not I would join in this expedition, but I was directed to communicate with General 


584 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


1864. 


| MARCH, 


is ith 


ADMIRAL PORTER'S FLEET ON RED RIVER. 


Sherman, on the conclusion of his Mississippi expedition, went to New Or- 
leans, and there and then the principal features of the campaign seem to have 
been determined upon. Returning to Vicksburg, he, on the 6th of March, 
instructed General A.J.Smith to report to General Banks with 7500 men of 
Hurlbut’s (Sixteenth), and 2500 of McPherson’s (Seventeenth) Corps. It 
was intended that Banks, Smith, and Porter should be at Alexandria by the 
17th of March. General Steele was notified of this intention, and replied 
that he had not anticipated so early a movement; that the presence of his 
troops was necessary to secure the success of an election to be held at Little 
Rock March 14, and that he would probably only be able to make a demon- 
stration against Shreveport.' After some delay, by the 18th, orders were 
dispatched to him to move upon Shreveport ‘with all his available force.” 

The enemy had a force nearly equal to that which was sent against him. 
From the official returns of the trans-Mississippi department, Kirby Smith’s 
entire force amounted to 41,000 men, of whom 35,000 were serviceable. 
The greater portion of this force, probably about 20,000 men, under General 
Magruder, covered Galveston and Houston. General Taylor, with about 
5000, held the line of the Atchafalaya and Red Rivers, while General Price, 
with 6000 infantry and 8000 cavalry. confronted Steele in Southern Arkan- 
sas. Probably 10,000 men could be sent from Magruder’s army to re-enforce 
Price and Taylor. The enemy was strongly fortified at Fort De Russy, on 
the Red River, and at Camden, on the Washita River, in Arkansas. 

Political affairs which had been set on foot by the President required Gen- 
eral Banks’s personal presence in New Orleans, and the organization of the 
expedition, so far as it involved his department, was intrusted to General 
Franklin. It was only on the 10th of March that General Franklin knew 
that the expedition was expected to reach Alexandria on the 17th. As Al- 
exandria is 117 miles from Franklin, where the troops were to be concen- 
trated for the advance, it was, of course, impossible to fulfill this expectation. 
Only 3000 men were then at Franklin; the remainder of the infantry, just 
arrived from Texas, was at Berwick’s Bay, and the cavalry was still at New 
Orleans. On the 13th the movement commenced. General A. L. Lee, with 
3300 cavalry, held the advance. Then followed two divisions of the Thir- 
teenth Corps—Landrum’s and Cameron’s—under General T. K. G. Ransom, 
and the Nineteenth Corps under General Emory. The whole command, 
numbering about 18,000 men, reached Alexandria on the 25th of March. 

In the mean time, Admiral Porter? had already arrived at Alexandria. 


ee ee 


Sherman, and General Stecle, and Admiral Porter upon the subject. I expressed the satisfaction 
I should find in co-operating with them in a movement deemed of so much importance by the 
government, to which my own command was unequal, and my belief that, with the forces desiy- 
nated, it would be entirely successful. Having received from them similar assurances, both my 
discretion and my authority, so far as the organization of the expedition was cuncerned, were at 
an end.” 

1 Sherman writes to Steele, March 6: “I confess I feel uneasy at your assertion that you can 
only move with 7000 infantry, and that you prefer to wait until after the election of the 14th. Jf 
we have to modify military plans for civil elections, we had better go home.” 

2 The following statement is made by Porter before the Committee on the Conduct of the War: 

“The Red River expedition was originally proposed by General Sherman and myself; we were 
to have gone up there together. But while we were making the preparations for it, General 
Banks notified General Sherman that he was about to ascend the Red River with 30,000 men. 
General Banks also requested co-operation from me, showing me certain orders from General Hal- 
leck, in which he was directed to go as far as Shreveport,” ete. 

In explanation of this statement, it should be said that Sherman’s confidence in the success of 
the expedition was based upon a full supply of water in Red River. In his instructions to General 


On the 7th he had at the mouth of Red River a fleet of fifteen iron-clad and 
four lighter vessels.!. On the 11th he was joined by General Smith’s com- 
mand, embarked on thirty transports. There was found just sufficient water 
to allow the larger boats to enter the river. The Hastport was ordered to 
take the lead, and remove the obstructions which the enemy had placed be- 
low Fort De Russy. A portion of the fleet then accompanied the transports 
down the Atchafalaya, and covered the landing of troops at Simmsport. 
Dick Taylor’s force retreated to Fort De Russy, followed by General A. J. 
Smith’s command, and the gun-boats returned to Red River. In the 


A. J. Smith (March 4), he says: ‘‘ Now Red River is too low for the season, and I doubt if the 
boats can pass the falls or rapids of Alexandria. What General Banks proposes to do in that 
event, I do not know; but my own judgment is that Shreveport ought not to be attacked until 
the gun-boats can reach it. Not that a force marching by land can not do it alone, but it would 
be bad economy in war to invest the place with an army so far from heavy guns, mortars, ammu- 
nition, and provisions, which can alone reach Shreveport by water.” Again (March 7) he writes 
to Admiral Porter: “I... . authorize you to use my name with General Banks that a farther 
move ought not to be attempted above Alexandria unless the Red River admits the navigation by 
your first-class gun-boats and large transports, viz., seven feet of water on the ‘rapids’ of Alex- 
andria.” 

1 Porter’s fleet consisted of the Essex, Benton, Lafayette, Choctaw, Chillicothe, Ozark, Louis- 
ville, Carondelet, Eastport, Pittsburg, Mound City, Osage, Neosho, Ouachita, Fort Hindman, and 
the lighter boats Lexington, Cricket, Gazelle, and Black Hawk. 


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PLAN OF FORT DE RUSSY. 


Apnit, 1864.] 


mean time, the obstructions, consist- 
ing of heavy piles driven into the 
mud, clamped with iron plates and 
chains, had been removed. Just as 
the fleet, on the afternoon of the 
14th, approached the fort, the latter 
was, at the same time, surrounded by 
the troops, who then assaulted and 
captured the work, with eight guns 
and 250 prisoners. General Smith 
had done a good day’s work with his 
command. He had marched twenty- 
eight miles, being detained two hours 
to build a bridge, and had, after an ac- 
tion of two hours, captured the only 
fort which the enemy had on Red 
River below Shreveport. ‘T'wo days 
afterward the fleet reached Alexan- 
dria.} 

The work of getting the gun-boats 
over the rocky rapids at Alexandria 
was slow and difficult. Indeed, it 
was hazardous to advance farther 
up the river with the fleet, which, 
if it should ever reach Shreveport, 
would probably never return. Gen- 
eral Banks arrived at Alexandria on 
the 24th. The delay caused by the 
slow progress of the fleet above the 
rapids rendered it necessary to estab- 
lish a dépét of supplies at Alexandria, and a line of wagon transportation 
from the steamers below to those above the falls. T'o guard this point, there- 
fore, Grover’s division of the Nineteenth Corps (8000 strong) had to be left 
behind. LEllet’s marine brigade of 3000 men, of A. J. Smith’s command, was 
recalled to Vicksburg. It was necessary that T’. K. Smith’s division of the 
same command (2500 men) should go with the fleet for the protection of the 
transports. Thus, when the army left for Alexandria, April 1, its number of 
men available for active operations on land had been reduced by 8500. 

Just after the occupation of Alexandria the troops were in good spirits; 
indeed, the impression prevailed in the army that the Confederates in this 
region were demoralized, and that Shreveport would be reached without a 
battle. General Steele had the same feeling. This is shown in his dispatch 
to Halleck on March 12, where he says that Sherman’s and Banks's troops 
were “more than equal for every thing Kirby Smith can bring against them.” 
Smith, he said, wouldrun. With this conviction, his co-operation must have 
been inefficient. At Alexandria there seems to have been some bad feeling 
between the military and naval forces on account of the seizure by the lat- 
ter of cotton as a naval prize. Porter, during the period in which he was 
waiting for the army, and for the passage of his fleet above the falls, took 
possession of a considerable quantity of cotton. It would have been wiser 
to have refrained from the seizure at this time for two reasons. In the first 
place, it naturally created jealousy among the military forces. Then, again, 
it caused the cotton within the reach of the Federal forces to be burned by 
the inhabitants, who would otherwise have gladly disposed of it to the 
United States on terms advantageous to themselves and to the government. 
If, however, the cotton was to become a naval prize, there was no motive for 
its preservation. It would have been better if the existence of cotton had 
been ignored by the navy as well as the army until the territory in which 
the staple was found should be thoroughly subjugated. This was General 
Grant’s policy. General Banks’s theory was that the products of the coun- 
try ought to be bought at a reasonable price. This policy was open to the 
objection that it added largely to the resources of the enemy, and in so far 
prolonged the war. 

While the army was at Alexandria, a movement was made to Henderson’s 
Hill, twenty-five miles up the river, resulting in a surprise of the enemy at 
that point, and the capture of 250 prisoners, 200 horses, and four guns, 
Three brigades of Smith’s command, and one of Emory’s, participated in 
this expedition. 

On the 2d and 3d of April the army reached Natchitoches, eighty miles 
from Alexandria, and 100 below Shreveport. This place was about four miles 
inland from Grand Ecore. It is situated on the old channel of the Red River, 
while Grand Ecore is on the new. Lee’s cavalry had skirmished with the 
enemy all the way to Natchitoches. The navy proceeded up to Grand 
Ecore. The difficulties of navigation had increased rather than diminished. 
The river was falling, and it was found impossible for the larger gun-boats to 
pass Grand Kcore. A.J.Smith’s command was forced to abandon the trans- 
ports and march by land. Here there was a delay of four days. On the 
6th of April the army advanced from Natchitoches. The only practicable 
road to Shreveport lay through Pleasant Hill and Mansfield, through a bar- 
ren, sandy country, with little water and scarcely any forage, and, for the most 


o 
> 


S411 W 40 37 


MAP OF TIE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN, 


1 Admiral Porter, at this time, does not seem to have had a very exalted idea of the enemy’s 
pluck. Writing from Alexandria on the 16th, he says: ‘“‘Colonel De Russy, from appearances, is 
a most excelleat engineer to build forts, but don’t seem to know what to do with them after they 
are constructed. ‘The same remark may apply to his obstructions, which look well on paper, but 
don’t stop our advance. ‘The efforts of these people to keep up the war remind one very much 
of the antics of Chinamen, who build canvas forts, paint hideous dragons on their shields, turn 
somersets, and yell in the face of their enemies to frighten them, and then run away at the first 
sign of an engagement. It puts the sailors and soldiers out of all patience with them, after the 
trouble they have had in getting here. Now and then the army have a little brush with their 
pickets, but that don’t often happen. It is not the intention of these rebels to fight.” Admiral 
Porter probably had occasion to reverse his judgment before the campaign was over. 


71 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 


585 


part, an unbroken pine forest. Notwithstanding the failure of Franklin at 
Sabine Pass, Banks still intrusted to him the active command and the regu- 
lation of the march, while he remained at Grand Ecore until the fleet ad- 
vanced, on the 7th. 

Lee’s cavalry found the enemy in his front all the way to Pleasant Hill, 
thirty-six miles distant. Kirby Smith’s design was to draw the Federal 
force as far as possible from its base before a general engagement. The de- 
lay of the fleet had given him time for concentration, and Green’s cavalry 
had been withdrawn from Southern Texas. 

General Banks intended that the fleet, with its six lightest boats, should 
reach Loggy Bayou, opposite Springfield, where communications would be 
established with the land forces at Sabine Cross-roads, near Mansfield, fifty- 
four miles from Natchitoches. The navy, with twenty transports, succeeded, 
though with great difficulty, in reaching Springfield. But on the way to 
Mansfield the army, encountering the enemy in strong force, sustained a dis- 
astrous reverse, which caused it to retreat, and finally to abandon the expe- 
dition. 

On the 7th of April the advance of the Federal army reached Pleasant 
Hill, and there encamped for the night. General Lee had driven a small 
force of the enemy to Pleasant Hill and about three miles beyond, to Wil- 
son’s farm, where a fight occurred in which Lee lost sixty-two in killed, 
wounded, and missing. The enemy, after losing severely, was driven to St. 
Patrick’s Bayou, nine miles from Pleasant Hill. During the action, Lee had 
called upon Franklin for a brigade of infantry. This was dispatched; but 
the firing having ceased, it was withdrawn. 

As to the force of the enemy in his front, General Eranklin seems to have 
been totally ignorant. He certainly did not expect soon to fight a battle, 
otherwise his order of march would not have been what it was. General 
Lee, with about 5000 cavalry, held the advance, skirmishing with and devel- 
oping the enemy, who, whatever his force, seemed determined to retreat. 
Then came the train of the cavalry, consisting of over 200 wagons.! The 
size of this train is partly accounted for by the fact that it carried 20,000 ra- 
tions; but even with this allowance it was very much larger than was neces- 
sary. After it came Ransom’s command, consisting of two divisions of the 
Thirteenth Corps; then the Nineteenth Corps, Franklin’s proper command, 
followed by A. J.Smith’s troops. From the front to the rear, the line ex- 
tended from twenty to thirty miles, over a single road. The cavalry train 
delayed the columns in the rear, and the difficulties thus experienced were 
increased by a rain-storm, which, lasting all day on the 7th, rendered the 
road next to impassable by the Nineteenth Corps and Smith’s command. 
General Banks rode along the line that day, after having seen the fleet off 
from Grand Kcore, and urged on the impeded columns. He reached Frank- 
lin’s headquarters, at Pleasant Hill, on the evening of the 7th, at about 9 P. 
M. At about the same time, Colonel Clarke, of Banks’s staff, returned from 
the front, and reported that Lee was anxious to have infantry support, hay- 
ing met with strong opposition. Franklin declined to send support. If 
General Lee could not hold his position, he must fall back. Franklin had 
previously ordered Lee to crowd the enemy vigorously, and keep his train 
well up.’ Lee had found his train a source of great annoyance, being 
obliged to detach from one third to one half of his force to guard it. He 
had parked about a third of his wagons, and forced the others to the rear. 
Franklin’s order led him to keep his train close up to his column. There 
was evidently no proper understanding between Franklin and Lee. It 
ought to have been Lee’s proper business to develop the enemy’s force and 
report to his superior officer. This General Lee failed to do. All he knew 
of the enemy’s force in his front was that it was “considerable.” General 
Franklin’s impression that the enemy would not fight interfered with the 
proper operations of the cavalry. Lee expected a fight near Pleasant Hill, 
and strongly insisted upon the probability of a battle at that point. His 
advice was disregarded, and the orders which he received indicated that 
Franklin thought him advancing too cautiously, and that the cavalry was in 
the way. 

General Banks’s arrival at Pleasant Hill on the evening of the 7th does 
not seem to have helped matters at all. Without being aware of the situa- 
tion in the front, he ordered that a brigade of infantry should be dispatched 
in accordance with Lee’s request. His only reason for doing this was his no- 
tion that “the advance-guard should be composed of cavalry for celerity, ar- 
tillery for force, and infantry for solidity.” He had no idea of bringing on 
a general engagement. He knew what was the position of his rear columns, 
for he had just rode past them. Franklin’s objection to moving forward the 
infantry was that he thought it would bring on a battle. This is clear from 
the conversation between him and General Banks at 11 A.M. on the 8th. 
At that time Franklin had moved forward with the advance of the infantry 
to a point about ten miles from Pleasant Hill, and was building a bridge for 
his train, when he was joined by Banks. He remarked to the latter that 
there would be no fight. Banks replied, ‘I will go forward and see.” Lee 
was then five miles beyond this point. One of Ransom’s brigades had been 
sent to him, reaching him that morning. He now reported that this brigade 
was much exhausted, and asked for another, which Franklin ordered for- 
ward, instructing Ransom to go with it in person. General Banks arrived 


ee 


1 The number of wagons is variously estimated. Banks speaks of it as 156. J. G. Wilson 
Banks’s aid-de-camp, makes it 180. General Lee, who certainly ought to have known, makes the 
number from 320 to 350. The enemy claims that he captured 220 at Sabine Cross-roads. 

® These were verbal orders as delivered through Colonel Clarke in the afternoon. The written 
dispatch reads thus : 

‘*The commanding general has received your dispatch of 2 P.M. A brigade of infantry went 
to the front; but the fire having ceased, it was withdrawn, The infantry is all here. ‘The gen- 
eral commanding directs that you proceed to-night as far as possible with your whole train, in or- 
der to give the infantry room to advance to-morrow.” 

3 Report on the Conduct of the War, p. 11, 


586 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


at the extreme front at 1 P.M. He found there an unexpected force of the 
enemy. . He felt, he says, instinctively that “‘we were in presence of the 
whole force of the enemy.” He then saw with his own eyes the disadvan- 
tageous position of the cavalry train, which was stretched along for a dis- 
tance of two or three miles in the rear. Skirmishing with the enemy had 
already commenced; a battle was imminent, and could not be avoided. 
There had been mismanagement, the injurious results of which it was now 
too late to avert entirely. The extent of the injury must depend upon the 
decision made at this critical moment by General Banks. If he fell back, 
declining a general battle, it was at some risk to the train; but if he determ- 
ined upon a battle at that point, bringing up his infantry to Lee’s support, 
the risk was much greater. Indeed, it was, under the circumstances, almost 
certain that he would be defeated if he ventured battle. General Banks de- 
termined to take the greater risk. He hurried up the infantry in the rear, 
and brought up fourteen pieces of artillery in addition to the twelve already 
with General Lee. Notwithstanding his own admission that he felt himself 
to be confronted by the full force of the enemy, Banks does not seem to 
have appreciated the risk which he was running. In his dispatch to Frank- 
lin half an hour after he reached Lee, he advises him that the enemy seems 
prepared to make a strong stand, and that he had better make arrangements 
to bring up his infantry, and concludes: “You had better send back and 
push up the trains, as manifestly we shall be able to rest here.” 

General Franklin, on receipt of this order, was at the point where Banks 
had passed him in the morning, where he had the remainder of the Thir- 
teenth Corps under General Cameron, and Emory’s division of the Nine- 
teenth. The order to move forward quickly followed the dispatch above 
mentioned, and before 5 o’clock P.M. Franklin was on the field with Came- 
ron’s command. The battle had been going on then for half an hour. Ran- 
som had reached the field at 1 30 P.M., and found that the enemy had been 
driven across an open field. Landrum, with the brigade sent in the morn- 
ing, was advancing to a ridge which the Confederates had abandoned, and 
which he now occupied (at 2 P.M.), the other brigade brought up by Ransom 
going in to his support. Landrum’s third brigade arrived soon afterward, 
making the infantry force under Ransom 2418 strong. This, with Lee’s 
cavalry, made the entire force between 6000 and 7000 men. The position 
taken was about four miles from Mansfield, at a place called Sabine Cross- 
roads. It was about fifty miles south of Shreveport, and twenty miles west 
of Red River. Nims’s battery, posted on a hill near the road, was near the 
left of the line, supported on either side by the Twenty-third Wisconsin and 
Sixty-seventh Indiana regiments. Then came the Seventy-seventh Mlinois, 
reaching to a belt of timber 200 yards to the right of the hill. The right of 
the line consisted of the One Hundred and Thirtieth Illinois, the Forty-eighth 
Ohio, the Nineteenth Kentucky, the Ninety-sixth and Highty-third Ohio, 
with a section of artillery. The Chicago Mercantile and the First Indiana 
batteries, brought up at a later period, were posted on a ridge in the rear, 
near Banks’s headquarters. The cavalry was posted on the two flanks. 
The ground in front was open, and descended in the rear to a creek, from 
which it again ascended to a covered ridge. 

The Confederate force was under the command of General Dick Taylor, 
and consisted of Walker’s and Mouton’s divisions, and Green’s cavalry, in 
all probably amounting to 12,000 men. Taylor had been ordered to retreat 
steadily before the advance of the Federal army, leading it on to Shreve- 
port. ‘T'wo circumstances led him to disobey this order. In the first place, 
he saw that it would be giving Banks a great advantage to leave him in pos- 
session of the roads in the open country near Mansfield, since these would 
enable him to communicate with the advancing fleet. In the second place, 
the opportunity offered for defeating General Banks was too tempting to be 
rejected. Taylor had already retreated beyond Mansfield, when, acting upon 
these considerations, he directed Walker and Mouton to retrace their steps 
through the town, and take up a position three miles beyond. Thus Green, 
who had been skirmishing and retreating steadily, found himself, on the 8th, 
supported by two infantry divisions. Taylor was still undecided whether 
to fight the battle, when Mouton, occupying the left, advanced without or- 
ders, and gained such a decisive advantage that Walker also was ordered 
forward. 

The attack commenced about 4 P.M. The Federal right maintained its 
position, but the left was soon turned, and Nims’s battery was captured. 
The hill was now occupied by the enemy, and the position first taken by 
the Federals was no longer tenable. The routed cavalry, galloping to the 
rear, rushed through the infantry line, throwing it into confusion, and some 
of the regiments were cut off from retreat and surrounded. The arrival of 
Franklin with Cameron’s command was too late to retrieve the misfortune. 
Out of 26 pieces of artillery engaged, all but eight had been captured. To 
make a stand with Cameron’s fresh division, and so many of the routed 
troops as might be rallied, would have resulted in fresh disaster. The Thir- 
teenth Corps and the cavalry abandoned the field in as good order as was 
possible under the circumstances, leaving the train in possession of the ene- 
my. But for the position of this train fewer prisoners would have been 
taken by the enemy, and probably a much larger portion of the artillery 
would have been saved. General Banks’s loss in this unfortunate battle 
was over 3000 men, killed, wounded, and prisoners! The enemy lost 


1 The responsibility for this disaster lies between Generals Banks and Franklin. The majority of 
the Committee on the Conduct of the War throw the weight of responsibility upon Banks. They 
claim that it was his duty to be cognizant of the details of the march; that if he did not know 
these details on the 7th, he certainly did on the 8th, before the affair at Sabine Cross-roads ; and 
that with this knowledge he assumed the responsibility of the position by remaining where he was 
and sending for the troops in the rear to re-enforce him. 

D. W. Gooch submits a separate report, in which he takes a different view of General Banks’s 
connection with the disaster. He claims that both Lee and Ransom ‘‘ regarded the position held 
by our forces as a good one; that, in addition to the cavalry and artillery which had composed 


(APRIL, 1864. 


about 1000. The disaster at Sabine Cross-roads must be attributed to sev- 
eral causes: 1st. The failure of the cavalry to obtain prompt and full infor- 


Lee’s advance, there were on the field, also, at that time, two brigades of infantry, and that the 
balance of the Thirteenth and Nineteenth Corps were respectively about five and seven miles in 
the rear, and probably at that time advancing.” ‘‘ Under these circumstances,” says Gooch, ‘‘Gen- 
eral Banks, when he arrived upon the field, was obliged to decide to abandon this favorable position, 
over which he would be compelled to pass in order to establish his proposed communication with the 
transports at Loggy Bayou, and to reach Shreveport ; withdraw his artillery and the large baggage 
train of the cavalry, in the presence of a superior force of the enemy, on the narrow and difficult 
road which has been described, or remain upon the field and order up to his assistance the troops 
of the Thirteenth and Nineteenth Army Corps from the points heretofore mentioned. He decided 
to remain upon the field and take the chances of a battle. Had the enemy deferred the attack 
one hour longer, or had it been possible for our troops to reach the field one hour earlier, the result 
of that battle would undoubtedly have been reversed.” 

But the attack was not deferred, and Banks had no reason to suppose that it would be; nor 
could Cameron and the Nineteenth Corps have been up in time. Banks admits that he 
thought the enemy in full force in his front. But his dispatch to Franklin (received by the latter 
at 3 P.M. on the 8th) only ordered him to make arrangements to bring up the infantry, and to 
await instructions before advancing. He also ordered Franklin to push up his trains (over seven 
hundred wagons), ‘‘as manifestly,” says Banks, “we shall be able to rest here.” ‘Ten minutes 
later the order came to move, and Franklin promptly advanced with Cameron’s division, coming 
upon the field too late to prevent disaster. The Nineteenth Ccrps, which was also ordered for- 
ward, being still farther in the rear, could not have been brought up in time to effect any thing. It 
is plain, therefore, that in venturing a battle instead of withdrawing the train under cover of the 
troops already in front, General Banks made himself responsible for the consequences, ‘There is 
no testimony to the effect that the cavalry could not have fallen back. 

The responsibility for the order of march rests with General Franklin. General Banks testifies : 
‘The order of march was perfectly proper, but it was not compact enough. ‘The different parts of 
the column were not within supporting distance of each other; they were extended for from twenty 
to thirty miles. . . . It was certainly a great fault that the advance-guard, with a possible chance 
of meeting the enemy, should have had its train close upon its rear. That was inexcusable... . 
The order in which the divisions should move was the established order which had continued from 
our movement from Alexandria. The only addition was that General Smith’s forces brought up 
the rear. Every thing in that respect was perfectly right. It was approved by me, and it may be 
said to have been changed by me somewhat, because, when the enemy in our front was found to be 
increasing in strength, I gave directions to General Franklin to send a brigade to the assistance of 
the cavalry. But the fact that this foree was stretched out more than twenty miles was necessa- 
rily without my knowledge, and I am not responsible for it in any way. The responsibility rests 
with General Franklin. General Lee, who is responsible for the advance, received written instruc- 
tions from General Franklin, which are stated in General Lee’s report, My own staff officers took 
written instructions to General Lee from General Franklin to keep his trains close up, the theory 
probably being that they would not meet the enemy. When I passed General Franklin on the 
morning of the 8th of April, he said, ‘There will be no battle.’ Besides, in his instructions to 
General Lee he evidently supposes that the enemy was not there; for he says, ‘General Banks and 
General Ransom have gone to the front; but it is not expected that they will remain there.’ ” 

In answer to the question, ‘‘ At what point in your advance were you expecting to meet the 
enemy ?” Banks replies : 

‘«My expectation was that we should meet the enemy between Mansfield and Shreveport; but 
it was never certain whether we should or not. . . . . Lhad information, upon which I relied inv 
plicitly, from a man who had been through that country, that we would have to fight at some point 
between Mansfield and Shreveport, at some point near Mansfield. My belief is that the plans of 
the enemy were changed as we approached Mansfield. [This belief is confirmed by the Confeder- 
ate reports.] And it has been stated that the rebel General Taylor was suspended from his com- 
mand for having attacked us at Sabine Cross-roads, General Kirby Smith being confident that if 
his orders had been complied with, and we had been allowed to reach Shreveport, we would have 
been unable to return. And of that I am assured myself. If General Taylor had not attacked 
us, I do not know what we would have done. But he was tempted by our position, knowing that 
we were in a condition where we could not get our forces together, and he knew he could gain an 
advantage over us. He was thereby induced to attack us against orders.” 

General Franklin testifies that he differed with Banks and Lee as to the policy of making the 
advance-guard include infantry. ‘‘If any fighting occurs, it is most likely that the infantry will 
do it, while the cavalry looks on; and if there be merely a march, the cavalry exhausts the in- 
fantry, or it must regulate its march by the infantry rate.” He claims that the trains ‘‘ had noth- 
ing to do with the defeating of the infantry and cavalry. But when the rout began, then the trains 
were in the way, and nothing could be got away, because the train was jammed up to where the 
infantry was driven back; and when the time came to turn the artillery back, there was no place 
for it to get through. .... I suppose that to a certain extent I am responsible thus far. The 
cavalry general had always been asking me to put his train behind the infantry troops, and let it 
march in front of the infantry train. I had always refused to do' that; I told him it was his busi- 
ness to take care of his own train. The reasons which actuated me in this were these: I had about 
seven hundred wagons with me, which the infantry had to take care of. If it had taken the two 
hundred and fifty which the cavalry had, and put them in front of my infantry train, my infantry 
wagons would never have got into camp the day of my march. The consequence would have been 
that the cavalry would have had their wagons up, but at the expense of the infantry. I therefore 
told General Lee that he must take care of his own wagons. To that extent I am responsible for his 
wagons being where they were. But he writes me, at 7 30 A.M. on the 8th, ‘I am keeping my 
train back in order that I may see the thing settled before I bring it up to the front.’ That re- 
lieved my mind entirely about the train, and I had no idea that I would find it where I did find it. 
I was so anxious about the trains that I ordered them to close up during the day, finding that the 
wagons straggled badly as they passed my camp. I understand that General Lee has interpreted 
that to mean that I ordered his train forward, which I did not. I gave no orders to General Lee’s 
train that day except to close up. There were several open places, between the point where the 
infantry was to encamp and the battle-ground, where a train much larger than the cavalry train 
could have been parked. ‘The general in command at the front should, I think, have ordered the 
train in park at one of these places when he saw that a general battle was imminent. I could 
not, because I was with my immediate command.” 

But could not Franklin, when he received Lee’s report that the train was a great annoyance to 
him, have issued this order to park the artillery? He could have done so but for his impression 
that there would be no battle at this stage of the march. It seems, therefore, that while General 
Franklin must be held exclusively responsible for the detached order of march, a large share of 
the blame attached to the position of the cavalry train should be attributed to Generals Lee and 
Banks, either of whom ought to have seen the necessity of parking the trains before engaging an 
enemy which Banks believed to be from 15,000 to 18,000 strong. If they failed to attend to this, 
it was the business of Brigadier General C. P. Stone, General Banks’s chief of staff, to do so. He 
was on the field, and this was one of his especial duties. 

Brigadier General Dwight, who, a week after the battle, succeeded General Stone as chief of 
staff, corroborates General Franklin’s testimony as to the feasibility of parking the train. He 
testifies : ‘‘ There was no objection to the train being on the road, provided the cavalry was not so 
heavily engaged with the enemy as to endanger it. There were a great many places on the road 
where the train could have been parked.” He denies that the wagons in any way impeded the 
march of the Nineteenth Corps. General Lee, he says, ‘‘should by no means have permitted his 
train to be between the infantry of the army and the cavalry of the army when he was going to 
fight a battle. But he ought to have known whether there was danger of a battle; he ought to 
have known the enemy’s force in front of him ; for he had a very large force. But it is to be re- 
marked here that he did not seem to know well; that he did not manage as if he knew the whole 
force of the enemy was in his front. ‘The moment that he found the enemy was in his front in 
force, he should have parked the train where it would be safe; and if he found that he had got it 
too far in the front, he should have turned it to the rear. That is a matter of his own responsi- 
bility, of which he ought to be a competent judge.” Dwight evidently thinks that Lee misman- 
aged the entire conduct of the adyance-guard. He says the cavalry ought to have been still far- 
ther in advance of the infantry than it was; that Lee had too large a train; but that, large as it 
was, it could have been parked in three hours; that it was Lee’s business to know that he was 
likely to be attacked, and thus have gained time for preparation ; ‘‘it was the easiest country in 
the world in which to tell when you are going to be attacked, or when there was a liability to at- 
tack, because it was comparatively a narrow country. A strong advance-guard of cavalry, much 
less than the main body, of good cavalry scouts, could have always told where the main body of 
the enemy was, so that no battle should have occurred until the army was prepared for it.” He 
thus describes Lee’s command : 

“This cavalry force, as it was called, of General Lee consisted of cavalry proper, of mounted in- 
fantry, and a very large proportion of artillery for such a force. It was really more infantry than 
it was cavalry. For the work of cavalry proper it was utterly unfit. The men were not good 
riders, and did not understand how to take care of their horses properly. ‘They were infantry 
soldiers who had been put on horseback; they were not properly cavalry. General Lee’s force, 
therefore, consisted of some of the very best infantry regiments that were ever in the Department 
of the Gulf, with cavalry proper, and a large amount of artillery. Considering the character of 
that force, it was an eminently proper disposition to place the whole of it, or so much of it as was 
in advance, in advance. The whole of it was not in advance; one brigade of it, at least, was in the 


— 


Aprit, 1864.] 


LY 
Vy 


Zo 


T. E. G@. RANSOM. 


mation concerning the enemy. 2d. General Lee’s neglect to park his trains 
before fighting. 38d. The detached order of march, the column of infant- 
ry with its head fronting the enemy on a field over twenty miles distant 
from its rear. And, 4th. The decision of General Banks to venture a bat- 
tle under these unfavorable circumstances. This last was the great mis- 
take, and gave each of the disadvantages mentioned its operative force; but 
for this decision there need have been no defeat, at least not at this point. 
It would probably have been better if Banks had staid behind at Grand 
Ecore, or any where else, as in that case the battle, if fought at all, would 
have been fought with a concentrated command. For, notwithstanding Gen- 
eral Franklin’s conviction that there would be no fighting, it is clear that 
on the morning of the 8th his plan was to concentrate his whole command 
before marching beyond St. Patrick’s Bayou. Had this been done, the ad- 
vance would have continued to Shreveport without fighting a battle, and 
there it would have confronted a force of the enemy superior in numbers— 
Price’s command united with Dick Taylor’s. Still, even in that event, a far 
greater disaster would have befallen General Banks’s army, with its im- 
mense baggage trains, and 400 miles from its base. Most certainly, in that 
event, the fleet—so much of it as could wriggle its way up to Shreveport— 
together with the transports, would have been exposed to utter destruction. 

While the Thirteenth Corps and Lee’s cavalry were falling back in a dis- 
organized mass from Sabine Cross-roads, General Emory’s division of the 
Nineteenth Corps was advancing to the field of battle. At Pleasant Grove, 
three miles back of where the fighting had been, this division met the fugi- 
tives, who passed through their ranks to the rear. Following these came 
the pursuing enemy, who just at nightfall fell upon Emory’s unbroken wall 
of bayonets, and were repulsed after an engagement of an hour and a half. 
General Mouton was killed in the first onset. ‘The first division of the 
Nineteenth Corps,” says General Banks, “ by its great bravery in this action, 
ORT Meter elt I consider our force of cavalry, mounted infantry, etc., was badly commanded ; that 
the officer commanding it did not well understand the manner of leading an advance, of obtaining 
proper information concerning the enemy, or of penetrating any little curtain of troops which the 
enemy might throw in front of him to prevent his obtaining information which he ought to have 
had. Our force, or that portion of the force which, on the 8th of April, advanced to the position 
in which it was attacked by the enemy, stood dormant in the presence of the enemy until the ene- 
my completely enveloped it. ‘There can be but one solution of such a conduct of affairs, and that 
is, that whoever directed that on our part was incapable.” ‘ 

“* Question. Then, if I understand you, it is your opinion tnat that disaster occurred in conse- 
quence of the failure of the cavalry and its officers to do that which they should have done ?” 

‘* Answer. I consider that was the cause of our not having proper information. I consider that 
the cause of the disaster of that day was that the infantry of the army was in three detachments, 
one near the scene of action, and the other two respectively nine and twenty-four miles from it, 
and that a battle never ought to have occurred under those circumstances. The infantry of the 
army was not concentrated ; it was in exactly the proper position to be beaten in detail, which, in 
fact, was what occurred.” ; 

General Dwight’s opinion of General Lee’s inefficiency seems to have been concurred in by a 
majority of the general officers of the army. General Banks says in his testimony: ‘‘ General 
Lee was relieved from the command of the cavalry subsequent to this affair at Sabine Cross-roads, 
but it was not on account of this action. It was because the general officers expressed to me so 
positively their want of confidence in the organization and condition of the cavalry, and advised 
so earnestly a change. This was an act which I afterward regretted. It was done because of the 
demoralized condition in which the cavalry found itself after this affair, and the very important 
part it must have in subsequent movements. I have no complaint to make of General Lee’s gen- 
eral conduct. He was active, willing, and brave, and suffered more or less unjustly, as all of us 


did, for being connected with that affair.” General Arnold, formerly Chief of Artillery, succeeded 
Gencral Lee. 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 


587 


saved the army and navy.” The enemy now retreated to Mansfield, so that 
during the night the Federal forces occupied both battle-fields. 

It was then decided to fall back to Pleasant Hill. A renewal of the at- 
tack was expected on the morning of the 9th, and it was not likely that 
General Smith’s command would be able to reach Pleasant Grove in time 
to participate in the action; without his presence it would be impossible for 
Banks, with the Nineteenth Corps and the demoralized troops who had been 
driven from Sabine Cross-roads, to maintain his position. The movement 
to Pleasant Hill began before daylight, Emory’s division covering the rear, 
burying the dead, and bringing off the wounded. At 8 30 A.M. the retreat 
had been completed, and a junction effected with Smith’s command. 

In the mean time the enemy had been re-enforced by Churchill’s division 
of infantry from Arkansas—there being no immediate apprehension as to 
Steele’s advance—so that he was able to bring into the field upward of 
20,000 men. Kirby Smith had ordered Taylor to follow up Banks’s force. 
To meet this force Banks had only 15,000 men. But a battle for the safety 
of the fleet would have to be fought somewhere, and General Banks con- 
cluded that it might as well take place at Pleasant Hill as farther back. A 
strong position was taken, and this time the trains were sent to the rear un- 
der a strong cavalry guard. The forenoon passed quietly by. The Con- 
federates, wearied by their previous battles, and—in the case of Churchill’s 
command—by along march, advanced slowly, and it was not until 4 o’clock 
P.M. that Green’s cavalry encountered the Nineteenth Corps, guarding the 
approaches to the open ground surrounding Pleasant Hill. The army un- 
der Banks now consisted of the Nineteenth Corps and the Western troops 
under A.J. Smith. The remainder had been sent to the rear with the bag- 
gage and wounded. The greater part of A.J. Smith’s command was held in 
reserve. The troops most advanced were soon driven in, and so easily that 
‘Taylor was led to believe that he was about to fight only the rear-guard of 
a retreating army. Walker was ordered to attack in front. Polignac—a 
French gentleman of aristocratic birth who had espoused the Confederate 
cause —having succeeded to General Mouton’s command, was held in re- 
serve. Churchill was ordered to make a detour and strike the Federal left 
flank. The conflict that followed was desperate, and for a long time doubt- 
ful. The Federals held rising ground, and presented a stubborn front to ev- 
ery attack. Churchill found the resistance so strong in his front that he had 
to be supported by a brigade from Walker’s division. Even with this re- 
enforcement he was roughly handled, and driven back across the open to 
the cover of the woods. Walker, supported by Polignac (who was shel- 
tered by woods), in the mean time had advanced across the valley under a 
galling fire, from which he suffered severe loss, against the Federal right flank. 
Re-enforced by Polignac, he kept advancing, and, toward night, seemed to be 
gaining a decisive advantage, having driven back the force in his front. But 
Smith’s reserves were then brought up, and the Confederates were driven 
from the field, fairly beaten. Some guns which had been taken by the en- 
emy in the early stage of the action were afterward recaptured. The battle 
had been fought by Banks for the existence of his army and of Porter’s 
fleet, and had resulted in victory. 

But what then? Should the army advance or continue its retreat? 
Smith, with his Western soldiers, cried out for an advance. Banks’s judg- 
ment was in favor of advance; but Franklin, more wisely, advised retreat. 
Indeed, no folly could have been greater than to renew the attempt against 
Shreveport. For the army to remain where it was involved peril. A sin- 
gle day could add to the enemy’s force sufficient re-enforcements to give 
him a decided advantage against Banks. With this increased force, and 
with proper management on Kirby Smith’s part, the defeat of the Union 


A. J, SMITH. 


588 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[APRIL, 1864. 


== 


— 


SSsor___. 
5 » 


CONFEDERATE LAND ATTACK ON PORTER'S FLEET. 


army was inevitable, and, following this, the capture of the gun-boats, and 
possibly the repossession of the Mississippi by the Confederates. Besides 
this, there were also other reasons for a retreat. It would consume much 
valuable time to turn the train back again toward Shreveport and to reor- 
ganize the army. And the enemy would certainly have attacked before 
Banks was fully prepared to meet him. There was no water at Pleasant 
Hill for man or beast. All the horses with the army had been without food 
for 36 hours. Without rations and without water, without tidings of the 
fleet with which was the supply of ammunition, General Banks, reluctantly 
following Franklin’s advice, determined to fall back to Grand Kcore, where 
he could reorganize his army and be sure of communication with Porter. 
The losses in the campaign thus far amounted to nearly 4000 men, besides 
artillery, mules, and wagons. Grant was now lieutenant general, and in 


March had ordered General Banks to send back Smith’s command if the 
expedition could not be terminated successfully by the Ist of May, saying 
that if it should be continued beyond that date he would much rather it 
had never been begun. This was an additional reason for retreat. How 
General Banks or General A. J. Smith could have for a moment contem- 
plated an advance under these circumstances it is difficult to imagine. 
But orders for such an advance had been given, and the train had been or- 
dered to return, and it was only after consultation with his general officers 
that Banks countermanded these orders, and at midnight on the 9th direct- 
ed preparations to be made for the return of the army to Grand Kcore. It 
was an unfortunate circumstance that, although this withdrawal was accom- 
plished at leisure, a large number of the wounded were left behind for want 
of transportation.? 


1 The following is the testimony of Surgeon Eugene F. Sanger on this point: 
Question. ‘* What is your position in the army ?” 

Answer. ‘Surgeon of United States Volunteers.” 

Question. ‘‘Did you accompany the Red River expedition under General Banks?” 
Answer. “I did.” 


Question, ‘‘Were you present at the battles of Sabine Cross-roads and Pleasant Hill?” 


Answer. ‘*I was.” 

Question. ‘‘ What was the condition of our wounded there ?” 

Answer. ‘*We brought off about half our wounded in the first battle, and in the second battle 
we brought off all that could walk off.” 

Question. ‘‘It has been said that at Pleasant Hill we won a victory; how happened it that we 


| left our wounded in the hands of the enemy tae 


Apri, 1864. ] 


The fleet had reached Loggy Bayou on the 10th, when, learning of the 
disaster which had happened to the army, it began to return down the nar- 
row, snaggy channel which it had with great difficulty just ascended. Re- 
moved from the military force (except that of T. K. Smith’s command, which 
accompanied the transports), the fleet was peculiarly exposed to attack from 
the bluffs on either side. Failing to destroy the army, the Confederates 
turned their attention to the gun-boats and transports. The river was fall- 
ing, and the progress of the fleet was slow—about thirty miles per day—so 
that the enemy easily followed him down, continually increasing in numbers. 
The first attack was made at Coushutta, and a second, with 1900 of Green’s 
cavalry and four guns, at Harrison. Both these attacks were easily met and 
repulsed. On the 12th of April a more determined onset was made by 2000 
infantry, infuriated by Louisiana rum, from the right bank. It was a novel 
conflict, this, in which these reckless Texans charged upon Porter's gun-boats 
with the assistance of two guns! The crazy attempt was persisted in for two 
hours. Detachment after detachment, they were brought to the river's edge 
and mown down by the guns of the fleet, until at length their leader, Gen- 
eral Tom Green, lost his head, blown off by a shell, when the enemy with- 
drew, leaving the river bank strewn with his killed and wounded, whose 
bodies, says Admiral Porter, “actually smelled” of the rum which had be- 
deviled them. This affair seems to have satisfied the enemy as to the chances 
of success in an attack by infantry upon gun-boats. On the 15th the fleet 
reached Grand Ecore. Here Porter found most of his larger gun-boats 
aground, drawing a foot more water than there was on the bar. While he 
was extricating them, the Eastport, eight miles below, was sunk, and was 
with great difficulty got afloat again. 

The retreat of the army was continued on the 22d to Alexandria. The 
fleet followed soon, but was delayed by Porter’s anxious and persistent ef- 
forts to get away the Eastport, which, finally, he was obliged to destroy. 
When the fleet reached Cane River, ninety miles below Grand Ecore, it was 
attacked by eighteen Confederate guns. Every shot from these struck the 
Cricket, the admiral’s flag-ship, whose decks were rapidly cleared. The aft- 
er gun was disabled, and every man in attendance killed or wounded. An- 
other shell exploded her forward gun, sweeping away the crew from it, 
and, passing into the fire-room, left but one man there unwounded. Admi- 
ral Porter made up a crew from contrabands for the after gun, put an assist- 
ant in the place of the chief engineer, who had been killed, and ordered the 


Answer. ‘‘That is a great mystery to me. I was at that time medical director of the Nine- 
teenth Army Corps. I saw General Franklin immediately after our victory, as we assume it to 
be. Itold him that in the hurry of sending off the supply trains in the morning, they had sent off 
my medical supply train. He said at that time that it should be ordered to return at once. To 
make sure of this matter, I went to see Major Drake, General Banks’s adjutant general. He told 
me to give myself no uneasiness about the matter, as he would send off a courier at once and order 
up the medical supply train. Isaw General Franklin, and told him that I should be busy all night, 
and in case the army moved off in any direction he must apprise me. I was told that I should be 
informed. That was the last I knew of the matter until between 6 and 7 o’clock the next morn- 
ing, when, observing a little squad of cavalry drawn up in front of my hospital, I went out and in- 
quired, and found that the army had retired during the night, and that this cavalry was the rear- 
guard about leaving the place. They said they had seen the enemy approaching in the distance, 
whereupon I left one or two assistant surgeons with instructions, mounted my horse, and rode off.” 

- Question. ** Did you see any real necessity for leaving our wounded in the hands of the enemy 
there?” 

Answer, ‘‘ Yes, sir; we had no transportation at that time of any kind. There was not a wag- 
on of any kind there.” 


THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN. 


589 


vessel to run by the battery, “which was done,” says the admiral, “under 
the heaviest fire I have ever witnessed.” Driving around the point on which 
were posted the enemy’s guns, he shelled the latter in the rear, and by this 
diversion the light-draught Juliet and pump-boat Champion, lashed together, 
escaped from under the bank where they had drifted. The Hindman from 
above co-operated with the Cricket by pouring an enfilading fire into the 
Confederate batteries, but dared not pass them. Porter therefore went down 
to obtain the assistance of some of the iron-clads below, but in the trip he 
got aground, and was delayed for three hours. After proceeding three miles 
he found the Osage and Lexington engaging another Confederate battery, 
the latter having been hulled fifteen times, with only one man killed. It 
was now night, and impossible to return to the Hindman, yet the latter ves- 
sel succeeded in running the battery, but, having her wheel-ropes cut away 
by the enemy’s fire, got badly cut up in drifting down. Three of her men 
were killed and four wounded. The Juliet also passed, sustaining severe 
injuries. ‘The Champion was disabled and set on fire. During these opera- 
tions the Cricket was hulled thirty-eight times, and fifteen of her crew were 
killed or wounded. After such difficulties as we have described, the fleet 
at length arrived at Alexandria, Admiral Porter estimates that on bis way 
down he killed and wounded at least 500 Confederates, his own loss being 
less than 100. 

General Banks had also met with formidable resistance on his way to 
Alexandria, at the crossing of Cane River, where he met a Confederate 
force of 8000 men, with 16 guns, under General Bee. This force, flanked 
by the river on one side and an impenetrable swamp on the other, was con- 
fident of checking Banks until the rest of the Confederate army could come 
up in his rear. Banks’s only safety was in rapidity of movement. Aware 
of the enemy’s designs, he commenced his march from Grand Ecore on the 
morning of the 22d, and that day and night marched 40 miles, moving upon 
the enemy at Monet’s Bluff, on Cane River, before daybreak of the 28d. 
General Emory, with his own division of the Nineteenth Corps, one of the 
Thirteenth, and Arnold’s cavalry, was ordered to attack the enemy in front. 
The position was found too strong to be carried by a direct attack. There- 
fore General H. W. Birge, with a command consisting of his own brigade 
(the Third of Kmory’s division) and Cameron’s division, was dispatched 
across the river, three miles above, to strike the enemy’s flank. Birge, after 
a difficult march through swamps and dense woods, reached his destination 
late in the afternoon. Fessenden, commanding Birge’s brigade, assaulted 
and carried two strong positions, whose occupation forced the enemy to re- 
treat southwestwardly into Texas. Kilby Smith, covering Banks’s rear, 
was on the next morning unsuccessfully attacked by the Confederate force 
which was co-operating with Bee. The Federal loss in these engagements 
was 250 men. General Banks, by his promptness, had prevented the enemy 
from concentrating his forces and fortifying his position, otherwise the Fed- 
eral army would have been compelled to cross Red River above the bluff 
in the presence of the enemy on both sides of both Cane and Red Rivers. 
The army reached Alexandria on the 25th and 26th of April, precisely a 
month after its occupation of the town in March. 

Here, also, it was impossible to remain without the support of A.J. Smith, 


GENERAL BANKS CROSSING CANE RIVER. 


590 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY 


OF THE CIViL WAR. [ May, 1864. 


PORTER'S FLEET PASSING 


whose time for co-operation with Banks had already expired. But, before 
retreating farther,it was necessary to rescue the fleet from its perilous situa- 
tion by getting it below the falls. The difficulty had been foreseen by 
Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, engineer of the Nineteenth Corps, who, 
as early as the battle of Pleasant Hill, had suggested to General Franklin a 
plan for its removal by means of dams. Franklin approved the project. 
‘Admiral Porter does not seem to have had much faith in it. He remarked, 
when the plan was first proposed to him, that “if damming would get the 
fleet off, he would have been afloat long before.” 

The plan was carried out by the army under Bailey’s supervision. Be- 
tween two and three thousand men were engaged in the work of damming 
the river, which was commenced on the 2d and completed on the 8th of 
May. The rapids, or falls at Alexandria, are over a mile long. At the 
foot of these the main dam was constructed, the river at this point being 
758 feet wide, and the depth of water from four to six feet, with a swift 
current of about ten miles per hour. Two wing-dams were also constructed 
at the head of the rapids. By means of these dams the depth of water was 
increased by 64 feet, and eight valuable gun-boats were thus saved from 
destruction. Four of the gun-boats passed immediately upon the comple- 
tion of the work. The rest might have passed at the same time if Porter 
had been prepared to avail himself of the advantage. The pressure of the 
water upon the dam was very great, as might have been expected, and be- 
fore the admiral was ready to get down his other boats, the works gave 
way. Additional wing-dams were then constructed, and on the 18th the 
entire fleet was safe below the falls. 

Before the relief of the fleet Banks had received a dispatch from Lieuten- 
ant General Grant directing that no troops should be withdrawn from the 
operations against Shreveport, which were to be continued until farther 
orders. 

But the continuance of the campaign was, of course, impracticable. As 
soon as the fleet had been relieved Banks evacuated Alexandria, moving 
from that point to Simmsport, on the Atchafalaya. On the morning of his 
departure a fire broke out in a building on the levee, and, under a high 
wind, extended to a large portion of the town. 

Previous to the evacuation of Alexandria, the light gun-boats Signal and 
Covington, passing down the river with the transport Warner, were fired on 
by a large Confederate force. The Covington was burned, and the Signal, 
with the transport, were surrendered, with 150 soldiers. Soon afterward the 
transport City Belle was captured, with 225 men, who were being conveyed 
up to Alexandria. 

The march to Simmsport was interrupted for a few hours at Mansura, 
near Marksville, by a Confederate cavalry force, which, after a spirited 
skirmish, was driven away. Simmsport was reached on the evening of 
May 16th. Here the army crossed the Atchafalaya by a bridge built of 
steam-boats on the 20th. While the wagon train was crossing the bridge, 
a Confederate force under Polignac attacked the rear of the army, but was 
repulsed by A. J.Smith’s command. Having crossed the river, Banks met 
General E. R.S. Canby, who had been sent to relieve him of the command 
of the Department of the Gulf, and to whom General Banks turned over the 
army, proceeding himself to New Orleans. General A. J. Smith now re- 
turned to his own department. Admiral Porter descended the Red River 
and resumed his patrol of the Mississippi. 

Before tracing the progress of Steele’s co-operative column from Little 
Rock, let us rapidly review the military events which had taken place in 
Missouri and Arkansas up to the inception of the Red River campaign. 

Shortly after Hindman’s defeat at Prairie Grove in the latter part of 1868, 
a Confederate force of about 4000 men, under General Marmaduke, moved 
around General Blunt’s command in Northern Arkansas, and marched on 
Springfield, in Missouri. This important station, the dépdt of munitions 
and supplies for the Federal troops operating in Arkansas, was partially 
fortified, and was held by a garrison of 1200 men under Brigadier General 


THE DAM AT ALEXANDRIA, 


E. B. Brown, consisting of state militia, a small portion of the Highteenth 
Towa, and about 300 convalescent soldiers known as the “Quinine Brigade.” 
The main body of the Federal army under General Blunt was in the vicini- 
ty of Fayetteville, on the Arkansas border, too distant to furnish assistance, 
and yet dependent for its own safety upon the secure possession of Spring- 
field. Marmaduke attacked Brown on the 8th of January, 1868, and after 
fighting from 10 A.M. till dark, losing some 200 men, withdrew without 
gaining any other advantage than the capture of a single gun, The loss of 
the garrison was 164 men, of whom 14 were killed. Among the wounded 
was General Brown, who had managed the defense of his post with great 
skill and bravery. 

At Hartsville, 40 miles east of Springfield, Marmaduke encountered on 
the 10th a small detachment of Federal troops under Colonel Merrill, con- 
sisting of the Twenty-first Iowa and Ninety-ninth Hlinois, with portions of 
the Third Missouri and Third Iowa cavalry, and a battery of artillery. 
Here, after a sharp skirmish, he was repulsed with a loss of 800 men; Mer- 
rill’s loss amounting to 78, including 7 killed. While the Federal forces 
were being concentrated to intercept his retreat, Marmaduke retreated into 
Arkansas. At Batesville, on the 4th of February, a part of his force was 
attacked by Colonel Waring, who, with the Fourth Missouri cavalry, drove 
him across the White River. 

General Curtis on the 9th of March, 1868, was relieved of the command 
of the Missouri Department, which about a month later was assigned to 
General Schofield. 

In the latter part of April, Marmaduke, with a considerable force, again 
entered Missouri, and made an attempt on Cape Girardeau, the capture of 
which would have very much disturbed Grant’s Vicksburg campaign, but 
the timely appearance of the Federal gun-boats frightened him off, sending 
him back to Arkansas. A month later an engagement occurred at Fort 
Blunt, in Indian Territory, which was occupied by the Federal Colonel Phil- 
lips with 800 cavalry and an Indian regiment. A Confederate force about 
3000 strong was led by Colonel Coffey against this fort. The defense was 
successfully maintained, and the enemy driven south of the Arkansas. 

During the summer of 1868, the more important military operations in 
Mississippi and Tennessee reduced both the Federal and Confederate forces 
in the trans-Mississippi territory to such an extent that there were no hos- 
tilities in that region of any moment. Blunt had an encounter in July with 
a force of the enemy under General Cooper, which was menacing Fort Blunt. 
The fight took place on Elk River. Cooper had about 6000 men, and Blunt 
3000 infantry, 250 cavalry, and 4 guns, General Blunt crossed the river, 
and, after a fight of two hours, drove the enemy, who left on the field 150 
killed and 77 prisoners, besides 400 wounded, which were removed, The 
Federal loss was 17 killed and 60 wounded. Immediately after Cooper's 
defeat, 3000 Texans arrived under Cabell to re-enforce the enemy, but re- 
tired during the night without a battle. 

In August, 1863, the Confederate partisan ‘“‘Quantrell” made his notori- 
ous raid through Western Missouri into Kansas. With a force of 300 ban- 
dits, gathered together in Western Missouri, he crossed the Kansas border, 
and on the morning of August 22 entered Lawrence and commenced a sack 
of that town. ‘The citizens were murdered without discrimination. For a 
citizen to appear in the street with a defensive weapon of any sort, or to be 
a German or a negro, were deemed sufficient reasons why he should be shot. 
The finest dwellings and the public buildings were committed to the flames. 
The banks and stores were pillaged. Many private citizens, after surren- 
dering to these merciless fiends all their money, were killed. Eighteen re- 
eruits found without arms in their hands were cowardly butchered. J. H. 
Lane, a United States senator, was at Lawrence, but, with Colonel Deitzler 
and others, managed to escape. General Collamore, taking refuge in a well, 
was suffocated, and two men in an attempt to rescue him suffered a similar 
fate. By 10 o'clock A.M. 140 men had been killed and nearly 200 build- 
ings burned, when the savage monsters left the scene of their cruelties. As 


Avevst, 1863. ] THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. 591 


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LITTLE ROOK, 


99 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ AUGUST, 1863. 


they were leaving three of them were killed by the fire of some soldiers 
who had just reached the opposite bank of the Kansas River. The band 
was pursued by a small force of cavalry, but, with the loss of a few men, 
effected its escape. 

The day after this event, Colonel Woodson, with 600 men from Pilot 
Knob, captured at Pocahontas, Arkansas, General Jeff. Thompson and about 
50 of his men. 

At the close of July, 1868, General Steele was sent to Helena to organize 
an expedition for the capture of Little Rock, Arkansas. The force assigned 
to him for this purpose consisted of 6000 men, including 500 cavalry and 
22 guns. He was afterward re-enforced by General Davidson with nearly 
6000 more men, most of them mounted, and 18 guns. He advanced from 
Helena on the 10th of August, crossing the White River at Clarendon, 60 
miles east of Little Rock, on the 17th, with Davidson’s cavalry in the ad- 
vance. His sick at this time numbered about 1000. These were sent to 
Duvall’s Bluff, which was made the dépét of supplies. On the 25th David- 
son reached Brownsville, 25 miles distant from Little Rock, driving Mar- 
maduke before him to his intrenchments at Bayou Metea, from which he 
was dislodged and driven across the bayou. Meanwhile Steele had con- 
centrated his forees—re-enforced by General True’s brigade from Memphis 
—at Brownsville. Shut off from an advance north of Bayou Metea by the 
nature of the country, which, on account of swamps, was impracticable, he 
determined to advance to the Arkansas, and threaten with his cavalry the 
enemy’s communications southward. Davidson crossed the Arkansas to 
carry out this plan. Marmaduke, sent out by General Holmes to resist him, 
was completely routed. General Price, the Confederate commander in Ar- 
kansas, then evacuated Little Rock, which was occupied by Steele on the 
10th of September. Price, in some disorder and in great haste, fell back to 
Arkadelphia, eluding pursuit. Steele had started out on his campaign with 
12,000 men, and entered Little Rock with only 7000. Of this loss less than 
one fiftieth was caused in battle, the remainder arising from sickness. 

On the 4th of October we again hear from Quantrell, who, with 600 guer- 
rillas disguised in Federal uniform, attacks General Blunt on his way to Fort 
Smith (captured by a Union force a month previous) with an escort of about 
100 cavalry. General Blunt, with about 15 men, fortunately escaped. The 
remainder were captured, and then murdered in cold blood. 

Pine Bluff, fifty miles below Little Rock, on the south bank of the Ar- 
kansas, was occupied early in October by Colonel Clayton with 350 men of 
the Fifth Kansas Cavalry and four guns. Marmaduke advanced against 
this point on the 25th of October with 12 guns and a cavalry force of be- 
tween 2000 and 8000 men. In the mean time Clayton had been re-enforced 
by the First Indiana Cavalry and five guns. Marmaduke’s attack failed. 
His loss was 150 killed and wounded, and 33 captured. Clayton lost 17 
killed and 40 wounded. 

The Confederate General Shelby, of Cabell’s command, having failed in a 
series of unimportant attempts in Indian Territory, about this time under- 
took a raid into Missouri. Crossing the Arkansas between Fort Smith and 
Little Rock, he was joined in Southwestern Missouri by a force under Gen- 
eral Coffey, their combined command numbering possibly 2500 men. This 
expedition advanced as far north as Booneville, on the Missouri River, when 
it commenced to retreat, pursued by General E. B. Brown with a detach- 
ment of state militia. The enemy was brought to a stand near Arrow Rock 
on the 13th of October. Here there was an engagement which lasted five 
hours, resulting finally in the defeat of the Confederates, who, besides all 
their artillery and baggage, lost 800 men, killed, wounded, and prisoners. 
On the 18th of December General McNeil superseded General Blunt as 
commander of the Army of the Frontier. 

General Steele commenced his movement southward from Little Rock to 
co-operate with Banks’s advance to Shreveport on the 23d of March, 1864, 
or about the time of Franklin’s arrival at Alexandria. His army was 7000 
strong. General Thayer at the same time marched from Fort Smith with 
5000 men, intending to unite with Steele at Arkadelphia, while Colonel 
Clayton, with a small force, advanced from Pine Bluff on Steele’s left. 
Steele reached Arkadelphia on the 29th of March; but Thayer, owing to 
heavy rains and almost impracticable roads, was delayed, and after waiting 
for him two days, the main column continued its advance. The Confeder- 
ate cavalry under Shelby and Marmaduke had skirmished with its front all 
the way from the Sabine River, and farther down the Washita was a con- 
siderable force of infantry under General Price. Two days after Banks's 
defeat at Sabine Cross-roads this latter force was encountered at Prairie 
d’Anne, anda sharp fight, chiefly with artillery, followed. A charge of the 
enemy upon Steele’s artillery was repulsed, and Price fell back to Washing- 
ton, near the Upper Red River. From prisoners and spies, intelligence was 
now received of Banks’s defeat. This report turned Steele from his pursuit 
of Price eastward to Camden. The Confederates then became bolder, at- 
tacking on the 23d of April a train of 240 wagons, which had arrived from 
Pine Bluff three days before, and was then returning, guarded by one of 
General Salomon’s brigades. The attack was made 12 miles from Camden 
by Shelby’s cavalry, and was easily repulsed. The train proceeded six 
miles farther, and was then parked for the night. The road was bad, and 
much of the distance had to be corduroyed; thus, on the 24th, only 22 
miles had been made. The next morning, while crawling through a long 
swamp, the guard was again attacked at Marks’s Mills by General Fagan’s 
command, reported 6000 strong. The advance being cut off from the rear 
after a gallant resistance, which cost the Federals 250 killed and wounded 
—one fourth of the entire brigade—both columns surrendered, and the 
wagons were either captured or destroyed. According to custom, all ne- 
groes found in the command were shot after the surrender. 


- 


January, 1864. ] 


On the 28th of April Stecle abandoned Camden, crossed the Washita, 
and, continually skirmishing with the enemy’s cavalry, proceeded to the Sa- 
bine. By this retreat he had just escaped disaster. Kirby Smith, having 
thrust back General Banks, was now prepared to strike Steele. As it was, 
Smith assailed the rear of the retreating column as the latter was crossing 
the Sabine at Jenkins’s Ferry. A portion of the army was already across 
the river, and thus the brunt of the attack fell upon the two rear brigades 
until re-enforcements were brought up by General Rice. The enemy suc- 
ceeded finally in turning the left, but the line was restored, and by noon the 
attack was repulsed, and the army crossed the bridge. No artillery could 
be used on account of the nature of the ground. The Federal loss was 700 
killed and wounded. That of the enemy was estimated as over three times 
that number. 

With Fagan in his front menacing Little Rock, Steele’s position was one 
of great peril. His animals were starving, compelling the destruction of 
nearly all his wagons. The roads were next to impassable, and over these 
the exhausted and hungry troops dragged their guns. Notwithstanding 
these difficulties, Steele succeeded in reaching Little Rock on the 2d of May. 

By Steele’s reverses about two thirds of the state were recovered by the 
Confederates, whose cavalry and partisan rangers, avoiding the few Federal 
strong-holds, ravaged the country without molestation or resistance. This 
situation was full of discomforts to those who had previously, encouraged 
by the prospects of restoration, which had been so flattering at the time of 
the capture of Little Rock in the previous autumn, committed themselves to 
the Union cause. During the winter of 1863-4 measures had been taken to 
restore the state to the Union. A Constitutional Convention was assembled 
at Little Rock on the 8th of January, in which 42 out of 54 counties were 
represented. A new State Constitution was framed, in which slavery was 
forever prohibited. Dr. Isaac Murphy was inaugurated provisional govern- 
or on the 22d of January. In March the new Constitution was submitted 
to the people, and ratified by over 12,000 votes; and state officers, three 
members of Congress, and a Legislature were elected. In April the Legis- 
lature convened, and elected United States senators. But all these acts 
were in great measure annulled by the helplessness of Steele’s military 
force. In the autumn of 1864 a Confederate Legislature met at Washing- 
ton, in Southwestern Arkansas. A message was sent to it by the Confeder- 
ate Governor Hannigan, and A. P. Garland was elected to represent the 
state in the Confederate Senate at Richmond. 

The command of the entire trans- Mississippi military division was in 
1864 given to General Canby. The garrison at Matagorda had been with- 
drawn. After the Red River campaign, with the exception of Price’s raid 
into Missouri in the autumn, there was no military campaign of any import- 
ance undertaken before the close of the war in 1865. Although this raid 
overlaps the Atlantic campaign, this is the proper connection in which it 
should be placed before the reader. 


RS EEE, 


CHAPTER XL. 
PRICE'S MISSOURI RAID. 


Rosecrans assumes Command of the Department of the Missouri January 28, 1864.—Extent and 
Distribution of his Command.—The ‘‘ Paw-paw” Militia. —Feud between Radicals and Conserv- 
atives.—Secret Organizations in Northern Missouri.—Price advances northward in September. — 
Rosecrans is re-enforced by A. J. Smith’s Division.—Defense of St. Louis.—Price attacks Pilot 
Knob; Ewing retreats upon Rolla.—Rosccrans assumes the Offensive.—Pleasonton takes com- 
mand of the Cavalry.—Progress of Price westward, and Movements of the Federal Forces, — 
General Curtis is attacked at Marshall and driven.—A good Opportunity thrown away by the 
Federals.—Pleasonton’s Pursuit of Price.—Fight on the Big Blue.—Price is defeated, but es- 
capes Southward.—Fight with his Rear-guard on the Osage.—Criticism of the Campaign. 


ee: after having been superseded by Thomas as commander 
of the Department of the Cumberland, was, on the 28th of January, 
1864, assigned to the command of the Department of the Missouri. His 
force consisted of about 12,000 men, mainly composed of state militia, out 
of ten regiments of which all but one were mounted men. To this there 
were added four regiments of three-years’ volunteers, and a similar force of 
cavalry. ‘There was also in process of organization a regiment (the Second 
Missouri) of heavy artillery. This command was distributed through the 
state at the most important posts —at Springfield, Rolla, Pilot Knob, Cape 
Girardeau, Jefferson City, Sedalia, Macon City, and, north of the Missouri 
River, at St. Joseph. 

There was also a force of Missouri militia, 2800 in number, in the north- 
western part of the state, “‘ provisionally enrolled,” and armed by the state 
government. It was composed in great proportion of disloyal citizens, a 
large number of whom had returned home from Price’s army. Pledged to 
obey the laws of the state and of the general government, their especial 
business, as they understood it, was to take care of the peaceful sympathizers 
with rebellion, protecting them against the indignation of the Unionists. 
They were called the “ Paw-paw militia,” to identify them with “bush- 
whackers”—the paw-paw being the sort of fruit upon which this class of 
rebel sympathizers was supposed to subsist when it took to the bush. 

This Paw-paw militia was a great element of disturbance in Missouri. 
There was a feud at this time between the two classes of citizens in the state 
known respectively as Radicals, or Abolitionists, and Conservatives—the lat- 
ter class being generally understood to entertain a secret preference in favor 
of the Confederacy. It was confidently believed that the Paw-paws were, to- 
gether with the Conservatives, in league with General Price, and that they 
only waited his approach to throw aside their assumed disguise. The dis- 
guise, after all, seemed only partial, especially in the great slaveholding 

7L 


PRICE'S MISSOURI RAID. 593 


counties on the river, where the so-called Conservatives, evidently expecting 
a visit shortly from Price’s army, warned the Union citizens “that the Loy- 
alists had pretty nearly had their time, and that it would soon come to an 
end, and then the Disloyalists would have their time.” Carefully observing 
these indications, and finding that arms were plentifully coming into the 
northern part of the state, Rosecrans felt that the apprehensions of the Un- 
lonists were well grounded, and, determined to be on his guard, he in the 
mean time quietly investigated the situation. Of course Rosecrans succeed- 
ed in detecting the whole plot. If the Confederates had been leagued with 
the powers of darkness, Rosecrans’s spies would in some way have ferreted 
out their machinations; and even if the delicate business had required a trip 
to Hades, they would surely have accomplished it and reported to head- 
quarters ! 

Rosecrans soon found that the basis of the hopes of the Confederate sym- 
pathizers in Missouri was a secret society. The organization of this society 
took the shape of lodges, in Northern Missouri main! y- The leaders proved 
to be Confederates. There seemed to be no limit to the organization, which 
existed even in Union settlements, and extended to the backwoods. It was 
apparent that its designs were military in character as well as political. An 
intelligent physician was employed by Rosecrans, and sent into Northern 
Missouri with a roving commission. This man made his way into one of 
the lodges, and advanced in degree until finally he obtained a ritual from the 
grand commander of the state. A closer scrutiny detected an extension of 
the organization into Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois, and finally traced it 
to New York. In Missouri it was designated “The Order of American 
Knights,” or “Sons of Liberty.” The exiled Vallandigham was the su- 
preme commander in the North, and General Sterling Price in the South. 
Tt was found that about 23,000 men were sworn to join Price on his ap- 
pearance in Missouri. Under the auspices of this secret society, Vallandi- 
gham was to return to Ohio to attend the Democratic Convention at Chicago 
on the 4th of July. Simultaneously a rising was to occur in all the states 
in which the order existed, the existing officials were to be put out of the 
way, and the arsenals, forts, and public property were to be seized. A gen- 
eral Northern invasion was to be made at the same time by the Confeder- 
ates. 

In view of these developments, Rosecrans asked for an augmentation of 
his force in Missouri. General Hunt was sent by General Grant to that 
state on a tour of observation, and reported his belief that the inhabitants 
would behave themselves, that Rosecrans was too apprehensive, and that the 
force already in the department was larger than was needed. 

Rosecrans went on with his investigation, and having accumulated 1000 
pages of testimony, wrote a note to General Garfield at Washington, asking 
the latter to state to President Lincoln that he had this testimony, and ob- 
tain permission for him to send on a staff officer to lay the whole matter 
before the President. President Lincoln requested Rosecrans to send his 
depositions by mail or express. Rosecrans replied that that would not be 
safe. The President then sent one of his private secretaries, Major Hay, to 
Missouri. He read the testimony, and reported to the President. No espe- 
cial notice at this time seems to have been taken of the affair at Washington. 

In the mean time, it was boldly proposed in one of the lodges of the Or- 
der of American Knights to commence the assassination of Union officers in 
St. Louis, “beginning with the provost-marshal, and then wind up with a 
grab at department headquarters.” This startling proposition was laid over 
to the next meeting. Rosecrans immediately arrested the state commander 
of the society—the Belgian consul at St. Louis—the deputy commander, 
grand secretary, lecturer, and thirty or forty leading members, and commit- 
ted them to prison. A dispatch was soon received from the War Depart- 
ment ordering the release of the Belgian consul. Rosecrans refused to com- 
ply with the order, knowing that it would not have been given if the gov- 
ernment had been acquainted with all the facts of the case. A full repre- 
sentation of the matter having been laid before the President upon the return 
of Major Hay, the order of release was countermanded. Rosecrans was so 
impressed with the necessity of his action that he would have sooner re- 
signed his command than have released the consul. 

The Democratic Convention at Chicago was postponed, but the Confed- 
erate schemes in Missouri were so fully matured that they could not be thus 
postponed. The hostile flag was hoisted in Platte County on the 7th of 
July, and these peculiar exemplars of American knighthood commenced 
their operations. ‘‘ From that time,” says Rosecrans, “ until after the expl- 
ration of the invasion and the expulsion of Price, there was nothing but 
murder and rapine wherever they could operate.” 

After the Fort Pillow massacre, the four regiments of three-years’ volun- 


*“ Having about a thousand pages of testimony, obtained in the way I have just mentioned, I 
wrote a note to General Garfield, in Washington, requesting him to state to the President that I 
had this, and to say that, as the time for the dénouement was approaching rapidly, and that as 
the thing was not in a sufficiently perfect state to take action on without submitting it to him, 
more particularly as it concerned not only my own department, but the whole West of the nation, 
I wished permission from him to send a staff officer, who understood the subject, with the frag- 
ments of the testimony we had collected, to lay the whole matter before him, and answer such 
questions as the President desired to put; that I made this request, not because I doubted my 
right to send a staff officer to Washington, but because, when I had before sent a staff officer on 
a similar occasion, on a business of importance, he had been arrested by the Secretary of War, and 
I did not wish to subject another officer unnecessarily to the same indignity.”— Testimony before 
the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Rosecrans’s Campaign, p.52. 

In regard to the arrest by the Secretary of War of one of his staff officers, General Rosecrans 
testified : ‘‘ He [the secretary] arrested my senior aid, who brought letters to General Halleck and 
General Grant respecting the condition of Missouri, and the measures which I thought immedi- 
ately necessary there to be of advantage to the government and to the state. He was arrested on 
the pretense that he had no permission to come here, under an old order that no officer should 
visit Washington without permission from the Secretary of War. Major Bond returned home un- 
der arrest; and, considering that the shortest way to get rid of his arrest would be to have him 
tried, I ordered his trial by a court composed of the highest officers in Missouri, Major Gencra} 
Pleasonton being president. ‘That court unanimously and honorably acquitted him.”—P, 54, 
tbidem. 


[| SEPTEMBER, 1864. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


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PRICE’S MISSOURI RAID. 


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—— 
REFUGEES FROM NORTHERN MISSOURI ENTERING ST. LOUIS, 


teers which Rosecrans had at St. Louis were withdrawn from his department, 
as was also most of his three-years’ cavalry. To supply their place, eleven 
regiments of twelve-months’ volunteers were raised during the summer. 
Price’s movement did not commence as early as Rosecrans had been led to 
anticipate. Perhaps he was deceived as to the extent and intimacy of the 
correspondence between the Confederate military leaders and the “Sons of 
Liberty ;” but as to the existence of some connection between them, or as to 
its intent, there could be no doubt. The first sign of the invasion appeared 
in Arkansas early in September, 1864. On the 8d Washburn warned Rose- 
erans that a junction was about to be formed of Shelby’s cavalry at Bates- 
ville with Price’s army for the invasion of Missouri. At this time A. J. 
Smith’s command was passing Cairo on its way to Sherman’s army in North- 
ern Georgia. At Rosecrans’s request, this division was halted by order of 
General Halleck, and sent to St. Louis. It was decided to await Price’s 
movements instead of advancing against him before he should cross the 
border. 

Price by the 23d of September had crossed the Arkansas River, and was 
reported to be near Batesville with two divisions of mounted men, three bat- 


teries, and a large wagon train; his force probably numbered 15,000 men, 
He entered the southeastern portion of Missouri, and advanced northward 
toward Rolla, with a detachment thrown out toward Pilot Knob. General 
Ewing was now ordered to concentrate the troops of his district at Pilot 
Knob and Cape Girardeau, and two of Smith’s brigades were pushed out to- 
ward the front so far as seemed consistent with the safety of St. Louis. St. 
Louis must be protected at all hazards, being the great dépét of supplies for 
the trans-Mississippi armies. This city has three approaches by railroad 
south of the Missouri River: one from the east, via Independence and Jef- 
ferson City; another, that against which Price was marching, from the south- 
west, via Rolla; and a third from Memphis, via Pilot Knob. It was import- 
ant to maintain Springfield, Rolla, Jefferson City, and Pilot Knob if possible, 
but the capture of either of these positions by the enemy must be suffered 
rather than that, by a general engagement at any of these points, the safety 
of St. Louis should be endangered. The Federal General Mower’s division 
was daily expected from Arkansas, but, until the arrival of this re-enforce- 
ment, it was evident that Price had a free course open to him through the 
state. 


596 


A portion of Price’s army on the 27th of September attacked Pilot Knob, 
which was held by one brigade under General Ewing. The fortifications at 
this post were rude, but sufficiently strong to enable the garrison of 1200 
men to maintain an obstinate and successful stand against several times that 
number. But the enemy gained commanding positions, which would have 
finally compelled the surrender of the post. Therefore, during the night, 
Ewing, having blown up his magazines and spiked his heavy guns, retreated 
toward Rolla. In the repulse at Pilot Knob the enemy lost over 1000 men 
(Ewing says 1500), while the Federal loss was less than 100. Price had al- 
ready a column at Potosi, little more than twenty miles north of Pilot Knob, 
thus compelling Ewing to retreat in the direction of Rolla, and apparently 
threatening St. Louis. 

Perhaps it was on account of the lesson which he had learned at Pilot 
Knob that Price did not make an attempt to capture St.Louis. Certainly 
he did not continue his advance in that direction, but turned westward, and 
moved on Jefferson City. Ewing retreated rapidly to Webster, and there 
veered northward, and struck the railroad to Springfield at Harrison, having 
marched about sixty-six miles in thirty-nine hours, pursued by Shelby’s cav- 
alry. The latter made an attack at this point, but Ewing held his ground 
for thirty hours, until re-enforced by a detachment of Sanborn’s cavalry, 
sent from Rolla to his assistance. The apparent helplessness of Rosecrans 
encouraged the “conservative” guerrillas in Northern Missouri, who now 
grew bolder in their work of murder and plunder.? 

It was at first hard to tell whether Price would strike for St.Louis, or for 
Jefferson City, or for Rolla. His delay to strike a decisive blow enabled 
Rosecrans to accumulate a force large enough for offensive operations. Five 
regiments of 100-days’ men were brought from Illinois before the 1st of 
October, and were placed in the fortifications of St. Louis, relieving General 
Smith’s command. A cavalry force had been raised of about 1500 men. 
Out of the East Missouri militia about 5000 men were organized into an ef- 
fective division under General Pike. Besides these, under the direction of 
the mayor of St.Louis, about 5000 citizen soldiers volunteered for the de- 
fense of the city. A. J.Smith’s command numbered 4500 men. General 
Mower’s veteran division, 5000 strong, arrived at Cape Girardeau on the 5th 
of October. Adding to these the detachments at Rolla and Jefferson City, 
with Ewing’s force, Rosecrans must, during the first week of October, have 
had a veteran army full 20,000 strong, besides over 12,000 citizen soldiers. 

In the mean time the enemy, moving by Potosi, had advanced across the 
Meramee to Richwood, only 40 miles distant from St.Louis. Between this 
force and the city was A. J. Smith’s command and 1500 cavalry. Demon- 
strating against Smith with a portion of his army, Price, on the 1st of Octo- 
ber, after burning the railroad bridge across the Meramee at Moselle, turned 
toward Jefferson City, having crossed the Gasconade and the Osage by the 
6th, burning Herman and the railroad bridge on his way. On the 7th he 
appeared before Jefferson City, garrisoned by troops from Rolla under San- 
born and McNeil, and fortified by hastily-constructed intrenchments. The 
garrison consisted of about 7000 men, nearly three fifths of whom was cav- 
alry. Price drew up his forces, forming a line ot battle three or four miles 
long about the city, but did not venture to assault; for, in addition to the 
intrenched force in his front, Smith, and Mower, and Winslow’s cavalry 
were rapidly following, and would soon be upon his rear. Waiting only for 
his train to get a fair start, he resumed his march westward. On the 8th 
the Federal General Pleasonton, who had distinguished himself as a cavalry 
leader in Virginia, arrived at Jefferson City and assumed command. He 
dispatched Sanborn’s cavalry with instructions to harass and delay the ene- 
my until Mower and Smith could join the forces then in the capital. San- 
born advanced, and, in accordance with these orders, attacked Price’s rear- 


1 «Rebel agents, amnesty oath-takers, recruits, ‘sympathizers,’ O. A. K.’s, and traitors of every 
hue and stripe, had warmed into life at the approach of the great invasion. Women’s fingers 
were busy making clothes for rebel soldiers out of goods plundered by the guerrillas; women’s 
tongues were busy telling Union neighbors ‘ their time was now coming.’ General Fisk, with all his 
force, had been scouring the bush for weeks in the river counties in pursuit of hostile bands, com- 
posed largely of recruits from among that class of the inhabitants who claim protection, yet decline 
to perform the full duties of citizens, on the ground that they ‘ never tuck no sides.’ A few facts 
will convey some idea of this warfare, carried on by Confederate agents here, while the agents 
abroad of their bloody and hypocritical despotism—Mason, Slidell, and Mann in Europe—have 
the effrontery to tell the nations of Christendom our government ‘carries on the war with increas- 
ing ferocity, regardless of the laws of civilized warfare.’ These gangs of rebels, whose families had 
been living in peace among their loyal neighbors, committed the most cold-blooded and diabolical 
murders, such as riding up to a farm-house, asking for water, and, while receiving it, shooting 
down the giver, an aged, inoffensive farmer, because he was a radical ‘Union man.’ In the single 
sub-district of Mexico the commanding officer furnished a list of near 100 Union men who, in the 
course of six weeks, had been killed, maimed, or ‘run off’ because they were ‘radical Union men’ 
or d—d Abolitionists. About the 1st of September Anderson’s gang attacked a railroad train on 
the North Missouri, took from it twenty-two unarmed soldiers—many of them were on sick-leave 
—and, after robbing, placed them in a row and shot them in cold blood; some of the bodies they 
scalped, and put others across the track and ran the engine over them. On the 27th, this gang, 
with numbers swollen to 300 or 400 men, attacked Major Johnson, with about 120 men of the 
Thirty-ninth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, raw recruits, and, after stampeding their horses, shot 
every man, most of them in cold blood. Anderson, a few days later, was recognized by General 
Price at Booneville as a Confederate captain, and, with a verbal admonition to behave himself, or- 
dered by Colonel Maclane, chief of Price’s staff, to proceed to North Missouri and destroy the rail- 
roads, which orders were found on the miscreant when killed by Lieutenant Colonel Cox, about 
the 27th of October.”—Rosecrans’s Report. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1864. 


guard at Versailles, and found that the enemy was moving to Booneville, 
on the Missouri. Pushing his attack with vigor, he compelled the enemy 
to form in line of battle; but soon finding that if he remained he would 
probably be surrounded, Sanborn fell back a few miles to California, where 
he was joined by Colonel Catherwood with A.J.Smith’s cavalry on the 
14th. Smith’s infantry in the mean time reached Jefferson City, followed 
on the 16th by Winslow’s cavalry, and on the 17th by nearly all of Mower’s 
division. 

By this time Price had reached Marshall, 25 miles west of Booneville. 
A detachment of cavalry under Shelby had crossed the Missouri at Arrow 
Rock, about midway between the two places last mentioned, and, moving up 
the river to Glasgow, which he took after a fight of seven hours, captured 
a part of Colonel Harding’s regiment—the Forty-third Missouri—with small 
detachments of the Ninth Missouri militia and Seventeenth Illinois Cavalry. 
The Federal forces were fast closing in upon the enemy’s rear, and more 
vigorous movement on their part ought to have resulted in an important 
and decisive victory. Smith and Mower had reached the Lamine River, 
and on the 18th and 19th the former advanced westward to Dunksburg, 
while still farther to the left General Pleasonton, now in command of the 
entire cavalry force, extended to Warrensburg. 

Price leisurely proceeded to Lexington, 40 miles west of Marshall, where 
on the 19th he attacked General Curtis, who, after a slight skirmish, retreat- 
ed to Independence. The enemy pursued to the Little Blue, where he 
struck General Blunt’s Kansas division with such force that the retreat was 
continued to the Big Blue. When Rosecrans learned that the enemy was 
at Lexington, he ordered Pleasonton, who was demonstrating toward Wav- 
erly, to push on to Lexington, and Smith to follow. Of course the enemy 
had left before their arrival. Supposing that Price would be unable to 
cross the Big Blue in the face of Curtis’s force, and would therefore move 
southward, Rosecrans ordered Pleasonton to harass the enemy’s rear with 
MeNeil’s brigade, moving the remainder of his command to Lone Jack, to 
which point Smith was hurrying, having returned from his mistaken chase 
after the enemy. This order was unfortunately conditional ; and Pleason- 
ton, instead of complying with it, supposing that the enemy would continue 
his flight westward, kept on in pursuit, crossing Little Blue on the 22d, and, 
driving Price’s rear-guard to Independence, made a charge at nightfall, cap- 
turing the place and taking two guns. Dispatching McNeil’s brigade to 
Santa Fé to intercept the enemy, he telegraphed to Rosecrans requesting 
him to send Smith to Lexington. Rosecrans reluctantly complied with his 
request. On the morning of the 23d Pleasonton moved against the enemy 
at the crossing of the Big Blue, where a general engagement was fought, 
beginning at 7 A.M., and lasting until 1 P.M., when Shelby, finding that 
Marmaduke and Fagan were giving way, turned on Pleasonton, and for a 
moment shook Sanborn’s brigade; but the skillful use of artillery and a gal- 
lant charge of the cavalry decided the fortunes of the day against the ene- 
my, who now retired, pursued by Pleasonton and Curtis. Smith, reaching 
Independence at 5 P.M., was ordered to move by a forced march that night 
to Hickman’s Mill, to strike the enemy in flank while passing that point. 
“Had he been ordered,” reports Rosecrans, “and marched for that point in- 
stead of Independence the day before, General Smith would have arrived in 
time to strike the enemy’s compact column and train with 9000 infantry and 
five batteries; but it was too late. He did not reach the mill until long aft- 
er not only the enemy’s, but our own columns had passed there.” 

Pleasonton continued the pursuit, the infantry following as rapidly as 
possible for support. On the banks of the Osage Price’s rear-guard, com- 
posed of Marmaduke’s cavalry, was overtaken, after a chase of 60 miles, 
on the 25th. Pleasonton here, by a furious charge, routed this Confederate 
foree, capturing eight guns, several wagons, and nearly 1000 prisoners, in- 
cluding Generals Marmaduke and Cabell. 

This campaign had lasted 48 days. Rosecrans reports his loss as 174 
killed, 836 wounded, and 171 prisoners. Price had lost 1958 prisoners and 
10 guns, and had succeeded in none of the objects for which his expedition 
had been undertaken. Missouri remained henceforth undisturbed by the 
enemy, and Price’s invasion was the last important event of the war west 
of the Mississippi River. 

Strategically the campaign on Rosecrans’s part was not managed with that 
vigor and comprehension which we should have expected. But it was so 
ably conducted that, while the enemy was not made to suffer the full extent 
of punishment to which his audacity exposed him, he did not, on the other 
hand, inflict any material damage upon the Federal cause.? 


1 General Grant says of this campaign : 

‘The impunity with which Price was enabled to roam over the State of Missouri for a long time, 
and the incalculable mischief done by him, shows to how little purpose a superior force may be used. 
‘There is no reason why General Rosecrans should not have concentrated his forces, and beaten and 
driven Price before the latter reached Pilot Knob.” 

In view of all the circumstances of the case, and especially considering the domestic difficulties 
which Rosecrans encountered in Missouri, this criticism, notwithstanding its high military authori- 
ty, does not seem to us to be quite fairly sustained by facts. 


May, 1864. ] 


THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 


CHAPTER XLI. 
THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 


The general Military Situation at the opening of the Spring Campaign of 1864.—Richmond and 
Atlanta, held by the Armies of Lee and Johnston, were the Helmet and Shield of the Confeder- 
acy.—The Progress of the National Arms thus far had been in the West.—Importance of the 
Victories of Vicksburg and Chattanooga.—The Exhaustion of the Confederate Strength forbids 
offensive Operations on a large Scale by the Confederate Armies.—Comparison of the Operations 
during the Last Stage of the War to those of a Siege.—President Davis’s Conduct of his West- 
ern Army.—Lack of Unity in Military Operations had been a great Fault on both Sides.—U. S. 
Grant is made Lieutenant General of the Armies of the United States.—He is ordered to Wash- 
ington to receive his Commission.—His Letter to General Sherman, and Sherman’s Reply.— 
General Sherman succeeds to Grant’s former Command, and General J. B. McPherson to Sher- 
man’s.—Sherman goes to Nashville, and accompanies Grant thence to Cincinnati.—Lieutenant 
General Grant’s Theory of prospective Operations. —Sherman’s Tour of Observation. —Compo- 
sition of his Army.—His Preparations for the Atlanta Campaign.—He orders the People of Ten- 
nessee to supply their own Rations.—He is ready for movement May 6th.—Review of General 
Thomas’s Operations during the Winter.—Difficult Task assigned to General Johnston, com- 
manding the Confederate Army,—His Correspondence with Bragg.—Can have no Re-enforce- 
ments for a Defensive Campaign.—While Johnston and Bragg discuss, Sherman moves against 
Dalton.—McPherson’s Movement through Snake Creek Gap, threatening Resaca.—His Attack 
is delayed, and Hood is sent to Resaca.—Sherman moves his entire Army against Resaca.— 
Johnston evacuates Dalton.—The Battles of May 14th and 15th.—Johnston, again flanked, 
abandons Resaca, and, crossing the Oostenaula, retreats to Cassville. —Jeff. C. Davis’s Division oc- 
cupies Rome, Sherman’s forces, in the mean time, advancing against Cassville.—Johnston con- 
sults with his Corps Commanders; Hardee advises Battle, Hood and Polk a Retreat.—Johnston, 
May 20th, crosses the Etowah.—Sherman follows May 23d, and, avoiding Allatoona, moves to the 
right against Dallas.—He finds the Enemy in his front, May 25th, at New Hope Church.—The 
Battle of New Hope Church.—Sherman develops toward the Left.—Battles of May 27th and 
28th.—Sherman, continuing the Movement to the Left, secures the Railroad at Ackworth, June 
6th, fortifies Allatoona as a secondary Base, and is re-enforced by Blair’s Corps and Long’s Cay- 
alry.—Johnston also shifts his Position, and occupies Kenesaw in Sherman’s Front.—Sherman 
hears of Morgan’s Defeat in Kentucky, and of Forrest’s Victory over Sturgis in Mississippi.— 
Lieutenant General Polk is killed June 14, and Pine and Lost Mountains are abandoned by the 


7M 


GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, RETIRED NOVEMBER 1, 1883. 


Enemy.—The new Confederate Line around Kenesaw.—“ Villainously bad” Weather delays 
Sherman,—Hooker is attacked by Hood and repulsed, June 22, near the Kulp House. —Sher- 
man assaults the Confederate Position at Kenesaw, June 27, without success.—He extends his 
Right toward Marietta, and on July 2 threatens Turner’s Ferry on the Chattahoochee.—The next 
Day Johnston abandons Kenesaw.—Sherman is foiled in the Attempt to strike the Enemy while 
crossing the Chattahoochee.—He secures three Crossings above Johnston’s Téte de Pont, and de- 
stroys the Rosswell Factories.—Johnston crosses on the night of July 9th, and takes Position 
on Peach-tree Creek.—The Situation at this Stage of the Campaign.—Rousseau’s Raid on the 
West Point Railroad.—Sherman crosses the Chattahoochee July 17th.—The same day Johnston 
is removed from command and succeeded by Hood.—The Battle of Peach-tree Creek, July 20. 
—The Battle of the 22d.—General McPherson’s Death.—Stoneman’s and McCook’s Raids.— 
Sherman gives Howard command of the Army and Department of the Tennessee, and transfers 
that Army to the west of Atlanta.—Hooker’s Resignation.—The Battle of July 28th,—Sher- 
man extends his Lines toward East Point.—His Objective the Macon Railroad.—Hood sends 
Wheeler North.—Kilpatrick’s Raid.—The Siege abandoned, August 25th; the Twentieth Corps 
guards the Chattahoochee Bridge, and the rest of Sherman’s Army moves against Jonesborough 
and the Macon Road.—The Battles of Jonesborough, August 31st and September Ist.—Hood 
evacuates Atlanta on the morning of September 2d.—General Sherman occupies the City, and 
orders the Inhabitants to Leave.—The Exodus,—Correspondence between Generals Sherman 
and Hood. 


1B the four last chapters we have passed round the skirts of that central 
field in which, during the summer and autumn of 1864, the fate of the 
attempted Southern Confederacy was decided. From the eastern coast of 
Florida to the Missouri River our survey has ranged—embracing within its 
scope the brief Florida campaign of General Seymour, begun February 6th, 
1864, and terminating on the 20th in the disastrous battle of Olustee; Gen- 
eral Sherman’s successful expedition to Meridian, February 3-26, 1864; 
General Banks’s operations against the coast of Texas, September 5th, 1863- 
January 12th, 1864; the ill-advised and mismanaged Red River expedition 
in the spring of 1864; the military operations in Arkansas, January 8, 1868 
—May 2,1864; and Rosecrans’s campaign against Price in September and 


598 


October, 1864. From a chronological stand-point this survey ought perhaps 
to have included the siege of Charleston in the summer of 1868, and the 
operations of Admiral Farragut against the forts in Mobile Bay, August, 
1864. We have determined otherwise, and shall treat of these operations 
in other connections—those against Mobile as a preliminary part of the cam- 
paign which finally resulted in the capture of that city, and the siege of 
Charleston in connection with Sherman’s march from Atlanta to Goldsbor- 
ough. 

We turn, therefore, immediately to the consideration of Sherman’s cam 
paign against Johnston, terminating, after four months of strategical ma- 
nceuvring, in the capture of Atlanta. 

The spring of 1864 opened a new era for the armies of the Union. The 
war against the rebellion had now been going on for three years. Secretary 
Seward’s prophetic period had already been multiplied by twelve, and still 
two great armies protected the Confederacy—covering Richmond, its head, 
and Atlanta, its heart. The helmet of the rebellion was Lee’s Army of 
Northern Virginia; the shield before its heart was Johnston’s Army of the 
Tennessee. ‘To crush the one or pierce the other would be a death-blow. 
Thus far the Army of Northern Virginia had protected Richmond against 
the successive approaches of McDowell, McClellan, Burnside, and Hooker, 
and, after the repulse of the last, had boldly reversed the order of move- 
ment and invaded Pennsylvania, almost touching the Susquehanna in its 
northward march. This audacity had met its rebuke at Gettysburg, but 
Lee’s army had resumed the defensive and still defied attack. Whatever 
progress had been made by the national arms had been in the West. The 
possession of the Mississippi had severed the western from the eastern half 
of the Confederacy. West of that river Kirby Smith’s armies were secure 
from attack, not so much by their own strength as by the wastes of Texas 
—a sort of American Russia—from which, while they could safely whisper 
“ Moscow” to any invader, they could not advance north of the Arkansas 
without disaster. Between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian 
range of mountains the waves of conflict had fluctuated, swaying northward 
and southward under the varying conditions of the war. President Davis 
was partial to an aggressive system of warfare. At an earlier period the 
invasion of the Northwestern States with a large army was practicable, and 
disorganized the plans of the Federal generals for pushing the war south- 
ward. Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky was the last of these attempts which 
assumed formidable proportions. Its only success had been in the delay 
which it occasioned in the progress of the Union army. ‘The secure posses- 
sion of Chattanooga at the close of 1863 stayed this tendency of the war to 
fluctuate northward. After that the Confederate invasions were undertaken 
only with cavalry; flying tempests they were, sometimes violent in their 
ravages, but the work which they accomplished was of little military 1m- 
portance. These petty storms were soon past, and their wreck obliterated. 
It is true that, even after the capture of Nashville, Hood’s army advanced 
northward to Nashville, but it was a desperate resort, and, as we shall soon 
see, illustrated at the same time its danger and its folly. But, beaten back 
to the mountains of Northern Georgia, the Army of the Tennessee still pre- 
sented a bold front, covering the central and vital portion of the Confedera- 
_ey. From Richmond to Atlanta, and on the coast from Wilmington to Mo- 
bile, the outside barriers of the Confederacy stood.t But let this outward 
shell be broken, even at a single strong point, and the whole structure must 
crumble into ruin. For the three past years had nearly exhausted the in- 
ternal resources of the rebellion. Nearly all the strength and wealth sus- 
taining it had been drawn to the surface. Very few able-bodied men were 


1 The following extract from Lieutenant General Grant’s Official Report shows very clearly the 
relative situation of the Confederate and Federal forces in May, 1864: 

“* At the date when this report begins the situation of the contending forces was about as fol- 
lows: ‘Che Mississippi River was strongly garrisoned by Federal troops from St. Louis, Missouri, 
to its mouth. The line of the Arkansas was also held, thus giving us armed possession of all west 
of the Mississippi north of that stream. A few points in Southern Louisiana, not remote from the 
river, were held by us, together with a small garrison at and near the mouth of the Rio Grande. 
All the balance of the vast territory of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas was in the almost undisput- 
ed possession of the enemy, with an army of probably not less than 80,000 effective men, that could 
have been brought into the field had there been sufficient opposition to have brought them out. 
The let-alone policy had demoralized this force so that probably but little more than one half of it 
was ever present in garrison at any one time. But the one half, or 40,000 men, with the bands of 
guerrillas scattered through Missouri, Arkansas, and along the Mississippi River, and the disloyal 
character of much of the population, compelled the use of a large number of troops to keep naviga- 
tion open on the river and to protect the loyal people to the west of it. To the east of the Missis- 
sippi we held substantially with the line of the Tennessee and Holston Rivers, running eastward to 
include nearly all of the State of Tennessee. South of Chattanooga a small foothold had been ob- 
tained in Georgia, sufficient to protect East Tennessee from incursions from the enemy’s force at 
Dalton, Georgia. West Virginia was substantially within our lines. Virginia, with the exception 
of the northern border, the Potomac River, a small area about the mouth of James River, covered by 
the troops at Norfolk and Fortress Monroe, and the territory covered by the Army of the Potomac 
lying along the Rapidan, was in the possession of the enemy, Along the sea-coast footholds had 
been obtained at Plymouth, Washington, and Newbern, in North Carolina; Beaufort, Folly and 
Morris Islands, Hilton Head, Fort Pulaski, and Port Royal, in South Carolina; Fernandina and 
St. Augustine, in Florida. Key West and Pensacola were also in our possession, while all the im- 
portant ports were blockaded by the navy. ‘The accompanying map, a copy of which was sent to 
General Sherman and other commanders in March, 1864, shows, by red lines, the territory oceu- 
pied by us at the beginning of the rebellion and at the opening of the campaign of 1864, while those 
in blue are the lines which it was proposed to occupy. 

‘¢ Behind the Union lines there were many bands of guerrillas and a large population disloyal to 
the government, making it necessary to guard every foot of road or river used in supplying our ar- 
mies. In the South a reign of military despotism prevailed, which made every man and boy capa- 
ble of bearing arms a soldier, and those who could not bear arms in the field acted as provosts for 
collecting deserters and returning them. This enabled the enemy to bring almost his entire 
strength into the field. 

“‘The enemy had concentrated the bulk of his forces east of the Mississippi into two armies, 
commanded by Generals R. E. Lee and J. E. Johnston, his ablest and best generals. The army 
commanded by Lee occupied the south bank of the Rapidan, extending from Mine Run westward, 
strongly intrenched, covering and defending Richmond, the rebel capital, against the Army of the 
Potomac. The army under Johnston occupied a strongly intrenched position at Dalton, Georgia, 
covering and defending Atlanta, Georgia, a place of great importance as a railroad centre, against 
the armies under Major General W. T. Sherman. In addition to these armies, he had a large cay- 
alry force, under Forrest, in Northeast Mississippi; a considerable force of all arms in the Shenan- 
doah Valley, and in the western part of Virginia and extreme eastern part of Tennessee, and also 
confronting our sea-coast garrisons, and holding blockaded ports where.we had no foothold upon 
land. 

‘These two armies, and the cities covered and defended by them, wére the main objective points 
of the campaign.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1864. 


left at home; there was no reserved force upon which to draw, in any event. 
Money no longer remained a standard for the valuation of property. Gar- 
dens were now the Southern treasury; those who shared the possession of 
these, who were producers of any thing which sustained life, were rich to 
the extent of their producing power, and all others lived upon them—the sol- 
diers by a legitimate claim, and non-combatants by the claim of necessity. 
The theory of the war from this time was strictly that ot a siege; it had 
been that from the beginning, but not by so strict a construction of the term. 
To the garrison one problem was presented, What would be the best dispo- 
sition of its forces for defense? Offensive operations on the part of the Con- 
federate armies were henceforth unwise: in the first place, they could result 
in no material advantage, and, in the second, they involved a too rapid and 
extensive waste of force. LEarly’s Shenandoah campaign, and Hood’s ad- 
vance to Nashville, will furnish illustrations of the folly of offensive opera- 
tions in these later stages of the war. They were like sallies from a be- 
sieged fort, made by a force necessary to the defense of the fort, and at the 
same time insufficient to raise the siege. Certainly—whatever may have 
been the final result—the contest would have been prolonged if, on the part 
of the Confederates, a wise policy, one purely defensive, had been adopted 
from the commencement of the Atlanta campaign. ‘The Confederate execu- 
tive does not seem to have appreciated the full importance of the situation 
which was now presented. No measures were taken to secure unity of op- 
eration. TT'o no single mind was given the control of military movements. 
President Davis conducted the Western campaigns, as he had done for the 
year past, after a very whimsical manner. By the pressure of popular opin- 
ion he had been compelled to give General Johnston command of the Army 
of the Tennessee, but he gave him little support, and at the first opportunity 
relieved him of the command. Not until it was too late was the general 
control of all the armies given to General Lee. 

But, while the Confederate government conducted the war upon its for- 
mer method, adhesion to the theories of the past was no longer suffered on 
the part of the general government. It is not necessary, nor would it be 
altogether just, to criticise with a great degree of harshness the Federal con- 
duct of the war during these three years now concluded. The United 
States was not at all eminent as a military nation at the commencement of 
the war. The graduates of the Military Academy at West Point had not 
been trained in the face of war, as are European students. Besides, the 
study of the campaigns on the Continent of Europe during the last century, 
while it might have prevented very many blunders which were actually 
committed on both sides, would, in many important respects, have been in- 
applicable, on account of the peculiar topographical features of the cam- 
paigns of our civil war, and the extended area over which they were con 
ducted. For two years, at the least, the war thus became a series of costly 
experiments. Then came the winnowing of our generals, and much of the 
chaff was blown away, though not all. A few military leaders had exhib- 
ited characteristics which entitled them to the more prominent positions in 
the army. Pre-eminent above all others was General Grant, who had not 
only been most successful, but had shown rare knowledge of men, remarka- 
ble common sense, and a persistence of purpose which was unconquerable. 
Gradually his sphere of control had been extended, until in 1864 he com- 
manded all the armies in the West except that of the Gulf.’ But still the 
general disposition of all the armies was subject to General Halleck at 
Washington. Now, without criticising Halleck’s generalship, it is clear that 
there were several reasons why it was impossible for any officer in his posi- 
tion—whatever his military capacity—to wisely control all the military 
movements in so extensive a conflict. In the first place, his management 
must be simply theoretical. For Halleck had no large practical experience 
in war. In the Mexican War, for some successful skirmishing with the ene- 
my he had been breveted captain. He had graduated at West Point the 
third in his class, and for a year was an assistant professor of engineering at 
the Academy. He had published some important military works. In this 
Civil War he had not fought a single battle, and the only march he had 
made was that of his Western Army to the evacuated fortifications at Cor- 
inth. Without practical experience, he must resort to theory; and frequent- 
ly his theories were based upon insufficient premises. In the second place, 
his distance from the actual fields of conflict, and his subseqent ignorance of 
the circumstances which must regulate the military operations of his subor- 
dinates, led him either to make great mistakes in cases where he gave posi- 
tive and peremptory orders, or to fall into the exactly opposite error of let- 
ting campaigns manage themselves in such a manner that no one could be 
strictly and fully responsible for their being undertaken or for their results. 
He assumed too much when he exercised positive and responsible control ; 
and in cases where he was negative, and left every thing to the discretion of 
his subordinates, as in the case of the Red River expedition, there was no 
unity of action, and no absolute control by any one. ‘The only exception 
to this military anarchy was in General Grant’s command, simply because 
to him was surrendered the most complete control of the armies in his vast 
department. Here was a partial solution of the difficulty. Why not make 
an entire solution by giving to General Grant control of all the armies of 
the United States under the President? The voice of the people was loud 
and universal in favor of this; and the Thirty-eighth Congress, before the 
close of its first session, revived, for this purpose, the grade of lieutenant 
general. On the 2d of March, Grant, having been assigned to this grade 


1 Sherman suggested to Grant (January 4, 1864), in connection with the Red River expedition, that 
he ought to have the entire command of the Mississippi Valley. In a letter of that date, he says: 
“There is no doubt the whole matter would be simplified if you had command of the Mississippi 
Valley below Cairo. I think, if you were to name the subject to General Halleck, that he would or- 
der it, for its propriety is better known to him than to any other, Admiral Porter’s command ex- 
tends to and below New Orleans, and ours should also.” ; 


i 


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by the President, was confirmed by the Senate in executive session. Two 
days after, General Grant, then in Nashville, was ordered to report in person 
at Washington. This order was to him an assurance of his confirmation ; 
and his first feeling upon receiving it seems to have been one of generous 
gratitude to his faithful subordinates who had so ably seconded the enter- 
prise for which he was now to receive the highest reward which it was in 
the power of the people and the government to bestow." 

General Washington alone had previously been honored with the full ti- 
tle conferred upon General Grant. In 1798 our relations with France 
threatened war, and at this crisis Washington was made lieutenant general. 
In another year, if he had lived, he would have been made full general. 
After General Scott’s unsuccessful campaign for the Presidency, the grade 
of lieutenant general by brevet was conferred upon him. The latter, by the 
provisions of the bill promoting General Grant to the full grade, was still to 
retain his “rank, pay, and allowances.” 

At one o'clock on the afternoon of the 9th of March, General Grant was 
received by the President in the cabinet chamber at Washington, and re- 
ceived his commission. There was no pomp, no gathering of the populace, 
no splendid celebration of the honor conferred. The President was there 
with his cabinet; General Halleck, the retiring general-in-chief; General 
Rawlins, Grant’s chief of staff; Colonel Comstock, his chief engineer; the 
President’s private secretary, Mr. Nicolay, and the Honorable Owen Love- 
joy, of Hlinois. ‘The only other person forming a part of the group was 
General Grant’s eldest son, a boy of fourteen years. President Lincoln hav- 
ing presented General Grant to the cabinet, addressed him thus: 


“ GENERAL GRANT,—The nation’s appreciation of what you have done, 
and its reliance upon you for what remains to be done in the existing great 
struggle, are now presented with this commission constituting you lieuten- 
ant general in the army of the United States. With this high honor de- 
volves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country here- 
in trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you. I scarcely need to add, 
that with what I here speak for the nation goes my own hearty personal 
concurrence.” 


General Grant’s response was equally brief. He replied: 


“Mr. PRESIDENT,—I accept the commission with gratitude for the high 
honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought on so 
many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavor not to 
disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities 
now devolving on me, and I know that if they are met it will be due to 
those armies, and, above all, to the favor of that Providence which leads 
both nations and men.” 


1 Before starting for Washington he writes thus to General Sherman : 


“Dear Suerman,—The bill reviving the grade of lieutenant general in the army has become a 
law, and my name has been sent to the Senate for the place. I now receive orders to report to 
Washington immediately in person, which indicates a confirmation, or a likelihood of confirmation. 
I start this morning to comply with the order. 

‘‘ While I have been eminently successful in this war in at least gaining the confidence of the 
public, no one feels more than I how much of this success is due to the energy, skill, and the har- 
monious putting forth of that energy and skill, of those whom it has been my good fortune to have 
occupying subordinate positions under me. 

‘There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or less degree, pro- 
portionate to their ability as soldiers ; but what I want is to express my thanks to you and McPher- 
son as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. 
How far your advice and assistance have been of help to me, you know. How far your execution 
of whatever has been given to you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you can not 
know as well as I. 

‘“¢T feel all the gratitude this letter would express, giving it the most flattering construction. 

“The word you I use in the plural, intending it for McPherson also. I should write to him, and 
will some day, but, starting in the morning, I do not know that I will find time just now. 

‘* Your friend, U.S. Grant, Major General.” 

Sherman’s reply, written near Memphis March 10th, is equally characteristic. He says: 

“Dear GENERAL,—I have your more than kind and characteristic letter of the 4th instant. I 
will send a copy to General McPherson at once. 

‘You do yourself injustice and us too much honor in assigning to us too large a share of the 
merits which have led to your advancement. I know you approve the friendship I have ever pro- 
fessed to you, and will permit me to continue, as heretofore, to manifest it on all proper occasions. 

“You are now Washington’s legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous el- 
evation; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, 
you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human be- 
ings, that will award you a large share in securing to them and their descendants a government of 
law and stability. 

‘*T repeat, you do General McPherson and myself too much honor. At Belmont you manifested 
your traits, neither of us being near. At Donelson, also, you illustrated your whole character. I 
was not near, and General McPherson was in too subordinate a capacity to influence you. 

‘Until you had won Donelson, I confess I was almost cowed by the terrible ray of anarchical 
elements that presented themselves at every point; but that admitted a ray of light I have followed 
eyer since. 

‘T believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype Washington—as unselfish, 
kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be—but the chief characteristic is the simple faith in suc- 
cess you haye always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has 
in the Savior. 

‘‘This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your 
best preparations, you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga—no doubts—no reserves ; 
and I tell you, it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew, wherever I was, that you 
thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would help me out, if alive. 

‘* My only point of doubts was in your knowledge of grand strategy, and of books of science and 
history ; but, I confess, your common sense seems to have supplied all these. 

‘Now as to the future. Don’t stay in Washington. Come West: take to yourself the whole 
Mississippi Valley. Let us make it dead sure; and I tell you the Atlantic slopes and the Pacific 
shores will follow its destiny, as sure as the limbs of a tree live or die with the main trunk. We 
have done much, but still much remains. ‘Time, and time’s influences, are with us. We could al- 
most afford to sit still and let these influences work. 

‘* Here lies the seat of the coming empire; and from the West, when our task is done, we will 
make short work of Charleston and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic. 

** Your sincere friend, W. T. SHERMAN.” 


? The bill for reviving the grade of lieutenant general was presented to Congress by the Hon. BE. 
B. Washburne, of Illinois. It was slightly amended, and was passed under the following form : 

“ Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in 
Congress assembled, That the grade of lieutenant general be, and the same is hereby revived in the 
Army of the United States of America; and the President is hereby authorized, whenever he shall 
deem it expedient, to appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a commander of 
the army, to be selected during war from among those officers in the military service of the United 
States, not below the grade of major general, most distinguished for courage, skill, and ability; and 
who, being commissioned as lieutenant general, shall be authorized, under the direction of the Pres- 
ident, to command the armies of the United States. 

‘*Sec, 2. And be it further enacted, That the lieutenant general appointed as is hereinbefore pro- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1864. 


On the 12th of March General Halleck was relieved, and made Lieutenant 
General Grant’s chief of staff. By the same order Sherman succeeded to 
General Grant’s former command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, 
and General McPherson was assigned to the command of the Department 
and Army of the Tennessee.? 

Upon the receipt of the order placing him in command of all the armies, 
with headquarters in the field, General Grant was at Nashville, whither Sher- 
man was forthwith summoned. Arriving at Nashville on March 17th, Sher- 
man accompanied the lieutenant general as far on his way to Washington as 
Cincinnati. On this journey the two generals consulted freely together as 
to the plan of their future campaigns. The consultation was continued in 
the parlor of the Burnet House, at Cincinnati, where, over their maps, was 
planned the simultaneous assault upon the armies covering Richmond and 
Atlanta. To attack these two armies at once counteracted to a great degree 
the advantage of interior lines which was possessed by the enemy. To at- 
tack with vigor, and without pause, regardless of seasons, would prevent any 
portion of the Confederate forces from returning home on furlough during 
the winter to plant crops for their own sustenance. Grant’s whole theory 
may be summed up in two sentences. Unity of operations. The attrition 
to powder of the Confederate armies by a continuous series of battles.2_ The 
main objects of attack were Lee’s and Johnston’s armies rather than the im- 
portant strategical points which they covered. But the details of the cam- 
paigns about to be opened would necessarily depend upon the theory of de- 
fense adopted by these two Confederate generals.* 

General Sherman’s new command consisted of four departments, with their 
armies, those of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and Arkansas. 

The Army of the Ohio, now under the command of Major General John 
M. Schofield, consisted of the Ninth and Twenty-third Corps. Longstreet 
having joined Lee, the Ninth Corps was sent to re-enforce the Army of the 
Potomac. Two divisions of the Twenty-third Corps, those of M.S. Hascall 
and J. D. Cox, took the field, the other three being retained to garrison Ken- 
tucky and Hast Tennessee. 

The Army of the Cumberland, at Chattanooga, commanded by General 
Thomas, consisted of the Fourth, Fourteenth, and Twentieth Corps, com- 
manded respectively by Generals O. O. Howard, John M. Palmer, and Joseph 
Hooker. The Fourth Corps comprised three divisions, under Stanley, John 
Newton, and Wood; the Fourteenth three, under Jeff. C. Davis, R. W. John- 
son, and Baird; and the Twentieth three, under A. S. Williams, Geary, and 
Butterfield.* 


vided shall be entitled to the pay, allowances, and staff specified in the fifth section of the act ap- 
proved May 28, 1798; and also the allowances described in the sixth section of the act approyed 
August 23, 1842, granting additional rations to certain officers; Provided, That nothing in this 
bill contained shall be construed in any way to affect the-rank, pay, or allowances of Winfield Scott, 
lieutenant general by brevet, now on the retired list of the army.” 


: “¢ General Orders, No. 98. 

‘s War Department, Adjutant General's Office, Washington, March 12, 1864. 

“The President of the United States orders as follows : 

‘1st. Major General Halleck is, at his own request, relieved from duty as general-in-chief of the 
army, and Lieutenant General U. 8. Grant is assigned to the command of the armies of the United 
States. The headquarters of the army will be in Washington, and also with Lieutenant General 
Grant in the field. 

‘¢9d. Major General Halleck is assigned to duty in Washington as chief of staff of the army, un- 
der the direction of the Secretary of War and the Lieutenant General commanding. His orders 
will be obeyed and respected accordingly. 

‘¢3d. Major General W. T. Sherman is assigned to the command of the Military Division of the 
Mississippi, composed of the Departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ar- 
kansas. 

‘4th. Major General John B. McPherson is assigned to the command of the Department and 
Army of the Tennessee. 

‘5th. In relieving Major General Halleck from duty as general-in-chief, the President desires 
to express his approbation and thanks for the zealous manner in which the arduous and responsible 
duties of that position have been performed. 

‘* By order of the Secretary of War. D. E. TownsEenD, Assistant Adj. General.” 


2 <¢Fyom an early period in the rebellion I had been impressed with the idea that active and 
continuous operations of all the troops that could be brought into the field, regardless of season and 
weather, were necessary to a speedy termination of the war. The resources of the enemy, and his 
numerical strength, were far inferior to ours; but, as an offset to this, we had a vast territory, with 
a population hostile to the government, to garrison, and long lines of river and railroad communi- 
cations to protect, to enable us to supply the operating armies. 

‘¢The armies in the East and West acted independently and without concert, like a balky team, 
no two ever pulling together, enabling the enemy to use to great advantage his interior lines of com- 
munication for transporting troops from east to west, re-enforcing the army most vigorously pressed, 
and to furlough large numbers, during seasons of inactivity on our part, to go to their homes, and 
do the work of producing for the support of their armies. It was a question whether our numer- 
ical strength and resources were not more than balanced by these disadvantages and the enemy’s 
superior position. 

‘From the first I was firm in the conviction that no peace could be had that would be stable, 
and conducive to the happiness of the people both North and South, until the military power of the 
rebellion was entirely broken. I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest number of troops 
practicable against the armed force of the enemy; preventing him from using the same force at 
different seasons against first one and then another of our armies, and the possibility of repose for 
refitting and producing necessary supplies for carrying on resistance. Second, to hammer continu- 
ously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other 
way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission with the loyal section of our com- 
mon country to the Constitution and laws of the land.”—Lieut. General Grant's Official Report. 

3 From a letter written by Lieutenant General Grant to Sherman, dated Washington, April 4, 
1864, it appears that, in conjunction with the operations of his own and Sherman’s armies, he in- 
tended that an attack should be made on Mobile. We give those portions of this letter which bear 
upon Western operations : 

‘“‘Tt is my design, if the enemy keep quiet and allow me to take the initiative in the spring cam- 
paign, to work all parts of the army together, and somewhat toward a common centre... .. I 
have sent orders to Banks by private messengers to finish up his present expedition against Shreve- 
port with all dispatch; to turn over the defense of the Red River to General Steele and the navy, 
and return your troops to you, and his own to New Orleans; to abandon all of Texas except the 
Rio Grande, and to hold that with not to exceed 4000 men; to reduce the number of troops on the 
Mississippi to the lowest number necessary to hold it, and to collect from his command not less than 
25,000 men. ‘To this I will add 5000 men from Missouri. With this force he is to commence op- 
erations against Mobile as soon as he can. It will be impossible for him to commence too early. . . . 

‘You I propose to move against Johnston’s army, to break it up, and to get into the interior of 
the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources. 
I do not propose to lay down for you a plan of campaign, but simply to lay down the work it is de- 
sirable to have done, and leave you free to execute in your own way. Submit to me, however, as 
early as you can, your plan of operations. . . . . I know you will have difficulties to encounter get: 
ting through the mountains to where supplies are abundant, but I believe you will accomplish it.” 

* Several changes had taken place in the Army of the Cumberland since the battle of Chattanoo- 
ga. ‘The Eleventh and Twelfth Corps were consolidated, forming the Twentieth, and General Slo- 
cum had, as a consequence, been displaced, and transferred to Vicksburg. Howard, who had com- 
manded the Eleventh, relieved General Granger in command of the Fourth Corps. Phil Sheridan 
te been relieved of his command (second division, Fourth Corps), and had been succeeded by John 

ewton. ; 


May, 1864.] 


The Army of the Tennessee, at Huntsville, Alabama, commanded by 
McPherson, comprised the Fifteenth, and portions of the Sixteenth and Sev- 
enteenth Corps, under Logan, G. M. Dodge, and Frank P. Blair, Jr. The re- 
mainder of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps was at Memphis and Vicks- 
burg, under Hurlbut and Slocum, or absent on the Red River expedition. 
The Fifteenth Corps comprised four divisions, under Osterhaus, Herron, 
Morgan L. Smith, and John E. Smith; the Sixteenth three, under Ransom, 
Corse, and ‘I’. W. Sweeny; and the Seventeenth two, under C. R. Woods 
and M. D. Leggett. 

The cavalry in the Army of the Ohio consisted of McCook’s division, in 
the Army of the Cumberland of Kilpatrick’s and Garrard’s, and in the Army 
of the Tennessee of Edward McCook’s brigade. 

The Department and Army of Arkansas, under General Steele, was in 
May assigned to General Canby’s trans-Mississippi division. Steele’s army, 
therefore, must be counted out of the forces engaged in the Atlanta cam- 
paign. 

General Sherman immediately prepared for active operations. On the 
25th of March he set out on a general tour of inspection through his depart- 
ment, consulting with McPherson, Thomas, and Schofield. The value of 
the possession of Chattanooga was now manifest. This position was the cen- 
tral buttress of the Federal position. On its left East Tennessee was firmly 
grasped by Schofield’s army; on its right the Tennessee River was guard- 
ed by a line of garrisons, which permitted the access northward of cavalry 
only. In the rear were two good and reliable lines of railway communi- 
cation from Nashville and Memphis. During the season of navigation the 
Tennessee River affords a third line. Having arranged with his subordinates 
the disposition of their several armies—how many should take the field, and 
how many be retained for garrison duty—Sherman returned to Nashville. 
At this time the citizens of Tennessee in his rear were in large measure sus- 
tained by stores which they shared with the army. Finding that this dou- 
ble want could not be supplied with safety to the army, he issued orders 
cutting off the supply of the citizens, and leaving them to other sources of 
relief! The 1st of May was the time fixed for the completion of prepara- 
tions, and by that time the store-houses of Chattanooga contained provisions 
for thirty days, and the ammunition trains were fully supplied. The vet- 
eran regiments, whose time had expired, and who had been released on fur- 
lough, now returned with their ranks filled by new recruits. 

Sherman had intended to move against the enemy with 100,000 men of 
all arms, and 250 guns. His actual force on the 1st of May was 98,797 
men and 254 guns. The Army of the Cumberland, numbering 60,773 men, 
with 130 guns, constituted three fifths of his entire command. The Army 
of the Tennessee numbered 24,465, with 96 guns, and that of the Ohio 
13,559, with 28 guns. Sherman’s whole force was distributed as follows 
among the three arms of the service: the infantry of the three armies 
numbered 88,188 men; the artillery 4450, with 254 guns; the cavalry 
6149.2 

To General Johnston, of the Confederate army, who had succeeded Bragg at 
the close of 1863, was assigned a difficult task. With an army half as large as 
that opposing him,’ he was to resist the approach of the latter to Atlanta. His 
forces were concentrated at Dalton, which he had strongly fortified. Presi- 
dent Davis having given Johnston the command of the army much against 
his will,* did not support him by any considerable re-enforcements. Yet he 


1 ¢ At first,” he says, in his report, ‘‘my orders operated very hardly, but the prolific soil soon 
afforded early vegetables, and ox-wagons hauled meat and bread from Kentucky, so that no actu- 
al suffering resulted, and I trust that those who clamored at the cruelty and hardships of the day 
have already seen in the result a perfect justification of my course.” 

On May 5th Sherman writes to President Lincoln: 

“* We have worked hard with the best talent of the country, and it is demonstrated that the rail- 
road can not supply the army and the people too. One or the other must quit, and the army don’t 
intend to unless Joe Johnston makes us. The issues to citizens have been enormous, and the same 
weight of corn or oats would have saved thousands of the mules, whose carcasses now corduroy the 
roads, and which we need so much. 

‘* We have paid back to Tennessee ten for one of provisions taken in war. I will not change 
my orders, and I beg of you to be satisfied that the clamor is partly humbug and for effect ; 
and to test it, I advise you to tell the bearers of it to hurry to Kentucky, and make up a caravan 
of cattle and wagons, and come over the mountains by Cumberland Gap and Somerset, to relieve 
their suffering friends, on foot, as they used to do before a railroad was built. Tell them that they 
have no time to lose. We can relieve all actual suffering by each company or regiment giving of 
their savings. Every man who is willing to fight or work gets a full ration; and all who won’t 
fight or work should go away, and we offer them free passage in the cars,” 

? Sherman evidently did not intend to be encumbered with baggage. April 11 he writes to 
Thomas: ‘‘ When we move we will take no tents or baggage, but one change of clothing on our 
horses, or to be carried by the men, and on pack-animals by company officers. Five days’ bacon, 
twenty days’ bread, and thirty days’ salt, sugar, and coffee. Nothing else but arms and ammuni- 
tion in quantity proportioned to our ability. Even this will be a heavy encumbrance, but is rather 
the limit of our aim than what we can really accomplish. . . . . Look well to our supply of beef 
cattle on the hoof, and salt in large excess of the rations. Encourage drills by brigades and divi- 
sions, and let the recruits practice at the target all the time.” 

* Johnston’s effective force at the commencement of the Atlanta campaign numbered about 48,000 
men, one tenth cavalry. The following are the official returns from his army from December 31, 
1863, to June 30, 1864: 


rgregate Present 
Present for Duty. | Aggregate Present. Aggres Gacake 

December 31, 1863.............. 42,439 57,428 98,215 
January 31, 1864........c0c00 41,558 55,059 88,457 
Mebruaty-— 5 Mixcneomees 37,789 48,010 79,071 
March 31, Co eersawentataane 42,125 55,113 85,953 
uo S0, 6 09S ce cele: 43,887 63,807 96,863 
May oP Geucvecnapeesente Wanting. 

June 30, reer ciice ree 54,085 77,441 137, 192 


We have estimated his army at 48,000, because, in addition to the forces included in the returns 
for April 30, there were some 4000 cavalry scattered northward, which were afterward recalled. 

* According to the following account of Henry S. Foote ( War of the Rebellion, p. 356), it appears 
that Davis’s hostility to Johnston began at an early period of the war, or, at any rate, before Benja- 
min, the Confederate Secretary of War, was displaced by Seddon. This author, Confederate rep- 
resentative from Tennessee, says : 

‘* Just about the time I was laboring most assiduously to relieve the Department of War of Mr. 
Benjamin by calling forth, as far as it might be in my power to do so, co-operative responses from 
the people, an occurrence took place in social life in Richmond which had much effect, not only upon 
the fate of Mr. Benjamin, but which, in the sequel, had much influence also upon the course of pub- 
lie events. I chanced to be invited to a dinner-party, where some twenty of the most prominent 
members of the two houses of the Confederate Congress were congregated, including the speaker of 
the House of Representatives, Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, and others of equal rank. General 


TN 


THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 601 


called loudly for an advance into Tennessee. Of course this would have 
proved immediately ruinous. Johnston, therefore, wisely declined to at- 
tempt any offensive movement, and spent the winter in preparation for the 
assault which he knew he must meet in the spring. During the winter de- 
sertions from his army were frequent. General Thomas reports that they 
averaged thirty per day, nearly all of whom desired to take the amnesty 
oath, and to comply with General Grant’s orders in regard to deserters. 

Partly as a demonstration in favor of Sherman’s Meridian expedition, and 
partly to prevent Johnston from re-enforcing Longstreet in East Tennessee, 
‘'homas had moved against Dalton in the latter part of February, 1864. 
Palmer, with Johnson’s and Baird’s divisions, occupied Ringgold on the 22d. 
That night he reported to Thomas that he had reliable information that 
Johnston had dispatched Cheatham’s and Cleburne’s divisions to the relief 
of Polk in Alabama. This information was not correct; but, to test the en- 
emy’s strength, the next day, Davis’s division having joined the two others 
at Ringgold, and Cruft’s, of the Fourteenth Corps, with Matthias’s brigade, 
of the Fifteenth Corps, and Long’s cavalry brigade, having been sent to co- 
operate with Palmer, Johnston’s advanced outposts beyond Tunnel Hill were 
attacked and driven in. Dalton is covered on its western side by Rocky 
Face Ridge, which runs north and south, and through which, at the pass call- 
ed Buzzard Roost, passes the road from Ringgold. East of the Ringgold 
Road and in front of Rocky Face Ridge lies Tunnel Hill, which was occu- 
pied by Thomas on the 24th. On the 25th an attempt was made against 
Buzzard Roost Pass; but the enemy, contrary to anticipation, was found in 
full strength, and, after becoming satisfied of this, Thomas withdrew his 
forces to the vicinity of Ringgold. His loss in this reconnoissance was 17 
killed and 255 wounded. 

As soon as Johnston assumed command of the Confederate Army of the 
Tennessee, both the President and Secretary Seddon urged an offensive cam- 
pugn. “The relative forces,” reports Johnston, “including the moral effect 
of the affair of Missionary Ridge, condition of the artillery horses and most 
of those of the cavalry, and want of field transportation, made it impractica- 
ble to effect the wishes of the executive.” Immediately after Thomas’s re- 
connoissance, General Johnston, on the 27th of February, suggested to Pres- 
ident Davis, through General Bragg, that “ preparations for a forward move: 
ment should be made without farther delay.” In reply, Bragg (March 4th) 
desired him to prepare for such a movement. He then reminded Bragg 
that these preparations, by the regulations of the War Department, were not 
left to commanders of troops, but to officers receiving orders directly from 
Richmond. On the 18th of March Johnston received a letter from Bragg, 
sketching a plan of offensive operations, and enumerating the troops to be 
used by the former. He replied to this letter, suggesting modifications, and 
urging that the re-enforcements named should be sent immediately to Dal- 
ton. General Bragg on the 21st telegraphed to Johnston: “Troops can 
only be dvawn from other points for advance. Upon your decision of that 
point farther action must depend.” Johnston believed that the enemy would 
be prepared for a movement sooner than he himself could. He wished to 
be prepared for the defensive as well as the offensive. From Bragg’s dis- 
patch it was evident that there were troops which might be sent to the Army 
of the Tennessee, but that these would not be sent for a defensive campaign. 
Johnston, on the 22d, explained his view of the situation to General Bragg, 
showing the probability of Sherman’s advancing first, and urging the neces- 
sity of preparing for defensive as well as for offensive movements. No no- 
tice whatever was taken of this appeal. On the 25th Johnston renewed his 
request for re-enforcements, ‘‘ because the enemy was collecting a larger force 
than that of the last campaign, while ours was less than it had been then.” 
The only response which he received was the arrival of 1400 men, under 
Brigadier General Mercer, on the 2d of May, after Sherman’s preparations 
had already been completed. Considering that Johnston might have been 
supported, it seems strange that, in the face of an advance, the success or re- 


Joseph E. Johnston was also an invited guest. While the banquet was proceeding, Mr. Benjamin’s 
gross acts of official misconduct becoming the subject of conversation, one of the company turned 
to General Johnston, and inquired whether he thought it even possib/e that the Confederate cause 
could succeed with Mr. Benjamin as war minister. To this inquiry General Johnston, after a lit- 
tle pause, emphatically responded in the negative. This high authority was immediately cited in 
both houses of Congress against Mr. Benjamin, and was in the end fatal to his hope of remaining 
in the Department of War. Mr. Davis, after the sending in of his nominations for cabinet appoint- 
ments, under the permanent Constitution, for nearly four weeks, in order to have it in his power to 
persuade the Senate to confirm Mr. Benjamin as Secretary of War, in the event of his being renomi- 
nated, ultimately relinquished this object in despair, that body, however accommodating it was in 
general to executive fancies, having been found unwilling to participate in the terrible responsibility 
of such an act. Mr. Benjamin was finally nominated for the Department of State, and was con- 
firmed, by a very small majority, for that place, where he had it in his power, both abroad and at 
home, to perpetrate more barefaced acts of corruption and profligacy than any single individual 
has ever been known to commit in the same space of time in any part of Christendom. I will here 
remark, in passing, that this frank and manly declaration of General Johnston rendered both Mr. 
Davis and Mr. Benjamin alike hostile to him, and he was fated to experience the effect of their 
malevolence on more than one subsequent occasion previous to his ultimate deprivation of command. 

1 This order, No. 10, was issued by General Grant at Chattanooga, December 12, 1863, and was 
freely distributed among the Confederate soldiers. Its terms were as follow: 

“¢T, All deserters from the enemy coming within our lines will be conducted to the commander 
of division or detached brigade who shall be nearest the place of surrender, 

“TI. If such commander is satisfied that.the deserters desire to quit the Confederate service, he 
may permit them to go to their homes, if within our lines, on taking the following oath : 

*¢T do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully sup- 
port, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the union of states thereunder, 
and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during 
the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so far as not yet repealed, modified, or held void by 
Congress or by decision of the Supreme Court, and that I will in like manner abide by and faithful- 
ly support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to 
slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court, so 
help me God. 

“TIT. Deserters from the enemy will at once be disarmed, and their arms turned over to the 
nearest ordnance officer, who will account for them. 

‘TV. Passes and rations may be given to deserters to carry them to their homes, and free passes 
over military railroads and on steam-boats in government employ. 

‘¢V, Employment at fair wages will, when practicable, be given to deserters by officers of the 
quartermaster and engineer departments. 

‘“VI. To avoid the danger of recapture of such deserters by the enemy, they will be exempt 
from military service in the armies of the United States.” 


—_ ~~ 


May, 1864. ] 


THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 


BUZZARD'S ROOST PASS. 


pulse of which was so important to the Confederacy, he should have been 
left for three months with an army half as large as that which he confront- 
ed. On the 4th of May he asked for a portion of Polk’s command, and was 
informed that this request would be granted.} 

While the Confederate officials were disputing, Sherman had been prepar- 
ing to advance. By the 1st of May, as we have before shown, he was ready 
to move and to strike. From Ringgold, the advanced front of the Federal 
army, to Atlanta was nearly one hundred miles, across a difficult country, 
but not so difficult as that over which Rosecrans had advanced from Mur- 
freesborough to Chattanooga. Atlanta, the heart of Georgia, and of the Con- 
federacy itself, was not only the principal Confederate granary, but was also 
the centre of a manufacturing district which supplied the Southern armies 
with cannon, ammunition, clothing, and equipments. To reach this point— 
the local objective of the campaign—three rivers had to be crossed, the Oos- 
tenaula, Etowah, and Chattahoochee. Ringgold lies amid the mountains of 


* General Bragg, after he was relieved from the command at Chattanooga, was called to Rich- 
mond, where President Davis, whose especial favorite he was, placed him in a position very similar 
to that which had been occupied by the Federal General Halleck at Washington. Certainly the 
Management of the one was only paralleled, in the annals of war, by that of the other. 


Taylor’s Ridge, on the road from Chattanooga to Dalton. Ten miles distant, 
by the road from Ringgold, is Buzzard’s Roost, in Rocky Face Ridge, about 
four miles northwest of Dalton. The enemy held Dalton, strongly fortified, 
the ridge covering it, and strong outposts on the road to Ringgold. His po- 
sition was almost impregnable. Sherman’s command on May 7th was sit- 
uated thus: On the right, at Lee and Gordon’s Mill, lay the Army of the 
Tennessee, under McPherson ; the Army of the Cumberland, under Thomas, 
held the centre, at and near Ringgold, more directly confronting the enemy ; 
and under Schofield, on the Georgia border, and on the road from Cleveland 
southward to Dalton, which runs east of Rocky Face Ridge, was the Army 
of the Ohio. We have said that Atlanta was the local objective of Sher- 
man’s campaign; the vital objective, however, was Johnston’s army at Dal- 
ton. The obvious policy of the Federal commander was to force a battle 
upon his opponent at the earliest stage of the campaign. Jobnston’s equal- 
ly obvious policy—a difficult one to be pursued under the cireumstances— 
was to evade a general engagement, opposing as obstinate resistance as was 
possible in his front consistent with the protection of his communications 
with Atlanta. 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1864. 


GEARY’S ASSAULT ON DUG GAP, 


On the 4th of May the Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan, and on 
the same day Grant telegraphed to Sherman, reminding him that the time 
for his advance against Johnston had come. Sherman neither intended, nor 
did Johnston expect, an assault on the position covering Dalton—Buzzard’s 
Roost Pass, which was obstructed by abatis, and flooded by means of dams 
across Mill Creek. Probably in no campaign of the war did the two op- 
posing commanders so completely fathom each other’s purposes, or so care- 
fully estimate the possibilities, the one for attack and the other for defense. 
Sherman, on the 6th of May, with his largest army, that of the Cumberland, 
menaced Rocky Face Ridge with such vigor that it would seem as if an at- 
tempt like that made five months before against Missionary Ridge was to be 
repeated against the formidable position held by Johnston at Buzzard’s Roost. 
Schofield threatened at the same time the enemy's right flank. McPherson’s 
army, from Lee and Gordon’s Mill, was thrown to the left and rear, moving 
by way of Ship’s Gap, Villanow, and Snake Creek Gap to Resaca, eighteen 
miles south of Dalton, on the Atlanta Railroad. With this flanking column 
McPherson was ordered to break the railroad to the extent of his opportu- 
nity, and then to retire to Snake Creek Gap and there fortify himself.’ 

On the first day of the campaign Thomas occupied Tunnel Hill. Two 
days afterward Schofield closed upon Johnston’s right, and Thomas renewed 
his demonstration upon Rocky Face with such vigor that Newton’s division, 
of Howard’s (Fourth) corps, carried a portion of the ridge; but, upon a far- 
ther advance, the crest was found too well protected by rock epaulements to 
hope for success in gaining the gorge. Geary’s division, of Hooker’s corps, 
in the mean time made a reconnoissance up a precipitous ridge south of Buz- 
zard’s Roost; but, though the men fought their way well up to the enemy’s 
intrenchments on the crest, they could not gain possession of the Gap. But 
these movements were only demonstrations. Upon McPherson’s flank move- 
ment through Snake Creek Gap Sherman had made the success of his plan 
to depend. But Johnston, who had expected this method of attack, had sent 
Canty’s brigade to Resaca two days before the attack in his front had been 
developed. For weeks, also, he had been preparing roads in his rear, upon 


1 This Snake Creek Gap movement seems to have been originally suggested by General Thomas. 
The latter, in his report to the Committee on the Conduct of the War, says: ‘‘ Shortly after his as- 
signment to the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, General Sherman came to see 
me at Chattanooga to consult about the position of affairs, and adopt a plan for a spring campaign. 
At that interview I proposed to General Sherman that if he would use McPherson’s and Schofield’s 
armies to demonstrate on the enemy’s position at Dalton by the direct roads through Buzzard’s Roost 
Gap, and from the direction of Cleveland, I would throw my whole force through Snake Creek Gap, 
which I knew to be unguarded, fall upon the enemy’s communications between Dalton and Resaca, 
thereby turning his position completely, and force him either to retreat toward the east through a 
difficult country, poorly supplied with provisions and forage, with a strong probability of total disor- 
ganization of his force, or attack me, in which latter event I felt confident that my army was suf- 
ficiently strong to beat him, especially as I hoped to gain a position on his communications before 
he could be made aware of my movement. General Sherman objected to this plan for the reason 
that he desired my army to form the reserve of the united armies, and to serve as a rallying-point 
for the two wings . . . . to operate from.” i 


which his own troops could move more rapidly than Sherman’s flanking 
columns. McPherson had reached Snake Creek Gap on the 8th, with Lo- 
gan’s and Dodge’s corps, preceded by Kilpatrick’s division of cavalry. De- 
bouching from the gap, McPherson found Resaca occupied by Canty’s bri- 
gade. If he had made an immediate attack his success would have been 
certain;’ but he over-estimated the enemy’s strength both in position and 
numbers. While he was waiting before Resaca, and unable to get upon the 
railroad above or below the town, the position in his front was strengthened. 
On the afternoon of the 9th, Johnston, warned by Canty of this movement 
on Resaca, promptly dispatched to the latter point three infantry divisions 
under General Hood. The orders which McPherson had received had not 
been so explicit, perhaps, as to cover the precise case now presented for his 
consideration. His discretion must supply the place of definite orders. His 
force, over 20,000 strong, was largely superior to that of the garrison defend- 
ing Resaca. The manifest intent of his orders would have favored an attack, 
and the probability of success, even now, was unquestionably in his favor ; 
but there was much to be said on the other side. He was detached from 
the main body of the army, and the easy approaches from Dalton toward his 
left and rear suggested the possibility that he might be cut off and defeated. 
He took the safer of the alternatives offered him, and fell back to Snake 
Creek Gap. In doing so he probably made a mistake. Rocky Face Ridge 
had perfectly covered his rear during the movement. He could now easily 
withstand any assault which might be made on his left if he had refused 
that flank toward the ridge. Even if he had taken such a position without 
making an attack, he could have held it until he received support. But the 
decisive advantage gained over the enemy by his flank movement had been 
thrown away by his failure to attack on the 9th. The attack would have 
been made if General Logan had been in command, or if he had been in the 
advance instead of Dodge. McPherson’s wagon train, which ought never to 
have entered the Gap at all, offered serious obstructions to the march of col- 
umns which might be sent to his support. Sherman confesses himself 
“somewhat disappointed at the result’? of his plans, but imputes no blame 
to McPherson. On the 11th he withdrew his army from Johnston’s front, 
and followed McPherson, leaving only Howard’s corps and a small infantry 
force to keep up the demonstration against Dalton. On the night of the 
12th Johnston abandoned Dalton, and moved his whole army to a position 

1 The following is a part of the instructions given to McPherson: ‘‘I am in hopes that Garrard’s 
cavalry will be at Villanow as soon as you... «+ But, in any event, his movement will cover your 
right rear, and enable you to leave all encumbrances at Ship’s Gap or at Villanow, as you deem 
best. I hope the enemy will fight at Dalton, in which case he can have no force there that can in- 
terfere with you; but should his policy be to fall back along the railroad, you will hit him in flank. 
Do not fail, in that event, to make the most of the opportunity, by the most yigorous attack possi- 
ble, as it may save us what we haye most reason to apprehend, a slow pursuit, in which he gains 


strength as we lose it. In either event you may be sure the forces north of you will prevent his 
turning on you alone.” 2 Sherman’s Report. 


May, 1864. ] 


i i A 


f 
uM 


al 
il 


THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 605 


SHELLING THE RAILROAD NEAR RESAGA, 


covering Resaca on the west. In the mean time Polk had reached Johnston 
with Loring’s division. Polk, Hardee, and Hood were now the corps com- 
manders of the Confederate Army of Tennessee. 

Dalton, evacuated by the enemy, was immediately occupied by Howard, 
who pressed on in pursuit. Sherman’s columns, following upon each other's 
heels through Snake Creek Gap, had the advantage of Johnston in point of 
time. But this was counterbalanced by the more practicable and shorter 
route taken by the Confederates. On the 12th Sherman moved upon Re- 
saca, McPherson on the direct road, preceded, as in his former advance, by 
Kilpatrick’s cavalry; Thonias closed in upon McPherson’s left, and Scho- 
field upon the left of Thomas. But it was not until the 14th that Sherman 
was prepared to attack, and by that time he was confronted by the whole 
force of the enemy, who occupied the forts of Resaca behind Camp Creek, 
Polk’s left resting on the Oostenaula, Hardee holding the centre, and Hood 
the right, extending northeastwardly around Resaca to the Connesauga. 
Loring’s division, added to those already at Resaca under Hood, had on the 
18th delayed Sherman’s advance, thus giving time for the disposition of 
Hardee’s and Polk’s troops, then just arriving. Johnston’s foresight and 
promptness had saved his army.? 

Sherman now repeated against Resaca the strategic movement which had 
forced the enemy from Dalton; but there was this difference, that he now 
proceeded to threaten the enemy’s communications with a lighter column, 
keeping almost his entire army in the enemy’s front. General Sweeny’s 
division of the Sixteenth Corps (Dodge’s) crossed the Oostenaula by pon- 
toons at Lay’s Ferry and threatened Calhoun, and Garrard’s cavalry divi- 
sion moved from its position at Villanow across the same river lower down, 
to destroy the railroad between Calhoun and Kingston. While these move- 
ments were in progress, Sherman attacked Johnston at Resaca, pressing him 
at all points during the afternoon of May 14th. Thomas, in the centre, 
pressed through Camp Creek Valley, sending Hooker across the creek. On 
the right and centre, however, the enemy successfully resisted Schofield and 
Thomas, and at nightfall Hood advanced from his intrenchments, and re- 
covered a portion of the ground which the Federals had gained in the morn- 
ing. McPherson’s attack on Polk was more successful, the latter being 
driven from his position, which, commanding the Confederate bridges across 
the river, was immediately occupied with Federal artillery. Johnston had 
already given orders to Hood to attack the next morning, when he was in- 
formed of the movement by Sweeny menacing Calhoun, and of Polk’s mis- 
fortune. He countermanded the orders, and sent Walker’s division to Cal- 
houn. The next day there was skirmishing along the entire front, develop- 
ing on Hood’s line into a severe battle in the afternoon. It appears that 
Walker had reported no movement on Calhoun, and Hood had been again 
ordered to attack, but that when the latter was prepared to do so, intelli- 
gence was received by Johnston indicating that the Federal right was cross- 
ing the river in his rear, and the order to attack was again countermanded. 
One of Hood’s divisions—A. P. Stewart’s—not being aware of this, attacked. 
Schofield by this time had closed down upon Hood’s right, and Hooker, ad- 
vancing, drove the enemy from several hills, capturing four guns and many 
prisoners. That night Johnston abandoned Resaca, and, crossing the Oos- 
tenaula southward, burned the railroad bridge behind him. Sherman’s 
troops entered on the morning of the 16th just in time to save the turnpike 
bridge, and the whole army started in pursuit, Schofield moving by blind 
roads to the left, Thomas in Johnston’s immediate rear, and McPherson by 
Lay’s Ferry. In the operations around Resaca the Federal less was be- 
tween 4000 and 5000 killed and wounded. At Resaca Sherman reported 
to Grant that he had 1000 prisoners and eight guns. 

General Sherman was now entering upon the third stage of the campaign. 
Johnston retreated to Cassville, four miles north of Kingston.? At Calhoun 
on the 16th, Hardee, bringing up the Confederate rear, skirmished with 
Howard’s column. At Adairsville, farther south, there was a fight between 
Polk’s cavalry, under Jackson, and the advance of Thomas’s army, under 
General Newton. Polk and Hood, on the 18th, took the road from Adairs- 
ville to Cassville, while Hardee took that to Kingston. Sherman’s left and 
centre had been delayed, Thomas having to build additional bridges across 
the Oostenaula, and Schofield making a detour across the two tributaries of 
that river—the Connesauga and Coosawattie. On the 17th the three Feder- 
al armies moved southward by different roads, and the division of Jeff. C. 
Davis meanwhile marched westwardly to Rome, where, meeting no resist- 
ance, it captured eight or ten heavy guns, together with some valuable mills 
and founderies. 

On the 19th it appeared as if the enemy would make a stand at Cassville, 
French’s division, of Polk’s command, had arrived from the south, and 
Johnston, intrenched upon a ridge in the rear of the town, confidently or- 
dered an advance against Thomas, who was moving southward from Adairs- 
ville. Hood, on the right, moved two miles in execution of this order, but, 
being deceived by the report that a Federal column was marching from 


1 ‘Nothing saved Johnston’s army at Resaca but the impracticable nature of the country, 
which made the passage of troops across the valley almost impossible. This fact enabled his 
army to reach Resaca from Dalton along the comparatively good roads constructed beforehand, 
partly from the topographical nature of the country, and partly from the foresight of the rebel 
chief. At all events, on the 14th of May we found the rebel army in a strong position behind 
Camp Creek, occupying the forts at Resaca, and his right on some chestnut hills to the north 
of the town.”—Sherman’s Report. 

2 Johnston thus explains his continued retreat: 

“The fact that a part of Polk’s troops were still in the rear, and the great numerical superiori- 
ty of the Federal army, made it expedient to risk battle only when position or some blunder of the 
enemy might give us counterbalancing advantages. I therefore determined to fall back slowly 
until circumstances should put the chances of battle in our favor, keeping so near the United 
States army as to prevent its sending re-enforcements to Grant; and hoping, by taking advan- 
tage of positions and opportunities, to reduce the odds against us by partial engagements. I 
also expected it to be materially reduced before the end of June by the expiration of the terms 
of service of many of the regiments which had not re-enlisted.” 


606 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1864. 


SUERMAN’S ARMY ENTERING RESACA, 


Canton to the rear and right of Cassville, he withdrew his troops to resist 
the approach of this fictitious column. The Federal army in the mean 
while concentrated about Cassville, and attacked Johnston’s intrenched posi- 
tion with artillery. On the evening of the 19th the Confederate command- 
ers differed as to the policy which ought now to be adopted. Hood and 
Polk thought that the Federal artillery would render the position untena- 
ble on the morrow, and urged immediate retreat across the Etowah River. 
Hardee, whose position Johnston thought much weaker than Polk’s or 
Hood's, was still confident of his ability to hold it. Johnston inclined to 
Hardee’s opinion, but the other commanders “ were so earnest and unwilling 
to depend upon the ability of their corps to hold the ground,” that retreat 
was determined upon, and on the 20th the Confederate army crossed the 
Etowah—“a step,” reports Johnston, “ which I have regretted ever since.” 
This movement, without a battle, abandoned the whole of Etowah Valley to 
the Federal army. Here Sherman gave his troops rest, while supplies could 
be brought forward for the next stage of the campaign. 

But the period of rest was brief. On the 23d of May, taking supplies in 
its trains for twenty days, and leaving a garrison at Rome and Kingston, 
Sherman’s army crossed the Etowah. Satisfied that Johnston would at- 
tempt to hold Allatoona Pass, just south of the river, the Federal command- 
er did not attempt even a demonstration against that position, but leaving 
the railroad, moved to the right for Dallas, southwest of Allatoona. John- 
ston, who had not stopped at Allatoona, but continued his retreat to the 
range of hills north of and covering Dallas and Marietta, detected Sherman’s 
whole plan from the start, and concentrated his army near New Hope 
Church, where three roads met—from Ackworth on the north, Dallas on 
the southwest, and Marietta on the east. Hood’s corps was posted with its 
centre at the church, while Polk and Hardee extended the line eastward 
across the Atlanta Road. Sherman’s army, after crossing the Htowah, moved 
in three columns in the accustomed order—Schofield on the left, Thomas in 
the centre, and McPherson on the right. McPherson, crossing the Etowah 
near Kingston, joined by Davis’s division from Rome, was ordered to move 
via Van Wert to a point south of Dallas. Thomas advanced via Euharley 
and Burnt Hickory, and Schofield by the road from Cassville. 

Thomas’s advance, under Hooker, approached New Hope Church on the 
25th, and encountered the enemy’s cavalry. Geary’s division skirmished up 
to the Confederate line held by Hood, and Hooker’s other divisions being 
well in hand by 4 P.M., Sherman ordered a bold push to be made for the 
cross-roads. A severe battle was fought in this position, Stewart’s division 
by night being finally driven back to the church, but still retaining the main 
position. Sherman now occupied several days in deploying up to the ene- 
my’s well-intrenched lines, which extended from New Hope Church to a 
point north of Marietta. McPherson was pushed close up to Dallas, Thomas 
still confronted Hood, and Schofield was ordered to move around to the 
Jeft, in order to reach and turn Johnston’s right flank. Garrard’s cavalry 
operated with McPherson, and Stoneman’s with Schofield, McCook’s guard- 
ing the Federal rear. The movement of the whole army was now gradually 
to the left, proceeding slowly over difficult, densely-wooded ground. In the 
course of this development there were several sharp encounters with the en- 


emy, the results of which sometimes favored one side and sometimes the 
other. On the 27th Howard’s corps assailed Cleburne’s division, and was 
repulsed, Johnston reports, “with great slaughter.’ In this action, and the 
battle of New Hope Church, Johnston estimates his own loss as 900, and 
that of Sherman as 6000. On the 28th the enemy attacked McPherson 
while the latter was on the point of closing up on Thomas. “ Fortunately,” 
says Sherman, “our men had erected good breastworks, and gave the enemy 
a terrible and bloody repulse.” The enemy’s loss in this attack was nearly 
3000, and McPherson’s not more than one tenth of that number. ‘There were 
ten days of this undecisive work (May 25th—June 4th), when Sherman de- 
termined to leave Johnston in his intrenchments, and move eastward to Ack- 
worth, on the railroad.2- The roads leading back to Ackworth and Allatoo- 
na Pass were now in his possession, and he had rebuilt the railroad bridge 
across the Etowah and occupied the pass with his cavalry. When, on the 
6th of June, he had established himself at Ackworth, he fortified and garri- 
soned Allatoona Pass, making it a secondary base of supplies. 

Johnston, adapting his movements to those of Sherman, transferred his 
whole army to a point on the railroad north of Marietta, where Kenesaw on 
his right, Pine Mountain in the advanced centre, and Lost Mountain on his 
left, interposed a natural barrier to a direct approach from the north.? 
While the Confederate army was intrenching itself in this formidable posi- 
tion, Sherman repaired the railroad in his rear, and brought forward to his 
camp an abundant supply of provisions. THe also received re-enforcements. 
General Blair, with two divisions of the Seventeenth Corps (10,500 men) 


Howard reports his loss as ‘‘ very heavy, being upward of 1400 killed, wounded, and missing in 
General Wood’s division alone.” He adds, ‘* Though the assault was repulsed, yet a position was 
secured near Pickett’s Mills of the greatest importance to the subsequent movement of the army, 
and it has been subsequently ascertained that the enemy suffered immensely in the action, and re- 
garded it as the severest attack made during the eventful campaign.” 

2 Sherman writes to General Halleck, Grant’s chief of statf, from ‘‘ Near Dallas,” May 28: 

‘‘'The enemy discovered my move to turn Allatoona, and moved to meet us here. Our columns 
met about one mile east of Pumpkin-vine Creek, and we pushed them back about three miles, to 
the point [New Hope Church] where the road forks to Allatoona and Marietta. Here Johnston 
has chosen a strong line, and made hasty but strong parapets of timber and earth, and has thus far 
stopped us. My right is Dallas, centre about three miles north, and I am gradually working round 
by the left to approach the railroad any where in front of Ackworth. Country very densely wooded 
and broken; no roads of any consequence. We have had many sharp, severe encounters, but noth- 
ing decisive. Both sides duly cautious in the obscurity of the ambushed ground.” 

In a letter to Halleck, May 29, he thus alludes to the enemy’s attack on McPherson the day be- 
fore: 

“‘ With the intention of working to my left toward the railroad east of Allatoona, I ordered Gen- 
eral McPherson ..... to withdraw his army and take General Thomas’s present position, while 
all of General Thomas's and General Schofield’s armies will be moved farther to the east, working 
round the enemy to the left. The enemy, who had observed, etc., . . . . massed against General 
McPherson and attacked him at 4} P.M. yesterday, but was repulsed with great slaughter and at 
little cost to us. The enemy fled back to his breastworks on the ridge, leaving in our hands his 
dead and wounded. His loss, 2500, and about 300 prisoners. General McPherson’s men being 
covered by log breastworks, like our old Corinth lines, were comparatively unhurt, his loss not being 
over 300 in all,” 

3 «* Kenesaw, the bold and striking twin mountain, lay before us, with a high range of chestnut 
hills trending off to the northeast, terminating to our view in another peak called Brusby Mountain. 
To our right was the smaller hill called Pine Mountain, and beyond it, in the distance, Lost Mount- 
ain, All these, though links in a continuous chain, present a sharp, conical appearance, prominent 
in the vast landscape that presents itself from any of the hills that abound in that region. Kene- 
saw, Pine Mountain, and Lost Mountain form a triangle—Pine Mountain the apex, and Kenesaw 
and Lost Mountain the base—covering perfectly the town of Marietta and the railroad back to the 
Chattahoochee. On each of these peaks the enemy had his signal stations, The summits were 
covered with batteries, and the spurs were alive with men, busy in felling trees, digging pits, and 
preparing for the grand struggle impending.” —Sherman’s Report. 


-length, ‘more than he could hold with his force.” 


THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 


607 


LUST MOUNTAIN AT SUNRISE, 


that had been on furlough, and Colonel Long’s brigade of cavalry, arrived at 
Ackworth June 8th. This accession supplied the gaps which had been 
made in the original army by losses in battle and the detachments from 
garrison at Resaca, Rome, Kingston, and Allatoona Pass.! On the 9th the 
army moved to Big Shanty, a station on the railroad midway between Ack- 
worth and Kenesaw. A triangular mountain fortress, of nature’s construc- 
tion, here confronted Sherman. Even war could not quench in Sherman 
his love of nature, nor interrupt ‘communion with her visible forms.” 
“The scene,” he says, “ was enchanting—too beautiful to be disturbed by 
the harsh clamors of war; but the Chattahoochee lay beyond, and I had to 
reach it.” Just beyond the Chattahoochee lay Atlanta—the object of the 
campaign. 

While waiting before Kenesaw, Sherman received intelligence from Gen- 
eral 8. G. Burbridge, who had been left in command of the forces in Ken- 
tucky, that the Confederate General Morgan had entered that state through 
Pound Gap, June 4; that on the 9th he had been brought to battle and de- 
feated with a loss of 600 prisoners; that on the 12th he had been again de- 
feated, losing 500 killed and 400 prisoners, besides the wounded; and that 
his forces were scattered, demoralized, and being “ pursued and picked up in 
every direction.” Here also Sherman heard of Sturgis’s defeat by Forrest, 
narrated in a previous chapter, and ordered a second expedition against For- 
rest to proceed immediately from Memphis. 

Sherman paused for a brief moment and carefully scrutinized the Confed- 
erate position. He found that the enemy’s line extended two miles in 
He had moved his ar- 
mies close up by the 11th, McPherson on the left of the railroad toward 
Marietta, Schofield away to the right against Lost Mountain, and the larger 
army, under Thomas, confronting Pine and Kenesaw Mountains. It was 


' The losses in Sherman’s command during the month of May are not stated in his report. 
Thomas reports his own loss during this time as 8774. * Sherman's Report. 


Sherman’s object to break the line between Pine and Kenesaw. Flank 
movements, at this distance from his base, were too serious affairs to be at- 
tempted until they were plainly seen to be necessary. For more than 20 
days Sherman tried the enemy’s lines in front by cannonade, skirmish, and 
assault. On the 14th of June, General Polk, commanding the Confederate 
centre on Pine Mountain, four miles southwest of Kenesaw, was killed 
by a cannon-ball,! and was succeeded by General Loring, who immediately 
withdrew from his advanced position, and on the 19th Johnston’s line was 
contracted, abandoning Pine and Lost Mountains. Hood’s right rested on 
the Marietta Road, Loring held the centre, now transferred to Kenesaw 
Mountain, and Hardee extended across the Lost Mountain and Marietta 
Road on the left. A division of militia had in the mean time been sent to 
Johnston by Governor Brown. This division, commanded by General Gus- 
tavus W. Smith, was employed to guard the crossings of the Chattahoochee, 
to prevent the surprise of Atlanta by Federal cavalry. ‘The whole coun- 
try,” Sherman (June 23) writes to Halleck, “is one vast fort, and Johnston 
must have fully 50 miles of connected trenches, with abatis and finished 
batteries.” 

Sherman pressed on through the forests and difficult ravines, and finally 
came upon the enemy’s new position, of which Kenesaw was the salient, 
Hood thrown back to cover Marietta, and Hardee to cover the railroad to 
the Chattahoochee. During these operations the weather, according to Sher- 
man’s report, “was villainously bad.” Rain fell almost without pause for 
three weeks, making mud gullies of the narrow roads, and preventing a gen- 


* “Tt was on the afternoon of June 14th that Johnston, Hardee, and Polk rode out from their 
quarters to make some telescopic observations of the Federal position, At the time there was a 
brisk artillery fire going on between the two armies, but no engagement of the infantry. The gen- 
erals, dismounting, walked to the front, where some of the enemy’s artillerists, observing the party, 
fired. ‘Their aim was too successful. One of the projectiles struck General Polk on the left arm, 


about the elbow, passed through his body, considerably mangling it, and carried off the right arm. 
He died on the spot, and his remains were immediately taken to Marietta, and thence to Atlanta, 
where funeral services were performed on the 15th.”— Southern Generals, p. 419. 


SS S — 


Oeet OF Ping MOUNTAIN, WUEKE GeNEBAL POLK FELL, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JUNE, 1864. 


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VIEW OF KENESAW FROM LITTLE KENESAW, 


eral movement; but the Federal lines with every opportunity were ad- 
vanced closer to the enemy. It will be seen that Sherman had not accom- 
plished his purpose of penetrating the Confederate line, but had only thrown 
it in upon itself, contracting and strengthening it. Johnston had seen the 
mistake of his original position, and had corrected it in time to prevent dis- 
aster. On the 21st Hood was shifted to Hardee’s left, while at the same time 
Sherman was developing his right flank southward of Kenesaw. The next 
day, Hooker, having advanced his line, with Schofield on his right, was sud- 
denly attacked by Hood near the Kulp House, southwest of Marietta. Hood 
appears to have gained some advantage at first, falling thus unexpectedly 
upon Williams’s division of Hooker’s corps and Hascall’s of Schofield’s, and 
driving them back; but he was checked upon reaching the main line, and 
himself driven back in confusion, leaving behind his dead, wounded, and 
many prisoners! 

Sherman now determined to assault Kenesaw. It was a bold and Sher- 
man-like thing to do, and certainly failure could not have been reckoned in- 


‘ General Thomas gives the following account of this affair: 

‘* Williams’s division of Hooker’s corps skirmished itself into a position on the right of Geary’s 
division, the right of Williams resting at Kulp’s House, on the Powder Spring and Marietta Road. 
About 4 P. M. the enemy, in heavy force, attacked Knipe’s brigade in its advanced position, before 
his men had time to throw up any works, and persisted in the assault until sundown, when they 
withdrew, their ranks hopelessly broken, each assault having been repelled with heavy loss.” 


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DANIEL McOOOK, 


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MAP OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN, 


evitable.1 The order was given on the 24th, and executed on the 27th. 
Two points were selected on the enemy’s left centre—one at Little Kenesaw, 
in McPherson’s front, the other a mile farther south, in front of Thomas. 
On the appointed day, after a vigorous cannonade, the armies of the Ten- 
nessee and the Cumberland leaped forward to their terrible work, their as- 
sault falling mainly on Loring’s and Hardee’s corps. With a loss of less 
than 500 men the Confederate position was maintained, and McPherson and 
Thomas were completely repulsed, losing altogether 3000 men, including 
General Harker, Colonel Dan. McCook, Colonel Rice, and other valuable of- 
ficers. Success in this assault would have been decisive of the campaign ; 
it would have cut the enemy in two, prevented his retreat, and exposed him 
to defeat in detai). But the assault was nota success.? Sherman gives the 
following explanation of his reasons for making this assault: 

“Upon studying the ground, I had no alternative but to assault or turn 
the enemy’s position. Hither course had its difficulties and dangers. And 


? Perhaps the explanation of Sherman’s hope of success is to be found in his dispatch to Halleck, 
June 25th, which says: ‘‘I shall aim to make him [Johnston] stretch his line until he weakens it, 
and then break through.” 

? General Harker commanded a brigade of Newton’s division of Howard’s (Fourth) corps. He 
led one column of the assault in Howard’s front, and Wagner another. Palmer’s (Fourteenth) 
corps at the same time assaulted on Howard’s right. In regard to the result, Howard reports: 
‘*My experience is that a line of works thoroughly constructed, with the front well covered with 
abatis and other entanglements, well manned with infantry, whether with our own or that of the 
enemy, can not be carried by direct assault ; the exceptions are when some one of the above condi- 
tions are wanting, or where the defenders are taken by surprise. The strength of such a line is of 
course increased by well-arranged batteries. Notwithstanding the probabilities against success, 
it is sometimes necessary to assault strong works, as has occurred in several instances during this 
campaign. 

Colonels Dan. McCook and T. J. Mitchell (commanding brigades of Jeff. C. Davis’s division) led 
the assaulting columns of Palmer’s corps. McCook fell, dangerously wounded, and subsequently 
died at his home in Ohio. 


Juny, 1864.] THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 609 
i | I perceived that the enemy and our own officers had settled down into a 

conviction that I would not assault fortified lines. All looked to me to out- 
i flank, An army, to be efficient, must not settle down to one single mode 
A of offense, but must be prepared to execute any plan that promises success. 
I wished, therefore, for the moral effect, to make a successful assault on the 
enemy behind his breastworks. . . . . Failure as it was, and for which I as- 
sume the entire responsibility, I yet claim that it produced good fruits, as it 
demonstrated to General Johnston that I would assault, and that boldly; and 
we also gained and held ground so close to the enemy’s parapets that he 
could not show a head above them.” 

After this repulse there was but one resource left—another flank move- 
ment. On the night of July 2d, McPherson, in front of Kenesaw, was re- 
lieved by Garrard’s cavalry, and thrown around the right of the army, with 
instructions to advance to Nickajack Creek, and threaten Turner’s Ferry, 
where the railroad in Johnston’s rear crossed the Chattahoochee. The Con- 
federate commander at once saw the meaning of this movement, and on the 
morning of the 3d Thomas found no enemy in his front. A view of the 
Federal skirmishers on the top of Kenesaw was the first sight which greeted 
Sherman’s eyes at daybreak. Thomas moved forward in pursuit by the rail- 
road, and at 8 830 A.M.Sherman in person entered Marietta just as the ene- 
my’s cavalry left the place. He hoped to strike the enemy in the confusion 
of crossing the Chattahoochee. Drawing Logan from McPherson’s column 
to Marietta, the remainder of the Army of the Tennessee, with that of the 
Ohio, were ordered to cross the Nickajack, and attack the enemy in flank 
and rear.? Johnston, however, had covered his movement with great care, 
having constructed a strong téte de pont at the Chattahoochee, opposing also 
an advanced intrenched line at the Smyrna camp-meeting ground, five miles 
south of Marietta, his flanks resting behind Nickajack and Rottenwood 
Creeks. On the 5th of July this advanced position was abandoned on ac- 
count of Sherman’s threatening movements toward Turner’s Ferry. Logan 
had been returned to McPherson, and Thomas was moving on Smyrna, 
when the enemy fell back to his éée de pont. The Confederate cavalry 
crossed the Chattahoochee, Wheeler observing the river for twenty miles 
above, and Jackson for the same distance below. There was skirmishing 
between the two armies until the 9th, Thomas’s and McPherson’s commands 
touching the river above and below the enemy, with Schofield’s in reserve. 
While these operations were going on, Schofield had been withdrawn to 
Smyrna, and sent across the Chattahoochee at the mouth of Soap Creek 
(July 7th). This movement was successfully accomplished, Schofield sur- 
prising the Confederate guard, capturing a gun, laying a pontoon bridge 
across the river, and establishing himself on commanding ground on the 
east bank. At the same time Garrard’s cavalry moved to Rosswell, farther 
up the river, where he destroyed the factories which had for years supplied 
cloth to the Confederate armies. A facetious owner of one of these mills, in- 
tent upon having his joke, even if he lost his factory, displayed a French 
flag above the building.? Having destroyed these works, Garrard secured a 
shallow ford, and held it until the arrival of an infantry division from 
Thomas’s army. McPherson’s whole army was soon transferred to this 
quarter from the Nickajack. Howard’s corps, of Thomas’s army, had also 
built a bridge at Powers’s Ferry, two miles below the mouth of Soap Creek, 
crossed over and occupied a position on Schofield’s right. These move- 
ments, securing three points of crossing the Chattahoochee above the enemy, 
and also a position on the east bank, from which good roads ran to Atlanta, 
threatened to leave Johnston at his ¢éte de pont at Turner’s Ferry, and turn- 
ing his flank, to bring Sherman’s army into Atlanta forthwith. Johnston, 
seeing this, followed his cavalry across the Chattahoochee on the night of 
the 9th, and took up a position on Peach-tree Creek and the river below, 


HOWARD'S CORPS CROSSING THE CHATTAHOOCHEE 


1 Sherman gives a similar explanation to Halleck shortly after the assault. He says: ‘‘ The as- 
sault I made was no mistake; I had to do it. ‘The enemy, and our own army and officers, had set- 
tled down into the conviction that the assault of lines formed no part of my game, and the moment 
the enemy was found behind any thing like a parapet, why, every body would deploy, throw up 
counter works, and take it easy, leaving it to the ‘old man’ [meaning Sherman] to turn the position. 
Had the assault been made with one fourth more vigor (mathematically), I would have put the 
head of George Thomas’s whole army right through Johnston’s deployed line, on the best ground 
for ‘go ahead,’ while my entire forces were well in hand on roads converging to my then object, 
Marietta. Had Harker and McCook not been struck so early, the assault would have succeeded, 
and then the battle would have all been in our favor, on account of our superiority in numbers and 
initiative.” 

As to the possibility of success if Harker and McCook had not fallen, General Thomas is the 
original authority. He reports to Sherman just after the assault: ‘‘ Both General Harker and 
Colonel McCook were wounded on the enemy’s breastworks, and all say had they not been wound- 
ed we would have driven the enemy from his works.” 

2 “Tf you ever worked in your life,” writes Sherman to McPherson on the evening of July 3, 
‘¢work at daybreak to-morrow on the flank, crossing Nickajack somehow, and the moment you 
discover confusion pour in your fire. You know what a retreating mass across pontoon bridges 
means. Feel strong to-night, and make feints of pursuit with artillery. I know Johnston’s with- 
drawal is not strategic, but for good reasons after he crosses the Chattahoochee; but his situation 
with that river behind him is not comfortable at all... ... I don’t confine you to any crossing, 
but press the enemy all the time in flank till he is across the Chattahoochee.” 

To Thomas, at the same time, he writes: 

‘“‘The more I reflect, the more I know Johnston’s halt is to save time to cross his material and 
men. No general such as he would invite battle with the Chattahoochee behind him. I have or- 
dered McPherson and Schofield, at any cost, and work night and day, to get the enemy started in 
confusion toward his bridges. I know you appreciate the situation. We will never have such a 
chance again, and I want you to impress on Hooker, Howard, and Palmer the importance of the 
most intense energy of attack to-night and in the morning, and to press with vehemence, at any 
cost of life and material. Every inch of his line should be felt, and the moment there is a give, 
pursuit should be made by day with lines, and by night with a single head of column and section 
of artillery to each corps following a road. Hooker should communicate with McPherson by a cir- 
cuit if necessary, and act in concert. You know what loss would ensue to Johnston if he crosses 
his bridges at night in confusion, with artillery thundering at random on his rear.” 

* This joke might easily have cost the perpetrator his life. Sherman writes to Garrard, July 7: 
“*T will see as to any man in America hoisting the French flag, and then devoting his labor and 
| es iy capital to supplying armies in open hostility to our government, and claiming the benefit of his neu- 
I Ae: { | tral flag. Should you, under the impulse of anger, natural at contemplating such perfidy, hang the 
| =i Ia) Mh ve wretch, I approve the act beforehand.” He adds: ‘‘I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, 
! male and female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let them foot it, 

in 


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under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them by cars to the North...... The poor wom- 
en will make a howl. Let them take along their children and clothing, providing they have the 
means of hauling, or you can spare them, We will retain them until they can reach a country where 
they can live in peace and security.” 


610 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[JuLY, 1864. 


VIEW OF ATLANTA FROM THE SIGNAL STATION NORTH OF THE CUATTAHOOCHEE. 


covering Atlanta. Thus was abandoned to Sherman all of Georgia between 
the Tennessee and the Chattahoochee Rivers. In the pursuit of Johnston 
to the Chattahoochee, 2000 prisoners were taken. 

And here let us halt to review what has already been accomplished in 
the two months since Sherman opened the‘attack upon Johnston at Buzzard’s 
Roost. Johnston had been driven south of the Chattahoochee; he had not 
retreated from strategic motives, though his retreat had been conducted with 
so great skill and so little waste of force that it places him in the foremost 
rank of Confederate generals. No great battle had been fought in the cam- 
paign, which had been a series of sieges. Assaults there had been on both 
sides, and in these the loss had been severe, falling mainly upon the assail- 
ants. Johnston’s losses altogether had been, according to his own report, 
about 10,000 in killed and wounded, and 4700 from other causes. This 
does not include deserters, which probably numbered 2500 at the lowest, 
thus bringing the total loss to about 20,000. This loss had been just about 
covered by re-enforcements. Sherman’s losses it is difficult to estimate ex- 
actly. In the Army of the Cumberland the casualties for May and June 
amounted to 14,521, as reported by General Thomas, Supposing the loss 
in McPherson’s and Schofield’s commands to have been in proportion, we 
have a total of 25,000 for the casualties of battle. These losses, and others 
from sickness and detachment of troops for garrison, had been made up for 
by re-enforcements, so that the two armies, in respect of numbers, were 
now nearly the same as at the opening of the campaign. In the first stage 
of his advance, Sherman had it in his power to compel Johnston to fight a bat- 
tle upon conditions which involved the destruction of the Confederate army. 
It is wonderful that Johnston should have left Snake Creek Gap unguard- 
ed, but it is still more wonderful that, once having gained access through 
this pass to the enemy’s rear, McPherson did not appreciate his advantage, 
and push it to the utmost. If he had done so, and had been promptly sup- 
ported, Johnston’s army must have been ground to powder. No such op- 
portunity again offered. But, notwithstanding this disappointment, the fact 
that Johnston could hold no position north of the Chattahoochee was really 
a conclusive argument that he could not hold Atlanta. Sherman’s sole 
weakness was his long line of communications; but this was so well pro- 
tected that, although Johnston, after crossing the Etowah, had sent five suc- 
cessive detachments of cavalry to destroy it, none of these had succeeded. 

Sherman’s army was now within sight of Atlanta, only eight miles inter- 
vening. Atlanta is the centre of the entire network of railroads in Georgia. 
From it start three railway lines of communication. The road running north 
to Chattanooga was occupied in its entire length by Sherman. Eastward, 
through Decatur, another road runs to Augusta, and thence to Charleston. 
The road running south divides into two branches at East Point, six miles 
from Atlanta; one running southeastwardly through Macon to Savannah, 
the other southwestwardly through West Point and Opelika to Montgom- 


ery, and thence with slight interruption to Pensacola. To destroy this lat- 
ter or West Point Road, an expedition had been prepared, and General Rous- 
seau had been assigned to its command. As early as the 10th of April, Gen- 
eral Sherman, believing that Johnston would finally fall back beyond the 
Chattahoochee, had had this raid in view. The time for its operation had 
now come. On the 10th of July, when it was ascertained that Johnston had 
crossed the river, Rousseau started from Decatur, Alabama, with 2500 cay- 
alry and two pieces of artillery... No time more favorable could have been 
selected for the expedition. A.J.Smith was occupying Forrest’s cavalry in 
Mississippi; expeditions were out inland from Vicksburg and Baton Rouge, 
and Canby was understood to be threatening Mobile. Rousseau’s force con- 
sisted of the following cavalry regiments—the Fifth Indiana, Fifth Iowa, 
Second Kentucky, Fourth Tennessee, and Ninth Ohio. The party possessed 
1000 Spencer repeating-rifles. At the crossing of Coosa River, on the 18th, 
a ferry-boat was captured, and a part of the command having crossed and 
effected a lodgment on the south bank, it was attacked by General Clanton 
with two regiments of Alabama cavalry. This Confederate detachment was 
routed after a few hours’ skirmishing by an attack in flank, and Rousseau 
proceeded to Talladega on the railroad to Selma. Here a camp of about 
700 conscripts was dispersed. The West Point Railroad was first struck at 
Chehaw Station, where the enemy was again encountered under Clanton, 
but was obliged to retire after a loss of 40 killed and a large number of 


* The following instructions to Rousseau were dispatched by Sherman June 30th: 

“The movement that I want you to study and be prepared for is contingent on the fact that 
General A. J. Smith defeats Forrest, or holds him well in check, and after I succeed in making Joe 
Johnston pass the Chattahoochee with his army, when I want you to go in person, or to send some 
good officer, with 2500 good cavalry well armed, and a sufficient number of pack-mules loaded 
with ammunition, salt, sugar, and coffee, and some bread or flour, depending on the country for 
forage, meat, and corn-meal. The party might take two light Rodman guns, with orders, in case 
of very rapid movements, to cut the wheels and burn the carriages, taking sledges along to break 
off trunnions and wedge them into the muzzles. The expedition should start from Decatur [Ala- 
bama], move slowly to Blountsville and Ashville, and, if the way is clear, cross the Coosa at the 
Ten Islands, or the railroad bridge, destroying it after their passage, then move rapidly for 'Talla~ 
dega or Oxford, and then to the nearest ford or bridge over the Tallapoosa, That passed, the ex- 
pedition should move with rapidity on the railroad between Tuskegee and Opelika, breaking up the 
road and twisting the bars of iron. They should work on that road night and day, doing all the 
damage possible, toward and including Opelika. If no serious opposition offer, they should threat- 
en Columbus, Georgia, and then turn up the Chattahoochee to join us between Marietta and At- 
lanta, doing all the mischief possible. No infantry in position should be attacked, and the party 
should avoid all fighting possible, bearing in mind, for their own safety, that Pensacola, Rome, the 
Etowah, and my army are all places of refuge. If compelled to make Pensacola, they should leaye 
their horses, embark for New Orleans, and come round to Nashville. Study this well, and be pre- 
pared to act on orders when the time comes. Selma, though important, is more easily defended 
than the route I have named.” 

On July 2d the following dispatch was sent to Rousseau : 

‘* Now is the time for the raid to Opelika. . . .. . Forrest is in Mississippi, and Roddy has also 
gone there. All other rebel cavalry is here.” 

On July 6th the order was repeated as follows: 

‘* That cavalry expedition must now be off, and must proceed with the utmost energy and confi- 
dence. Every thing here is favorable, and I have official information that General A. J. Smith is 
out from Memphis with force enough to give Forrest full occupation. Expeditions inland are also 
out from Vicksburg and Baton Rouge, as well as against Mobile. If managed with rapidity, the 
expedition can not fail of success, and will accomplish much good,” 


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wounded. At Opelika a large quantity of stores was captured, and the rail- 
road was obliterated. From this point, on the 19th, Rousseau began to re- 
turn to Marietta, where he arrived by way of Carrolton and Villa Rica on 
the 22d. He had destroyed 30 miles of the railroad toward Montgomery, 
three miles toward Columbus, and two toward West Point. His entire loss 
had been 12 killed and 80 wounded. He brought in 400 mules and 300 
horses, 

After having collected an abundant supply of stores at Allatoona, Mari- 
etta, and Vining’s Station, and strengthened the railroad guards and garri- 
sons in the rear, General Sherman, on the 17th, crossed the Chattahoochee, 
a matter of no small difficulty, effected, as it was, in the face of an army 
50,000 strong, Schofield was already across in an impregnable position, 
and- was ordered to New Cross Keys. ‘Thomas crossed at Powers’s and 
Paice’s Ferries, and was to move by way of Buckhead; and McPherson 
was instructed to move straight from Rosswell to a point east of Decatur 
on the Augusta Railroad. Garrard’s cavalry acted with McPherson, while 
Stoneman and McCook watched the rivers and roads below the railway. 

At this most critical stage of the campaign, General Johnston, command- 
ing the Confederate army, was relieved of his command. He received at 
10 o’clock P.M. on the 17th a telegram from Secretary Seddon, the purport 
of which was that, as he had failed to arrest the Federal approach to the 
vicinity of Atlanta, and had expressed no confidence in his ability to defeat 
or repulse General Sherman, he would immediately turn the army over to 
General Hood.! Johnston, at Hood’s request, continued to give orders until 


1 “ Besides the causes of my removal alleged in the telegram announcing it,” reports General 
Johnston, ‘‘various other accusations have been made against me—some published in newspapers 
in such a manner as to appear to have official authority, and others circulated orally in Georgia 
and Alabama, and imputed to General Bragg. ‘The principal are, that I persistently disregarded 
the instructions of the President; that I would not fight the enemy; that I refused to defend At- 
lanta; that I refused to communicate with General Bragg in relation to the operations of the 
army; that I disregarded his entreaties to change my course and attack the enemy; and gross 
exaggerations of the losses of the army. 

“T had not the advantage of receiving the President’s instructions in relation to the manner of 
conducting the campaign. But as the conduct of my predecessor, in retreating before odds less 
than those confronting me, has apparently been approved ; and as General Lee, in keeping on the 
defensive and retreating toward Grant’s objective point, under circumstances like mine, was add- 
ing to his great fame, both in the estimation of the administration and people, I supposed that my 
course would not be censured. I believed then, as I do now, that it was the only one at my com- 
mand which promised success. 

‘«] think that the foregoing narrative shows that the Army of Tennessee did fight, and with at 
least as much effect as it has ever done before. 

‘The proofs that I intended to hold Atlanta are the fact that under my orders the work of 
strengthening its defenses was going on vigorously, the communication on the subject made by me 
to General Hood, and the fact that my family was in the town. That the public workshops were 
removed and no large supplies deposited in the town, as alleged by General Bragg, were measures 
of common prudence, and no more indicated the intention to abandon the place than the sending 
ve ace of an army to the rear on a day of battle proves a foregone determination to abandon 
the field. 

‘While General Bragg was at Atlanta, about the middle of July, we had no other conyersa- 
tion concerning the army there than such as I introduced. He asked me no questions regarding 
its operations, past or future; made no comments upon them nor suggestions, and had not the 
slightest reason to suppose that Atlanta would not be defended. He told me that the object of his 
journey was to confer with Lieutenant General Lee, and communicate with General E. K. Smith 
in relation to re-enforcements forme. He talked much more of affairs in Virginia than in Geor- 
gia, asserting, what I believed, that Sherman’s army outnumbered Grant’s, and impressed me with 
the belief that his visits to me were unofficial.” 

And here it is proper to consider General Hood’s estimate of the Atlanta campaign. In the 
first place, he estimates General Johnston’s effective force on the 6th of May, 1864, as 70,000 
men. For this statement there is no authority whatsoever, ‘The South,” he says, ‘‘had been 
denuded of troops to fill the strength of the Army of the Tennessee. Mississippi and Alabama 
were without military support, and looked for protection in decisive battle in the mountains of 
Georgia.” Here again Hood is belied by all testimony. Forrest, whose assistance Johnston ask- 
ed for, was kept in Mississippi by orders from Richmond, and not permitted to attack Sherman’s 
communications. Besides putting Johnston’s force nearly 20,000 higher than it really was, 
Hood says that ‘‘re-enforcements were within supporting distance.” These re-enforcements were 
eseptpid refused in a defensive campaign on Johnston’s part, and no other campaign was pos- 
sible. 

Hood then goes on to reprimand Johnston’s retreat. ‘‘In such condition,” he says, ‘ was that 
splendid army when the active campaign fairly opened. The enemy, but little superior in numbers, 
none in organization and discipline, inferior in spirit and confidence, commenced his advance. 
The Confederate forces, whose faces and hopes were to the north, almost simultaneously com- 
menced to retreat. They soon reached positions favorable for resistance. Great ranges of mount- 
ains running across the line of march, and deep rivers, are stands from which a well-directed 
army is not easily driven or turned. At each advance of the enemy, the Confederate army, with- 


- out serious resistance, fell back to the next range or river in the rear. The habit to retreat soon 


became a routine of the army, and was substituted for the hope and confidence with which the 
campaign opened. The enemy soon perceived this. With perfect security he divided his forces, 
using one column to menace in front and one to threaten in rear. The usual order to retreat, 


THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 4 611 


the afternoon of the 18th, placing his troops on the position which he had 
selected near Peach-tree Creek. He also fully explained to Hood the plans 


not strike in detail, was issued and obeyed. Those retreats were always at night. The day was 
consumed in hard labor. Daily temporary works were thrown up, behind which it was never in- 
tended to fight. The men became travelers by night and laborers by day. They were ceasing 
to be soldiers by the disuse of military duty. Thus for seventy-four days and nights, that noble 
army, which, if ordered to resist, no force that the enemy could assemble could dislodge from a 
battle-field, continued to abandon their country, to see their strength departing, and their flag 
waving only in retreat or in partial engagements. At the end of that time, after descending 
from the mountains, where the last advantage of position was abandoned, and camping without 
fortifications on the open plains of Georgia, the army had lost 22,750 of its best soldiers. Nearly 
one third was gone, no general battle fought, much of our state abandoned, two others uncovered, 
and the organization and efficiency of every command, by loss of officers, men, and tone, seriously 
diminished. These things were the inevitable result of the strategy adopted. It is impossible for 
a large army to retreat in the face of a pursuing enemy without such a fate. In a retreat the 
losses are constant and permanent. Stragglers are overtaken, the fatigued fall by the waysile, 
and are gathered by the advancing enemy. Every position by the rear-guard, if taken, yields its 
wounded to the victors. The soldiers, always awakened from rest at night to continue the re- 
treat, leave many of their comrades asleep in trenches. This is the time for desertion. ‘The loss- 
es of a single day are not large. Those of seventy-four (74) days will embrace the strength of an 
army. Ifa battle be fought and the field held at the close, however great the slaughter, the loss 
will be less than to retreat in the face of an enemy. ‘There will be no stragglers. Desertions 
are in retreat, rarely, if ever, on the field of battle. ‘The wounded are gathered to the rear, and 
soon recover, and in a few weeks the entire loss consists only of the killed and permanently dis- 
abled, which is not one fifth of the apparent loss on the night of the battle. The enemy is check- 
ed, his plans deranged, territory saved, the campaign suspended or won. If a retreat still be nec- 
essary, it can then be done with no enemy pressing and no loss following. ‘The advancing party: 
loses nothing but its killed and permanently disabled. Neither stragglers nor deserters thin its 
ranks. It reaches the end of its march stronger for battle than when it started. The army 
commanded by General Sherman and that commanded by General Johnston, not greatly unequal 
at the commencement of the campaign, illustrate what I have written. General Sherman, in his 
official report, states that his forces when they entered Atlanta were nearly the same in number as 
when they left Dalton. The Army of Tennessee lost twenty-two thousand seven hundred and 
fifty (22,750) men, nearly one third of its strength. I have nothing to say of the statement of 
losses made by General Johnston in his official report, except to state that, by his own figures, he 
understates his losses some thousands; that he excludes the idea of any prisoners, although his 
previous official returns show more than seven thousand (7000) under the head of ‘absent with- 
out leave ;’ and that the returns of the army while he was in command, corrected and increased 
by the records of the army which has not been fully reported to the government, and the return 
signed by me, but made up under him, as soon as I assumed command, show the losses of the 
Army of Tennessee to be what I have stated, and a careful examination of the returns with the 
army will show the losses to be more than stated.” 

Hood’s own statements belie him. He says Johnston lost 22,750 men. He gives him at the 
outset 70,000. This would leave 47,250. The re-enforcements during this period amounted to 
nearly 20,000; so that Hood should have had about as fair a start as Johnston had had. But 
how does Hood estimate the force which he received from Johnston? He says: ‘‘Its effective 
strength was, infantry, 33,750; artillery, 3500; cavalry, 10,000, with 1500 Georgia militia... . 
making a total of 47,750 men.” ‘This is sufficient reason for doubting the reliability of General 
Hood’s estimates. For, by his calculation, Johnston had received only about 500 additional men 
since the commencement of the campaign. The official documents tell a different story. 

And here let us submit the report made by Mr. Wigfall in the Confederate Senate, March 16, 
1865: 

“ Mr. Prestpent,—I return the Report of General Hood, with a recommendation from the 
Committee on Military Affairs that it be printed. I am instructed by the committee to say that 
this recommendation would not have been made had the House not already ordered it to be pub- 
lished. No action of the Senate can now keep the report from the public, however desirable it 
might be. Indeed, having been sent to both houses in open session by the President without any 
warning as to ‘its tendency to induce controversy’ or cause ‘prejudice to the public service,’ as 
in the case of General Johnston’s Report, the damage was already done—if damage should result 
from its contents being made known. The official report of the Secretary of War at the begin- 
ning of this Congress contained an attack upon General Johnston. It was sent to us by the Pres- 
ident in open session, and published by order of Congress. General Johnston’s Report, which 
contained his defense against this attack, was asked for promptly, but was withheld for months. 
It was finally sent to us in secret session, with a protest against its publication. A report of the 
operations of the Army of Tennessee while under the command of General Hood is asked for, and 
we receive this paper in open session as soon as it can be copied. No word of warning as to its 
character is given. 

‘¢Much of it is but a repetition of the charges made by the late Secretary of War, and, if they 
can be sustained, it is manifest that our present disasters are not to be attributed to General John- 
ston’s removal, but to his ever having been appointed. It follows, too, that he should not be con- 
tinued in his present command. It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine into the correctness 
of these charges. The Senate did not ask for a review of General Johnston’s campaign, but for 
a report of the operations of the army while under the command of General Hood. ‘Though un. 
called for, it is before us and the people, and I propose to give it a fair and calm consideration. 

‘¢In reviewing the review, I shall refer to the official ‘Field Returns’ on file in the Adjutant 
and Inspector General’s Office, made and signed by Colonel Mason, A. A. G., and approved by 
General Johnston, and not to those with the army, revised and ‘corrected,’ which I have never 
seen. The field returns on file here are, or should be, duplicates of those with the army, which 
are made up from the returns of the corps commanders. Not having the honor of a personal ac- 
quaintance with Colonel Falconer, I do not know what reliance is to be placed on his corrections 
of official documents. I do know Colonel Mason and General Johnston, and I do not believe 
either capable of making a false or fraudulent return. 

‘¢ General Hood, in his review, gives the effective total of General Johnston’s army ‘at and near 
Dalton’ to be 70,000 on the 6th of May, 1864. These returns appear to have been made tri- 
monthly, on the Ist, 10th, and 20th of each month. The last official ‘field return,’ previously to 
the 6th of May, on file in the Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office, is of the Ist of May. It 
shows his effective total to be 40,913 infantry and artillery and 2974 cavalry, amounting in all to 
43,887. This return shows, however, that two brigades of cavalry, under the command of Gen- 
eral Johnston, were in the rear recruiting their horses, the effective total of which is not given. 
General Johnston, in his report, estimates his cavalry at this time at ‘about 4000,’ which would 
make the effective total of these brigades 1026, which, added to the 2974 ‘at? Dalton, makes the 
4000. Estimating his cavalry there at 4000, it is obvious that from the official returns he had but 
44,913 effective total ‘at and near’ Dalton on the Ist of May, the date of the last return before the 
6th of that month. ‘The official records show, then, that General Hood over-estimated General 
Johnston’s forces ‘at and near Dalton’ by 25,087 men. 

‘<< Tf General Hood, by the term ‘at or near Dalton,’ refers to the forces after this date received 
by General Johnston from General Polk, he is again in error as to numbers. It was not till the 
4th of May that General Polk was ordered to ‘move with Loring’s division and other available 
forces at your command, to Rome, Georgia, and thence unite with General Johnston.’ On the 
6th, the day on which General Hood says this army ‘lay at and near Dalton, waiting the advance 
of the enemy,’ General Polk telegraphs to General Cooper from Demopolis: ‘ My troops are con- 
centrating and moving as directed.’ On the 10th, at Rome, he telegraphs the President: ‘The 
first of Loring’s brigade arrived and sent forward to Resaca; the second just in; the third will 
arrive early to-morrow morning. * * * French’s brigade was to leave Blue Mountain this morn- 
ing. ‘The others will follow in succession; Ferguson will be in supporting distance day after to- 
morrow; Jackson’s division thirty-six hours after.’ Yet General Hood asserts that four days be- 
fore this the army was ‘ assembled’ at and near Dalton, and ‘within the easy direction of a single 
commander.’ The last of these re-enforcements joined General Johnston at New Hope Church 
the 26th of May, nearly three weeks after they were alleged to be ‘at and near Dalton,’ and 
amounted to less than 19,000 men. If none was lost by sickness, desertion, or the casualties of 
battle, which is not probable, General Johnston had at New Hope about sixty-four thousand men 
on the 26th of May, instead of seventy thousand, at Dalton, on the 6th. A difference of six thou- 
sand ; not very great, it is admitted, yet it shows General Hood to be not quite accurate in his esti- 
mates. 

<¢ General Hood asserts that General Johnston lost twenty-two thousand seven hundred men in 
his retreat, and offers to prove that by the record. At New Hope he had about sixty-four thou- 
sand men. The field returns of the 10th of July, the last made while the army was under his 
command, shows, at Atlanta, 40,656 infantry and artillery, and 10,276 cavalry —50,932—say 
51,000. Deduct this from 64,000, and it leaves 13,000 loss in artillery, infantry, and cavalry, in- 
stead of 22,700, as alleged by General Hood. General Johnston does not give the losses of his 
cavalry for want of reports. He had 4000 at Dalton, and received 4000 (Polk’s) at Adairsville 
on the 17th of May—8000. At Atlanta he had 10,276, showing that he had recruited his cavalry 
2276 over and above his losses. Leaving out his cavalry, he had at Atlanta, 10th of July, 40,656 
infantry and artillery. At New Hope he had, of all arms, 64,000. Of these, 8000 were cavalry, 
supposing it not to have increased by recruiting up to that time. That gives him 56,000 infantry 
and artillery. At Atlanta he had, of these arms, 40,656, which deduct from the 56,000, and it 
shows his losses to be, in infantry and artillery, 15,344, 


612 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


upon which he had proposed to conduct the defense of Atlanta. In the 
first place, he had proposed to attack Sherman while crossing the creek, 
where success would be of the greatest advantage, since, in that event, both 
the creek and the river would intercept the Federal retreat. If he failed in 
this attack, his design had been to keep back the enemy by means of in- 
trenchments constructed between the Marietta and Decatur Roads until the 
arrival of the state troops which had been promised by Governor Brown at 
the end of the month. These intrenchments he would line with the state 
militia which he already had, while with his main army he would attack 
Sherman in flank whenever the latter should approach Atlanta. 

The Confederate army was now posted on high ground on the west bank 
of Peach-tree Creek, extending from Turner’s Ferry to the Augusta Road. 
McPherson, on the 18th, reached a point seven miles east of Decatur, and, 
with Garrard’s cavalry, broke up four miles of the road. Schofield the same 
day reached Decatur. On the 19th McPherson turned into Decatur, Schofield 
following a road to the right leading toward Atlanta, while Thomas, by numer- 
ous bridges, crossed Peach-tree Creek in the face of the enemy. Hood had 
disposed his troops so that Cheatham’s (formerly Hood’s) corps on the right 
would cut off Thomas from Schofield and McPherson. Hardee held the 
centre, and Stewart (commanding Polk’s old corps) the left. These two 


“Under repeated orders from the War Department, General Johnston had before this time sent 
off three regiments. Supposing them to average two hundred effective total, they would amount 
to six hundred each; deduct that amount from the 15,344, and it leaves but 14,744 total loss in 
killed, wounded, deserters, stragglers, and prisoners of his infantry and artillery. From this 
amount deduct 10,000 killed and wounded, and we have 4744 lost from all other causes in these 
arms. But it appears that the cavalry had increased 2276. Deduct this from the 4744, and his 
losses in all arms, except in killed and wounded, amount to but 2468. 

‘<We have, then, a loss by desertion, and straggling, and prisoners of only some 2500 from the 
‘digging and retreating’ policy. The demoralization of the army could not have been as great 
as General Hood supposes, or its losses from these causes would have been greater. The ‘working 
by night and traveling by day’ would seem, too, not to be a very bad policy where the army has 
confidence in its leader. 

‘General Hood asserts that a retreating army must lose more by straggling and desertion, if it 
does not fight, than it would in killed and wounded if it does. He attempts to show this by what 
he regards well-established principles, and not by figures. Napier differs from General Hood on 
this point. In discussing the losses of Massena from the Torres Vedras, he says: ‘It is wnques- 
tionable that a retreating army should fight as little as possible.’ 

‘General Hood also insists that the army at Atlanta was greatly demoralized by the loss of 
men and officers, and by constant falling back. I do not recollect any general officer, except 
General Polk, who was killed while Johnston was in command; there may have been others, but 
certainly not many. What were his losses in general officers from Atlanta to Nashville? His 
march from Jonesborough to the Tennessee line was a retreat, and from Nashville to Tupelo; yet 
he lost by desertion but 300, and left the army in fine spirits. The demoralization of Johnston’s 
army can not be accounted for on this theory. But was it demoralized? It fought well when he 
first took command. His disasters around Atlanta are not attributed by him to a want of spirit 
in the men, but to incompetency in the officers. He could not have his orders executed. I in- 
cline to the opinion that he is mistaken as much as to his facts as he is in his theory. 

‘* General Hood insinuates that General Johnston attempts to dodge an acknowledgment of his 
full losses by ‘excluding the idea of prisoners,’ and charges that his official returns show more 
than 7000 under the head of ‘ absent without leave.’ This is a very grave charge against an offi- 
cer and a gentleman. General Hood should know that the usual, if not only mode of stating 
the loss of prisoners is in a marginal note opposite the column of ‘absent without leave.’ It can 
never be other than an approximate estimate ; for no general can know how many of his ‘absent 
without leave,’ after a battle, have gone voluntarily to the enemy, and how many have been cap- 
tured. General Hood should know also that the absent and prisoners of an army are continued 
on its rolls from time to time, as the ‘ Field Returns’ are made out, without reference to a change 
of commanders, and that it is very possible, therefore, that a part, or even the whole, of the 7000 
prisoners may have been lost when the army was under the command of General Bragg. The 
rout at Missionary Ridge had occurred before General Johnston took command. This is a mat- 
ter, however, which especially concerns General Hood. The field return of the 10th of July shows 
a loss of not quite 7000 prisoners (6994). Opposite General Hood’s corps is this note: ‘238 offi- 
cers and 4597 men, prisoners of war, are reported among the “absent without leave.””* This shows 
that, out of not quite 7000 prisoners of war, nearly 5000 (4835) were captured from his corps. He 
knows whether they were lost by him under Johnston, or by some one else under Bragg. For the 
accuracy of the statement, he, and not General Johnston, is responsible. The returns of the army 
is only a consolidation of the returns of the corps commanders. 

‘* But if there were 7000 prisoners taken during the retreat from Dalton, how does he account 
for the fact shown by the official returns that General Johnston had, at Atlanta, on the 10th of 
July, leaving out his killed and wounded, within 2500 men of the number put under his command 
previously? How can this excess of loss in prisoners over his total loss (except in killed and 
wounded) be explained? Upon no other hypothesis than that his army increased by recruiting 
more rapidly than it decreased by straggling and loss of prisoners. ‘The morale of the army, then, 
could not have been very bad—at least not as bad as it is supposed by General Hood to have been. 
Nor could the people of the territory which General Johnston was ‘abandoning’ have lost all con- 
fidence in him. It must have been from them that his recruits were gathered. 

‘It is alleged that at Dalton ‘the enemy was but little superior in numbers, none in organiza- 
tion and discipline, and inferior in spirit and confidence.’ The army which is described as ‘in- 
ferior in spirit and confidence’ to Johnston’s was the one which had lately routed it at Missionary 
Ridge, under Bragg. An army flushed with victory is not usually wanting ‘in spirit and confi- 
dence.’ Did the presence of Johnston cause them to doubt their future success? What infused 
‘spirit and confidence’ in the Army of Tennessee? Was it the consciousness that it, at last, had a 
commander who, careless of his own blood, was careful of that of his men, who knew when to take 
them under fire and how to bring them out, and whose thorough soldiership would save them from 
ever being uselessly slaughtered by being led to battle except when some good purpose was to be 
accomplished or some brilliant victory achieved? If the ‘ discipline and organization’ of the army 
were as perfect as described, who produced it? For four months it had been under the control 
of Johnston. What evidence has General Hood to sustain his assertion that at Dalton the enemy 
was but little superior to us in numbers? He relies upon Sherman’s statement that he was as 
strong at Atlanta as when the campaign opened. His army at Missionary Ridge was estimated 
at 80,000. He was afterward re-enforced by the army from Knoxville and the troops from North 
Alabama, besides others. Our scouts reported that he had been re-enforced with at least 30,000 
men, General Sherman told General Govan, or said in his presence, that he had commenced the 
campaign with 110,000. I have never heard it estimated at less than 90,000 infantry and artil- 
lery. In July General Wheeler estimated it at between 65 and 70,000. The Northern papers, 
abput that time, admitted his losses to be 45,000. His cavalry was estimated by General Wheeler 
at not less than 15,000. Johnston, in the mean time, under orders of the War Department, sent 
off two brigades and received one. 

‘*General Hood charges that General Johnston did not intend to hold Atlanta. “As evidence 
of this, he says that no officer or soldier believed it, and that General Johnston had thrown up no 
intrenchments in front of his lines opposite Peach-tree Creek. If General Johnston intended, as 
he says he did, to strike the head of Sherman’s columns as soon as they appeared across Peach- 
tree Creek, and before they were intrenched, or had time even to deploy into line of battle, what 
use had he for field-works? They would have been in his way if erected, and his men would 
have been uselessly fatigued in constructing them. Not having been present, I can not speak of 
the opinion of the army. But, admitting the fact, I submit that the opinion of the army is not 
always evidence of the intentions of the general. Is it not possible, too, that General Hood may 
have mistaken his own opinion for that of the army? The evidence that General Johnston did 
intend to hold the place is given in his report. In addition, it may be added that he held New 
Hope for a fortnight, and only left it because the enemy left their intrenchments confronting it, 
moving to the railroad and to the rear. He then held a position in front of Kenesaw for a month, 
and left that, at last, because, by extending his intrenchments, Sherman had got nearer to Atlanta 
by several miles than we were. In all the fighting we had been successful, and that in positions 
frequently prepared for defense in a few hours. Is it probable, then, that General Johnston would 
not have attempted to hold a place fortified already to his hand under the direction of the Engi- 
neer Bureau, and previously inspected by Major General Gilmer, the chief engineer of our army ? 
Why had he been strengthening it from the 5th of July, with all the labor he could command, if 
he did not intend to defend it, in the event of his failing to crush the enemy at Peach-tree Creek ? 
Why was he strengthening it at the very moment of his removal? If the position was as weak as 
Jescribed by General Hood, why did Sherman not attempt to carry it by assault?” 


[JULY, 1864, 


were ordered by Hood to attack Thomas at one P.M. on the 20th, before 
the latter could fortify himself. But the Federal movement threatened to 
flank Hood’s right, and must be met by an extension of Cheatham’s corps in 
that direction. This led to a displacement of Hardee’s and Stewart’s origi- 
nal line to close up the interval. In these manceuvres much time was con- 
sumed, and it was not till four P.M. that the attack was made. Hood's left 
corps, under Stewart, advanced toward Buckhead, and struck the Federal 
line at a point where a gap had been left between Thomas and Schofield, 
and which Sherman was trying to fill. The blow was sudden, and fell upon 
Newton’s division on the road, Hooker’s corps to the south, and Johnson’s 
division of Palmer’s corps. Johnson was well intrenched; Newton had 
hastily thrown up a line of rail breastworks in his front; but Hooker’s corps 
was entirely uncovered, and fought on comparatively open ground. The 
assault was partially successful at first, Stewart gaining a temporary work in 
his front. But Newton’s division, though exposed on the left, repelled every 
charge of the enemy. The battle then swayed toward the Federal right 
against Hooker and Johnson, who yielded not a foot of ground, and after a 
severe battle, which lasted until sundown, the enemy was hurled back to his 
works.! Thomas’s loss was heavy, amounting to 1600 in killed and wound- 
ed, the greatest number of casualties being in Hooker’s corps. The Con- 
federate loss must have been still heavier. Five hundred dead were left 
upon the field, and 1000 severely wounded, and 360 Confederate prisoners 
were captured. Sherman estimates the loss of the enemy at 5000.? 

A task had devolved upon General Hood to which his faculties were in- 
adequate; it was a task which might have discouraged the most skillful 
general the world ever saw. Johnston had understood its difficulty, and 
had met the emergency in the only possible way which either military 
science or military experience suggested. His removal from command was 
a denunciation of his method of conducting the campaign. Hood, who, 
while a brave soldier, was no general, adopted an exactly opposite method. 
It was his well-known habit to fight battles and disregard strategy, and for 
this reason he had been assigned to the command. If Sherman could have 
made the appointment himself, he could not have more certainly or more 
completely served his own purpose. Hood was the commander, and Hood’s 
theory of war was the policy which secured for him the opportunity for 
which he had been waiting, and out of which Johnston had all along been 
cheating him. 

General Hood, having failed in his first plan, proceeded to execute the sec- 
ond, which involved an attack on McPherson. The movement of the latter 
to Hood’s right, if not checked, would compel the evacuation of Atlanta. 
Thus, on the morning of the 22d, Sherman, to his surprise, found the Confed- 
erate works on Peach-tree Creek abandoned, and pushed his whole line up 
close to Atlanta. Hood in the mean time was constructing new fortifica- 
tions, and, leaving Cheatham and Stewart to defend the city, had ordered 
Hardee to move south with his corps during the night of the 21st on the 
McDonough Road. This movement had for its object the turning of 
McPherson’s flank. Wheeler’s cavalry moved on Hardee’s right, and both 
were to attack at daylight, or as soon thereafter as possible. Hardee’s suc- 
cess would be followed by an attack of Cheatham on Thomas, and then, as 
the engagement became general, by a movement from the centre. 

These combinations led to the battle of July 22. McPherson had the 
night before crossed the Augusta Railroad two miles west of Decatur, after 
severe skirmishing, and Blair, on the left of the road, had pushed forward 
and seized a commanding eminence not two miles distant from Atlanta. 
The general advance of Sherman’s line on the morning of the 22d had been 
contracted and strengthened. Dodge’s (Sixteenth) corps, on Logan’s right, 
had been in this way displaced, and was sent around to Blair’s left, to 
strengthen the commanding position which had been gained the previous 
night. Sherman in the morning had supposed that Atlanta was abandon- 
ed; but before noon Thomas and Schofield found the enemy well intrench- 
ed in their front, covering the city, and away to the left about eleven o’clock 
was heard the fire of musketry and artillery. In a moment Hood’s design 
was fathomed; but it was already too late to completely avert the danger 
which threatened McPherson. 

Sherman was at the Howard House at this time, on Thomas’s left. Here 
McPherson met him and Schofield, and described the condition of affairs on 
his flank. Sherman had proposed to extend to the right, and was, there- 
fore, not desirous to gain on the left. But the nature of the position gained 
by Blair led him to send Dodge to strengthen that point. This point hav- 
ing been settled, McPherson started from the Howard House to return to his 
army, reports having already reached him of an attempt on his left. The 
sound of musketry, increasing in volume and accompanied by artillery, led 
Sherman to order an advance from the right and centre, and to hold as large 
a portion of Schofield’s corps as possible in reserve to await developments. 
About half an hour after McPherson’s departure, his adjutant general, Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Clark, rode up with the sad and startling intelligence that his 
commander was either dead or a prisoner; that, riding from Sherman’s head- 
quarters to Dodge’s column, and having dismissed his orderlies and staff offi- 
cers on various errands, he had passed into a narrow path leading off from the 
extreme left of his line, and a few minutes later a sharp volley was heard in 
that direction, and McPherson’s horse had come out riderless, with two 
wounds. “The suddenness of this calamity,” says General Sherman, “ would 
have overwhelmed me with grief, but the living demanded my whole 
thought.” General Logan, commanding the Fifteenth Corps, was ordered 


ny 


' Thomas’s Report. 

? General Hood attributes the failure of the attack to delay, and to Hardee’s failure ‘to push 
the attack as ordered.” 

* Two days after this event, it was reported as follows by General Sherman to Adjutant Gen- 
eral Thomas ; ' 


| 
| 


Juny, 1864.] 


JAMES B, McPHERSON, 


to take command of the Army of the Tennessee. Sherman instructed Lo- 
gan that he did not wish to gain ground on the left, but that the Augusta 
Railroad must be held at all hazards, 

Hardee had swung around and struck the left flank of Sherman’s army, 
his movement being covered by dense woods. Enveloping Blair’s division, 
the attack was extended to the rear until it reached Dodge’s corps in mo- 
tion. There was between Blair and Dodge an interval of halfa mile. The 
last order ever given by McPherson was that Colonel Wangelin’s brigade, 
of Logan’s corps, should cross the railroad and occupy this gap. The order 
had been obeyed, and its execution checked the ene- 
my’s advance. Wheeler's cavalry at the same time, 
having taken a wider circuit, broke in upon Decatur, 
capturing a portion of the trains there stationed, and 
driving the rest toward the Chattahoochee. Hardee 
had been checked, but Stewart’s corps, on his left, at- 
tacked in front, sweeping across a portion of the hill 
which Blair was fortifying, capturing the intrenching 
party with its tools, and bearing down upon G. A. 
Smith’s division, which was driven back upon that of 
Leggett, who still obstinately clung to the crest. Smith’s 
line was now formed with its right touching Leggett, 
and the left refused, facing southeast. This position 
was firmly held for four hours, unmoved by the as- 
saults of the enemy. On the extreme left Hardee had 
captured six guns, and Smith, in refusing his left, had 
abandoned two more. Hood still persisted in the at- 
tempt to turn Sherman’s left flank. There was a lull 
at four P.M., during which the enemy felt his way to 
the railroad, and, suddenly breaking forth upon a regi- 
ment, which, with a section of artillery, had been ad- 
vanced as a sort of picket, captured two more guns. 


“Tt is my painful duty to report that Brigadier General James B. 
McPherson, United States Army, Major General of Volunteers, and ° 
commander of the Army of the ‘Tennessee in the field, was killed by a 
shot from ambuscade about noon yesterday. At the time of this fatal 
shot he was on horseback, placing his troops in position near the city of 
Atlanta, and was passing by a cross-road from a moving column toward 
the flank of troops that had already been established on the line. He 
had quitted me but a few minutes before, and was on his way to see in 
person to the execution of my orders. About the time of this sad event 
the cnemy had sallied from his intrenchments of Atlanta, and by a cir- 
cuit had got to the left and rear of this very line, and had began an at- 
tack which resulted in serious battle ; so that General McPherson fell in 
battle, booted and spurred, as the gallant knight and gentleman should 
wish. Not his the loss, but the country’s; and this army will mourn 
his death and cherish his memory as that of one who, though compara- 
tively young, had risen by his merit and ability to the command of one 
of the best armies which the nation had called into existence to vindi- 
cate its honor and integrity. 

“* History tells of but few who so blended the grace and gentleness of 
the friend with the dignity, courage, faith, and manliness of the soldier. 
His public enemies, even the men who directed the fatal shot, ne’er 
spoke or wrote of him without expressions of marked respect; those 
whom he commanded loved him even to idolatry; and I, his associate 
and commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his 
great worth. I feel assured that every patriot in America, on hearing 
this sad news, will feel a sense of personal loss, and the country gener- 
ally will realize that we have lost not only an able military leader, but a 
man who, had he survived, was qualified to heal the national strife which 
has been raised by designing and ambitious men. His body has been 
sent North in charge of Major Willard, Captains Steele and Giles, his 


personal staff.” 
7Q = 


THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 613 


Advancing and driving back Lightburn’s brigade, which held that portion 
of the line, he captured two full batteries, one of them 20-pounder Parrotts. 
By this advance of the enemy, Wood’s and Harrow’s divisions of Logan’s 
corps were separated. It was important that the position should be recov- 
ered. Batteries were moved from Schofield’s line to a commanding position 
enfilading the enemy, and while these poured in their continuous fire, Logan 
and a portion of Schofield’s force drove the enemy from the field, recapturing 
the two batteries. ‘Thus terminated the battle of the 22d. Sherman re- 
ports his loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners as 8722, and estimates that 
of the enemy as 8000. In this battle the Confederate general W. H. T. 
Walker was killed. 

This day ended Sherman’s operations east of Atlanta. Garrard’s cavalry, 
whose absence had materially assisted Hood on the 22d, had been employed 
in the destruction of the Augusta Railroad 42 miles east of Atlanta. This 
movement, together with Rousseau’s operations on the West Point Road, left 
the enemy but a single line of uninterrupted communication, that by the 
Macon Railroad. In order to reach this remaining road Sherman determ- 
ined to transfer his army to the west of Atlanta. Rousseau, upon his re- 
turn to Marietta with 2000 cavalry, was ordered to relieve Stoneman on the 
Chattahoochee, and to the latter was given the command of his own and 
Garrard’s division, amounting to 5000 men. General E. M. McCook, with 
his own and Rousseau’s cavalry, had a force 4000 strong. With these com- 
mands Stoneman and McCook were ordered to make a concerted movement 
against the Macon Road, while Sherman was extending his army on the right 
toward Hast Point. In respect of numbers, the cavalry designated for this 
expedition was sufficient for the accomplishment of its object against any 
opposition which it was possible for the enemy to make. Stoneman was to 
move by the left around Atlanta to McDonough, and McCook by the right 
to Fayetteville, and on the night of the 28th the two bodies were to effect a 
junction on the Macon Road near Lovejoy’s, far south of Atlanta, and break 
it effectually. At the very moment of starting Stoneman begged permis- 
sion, after executing the orders already given him, to proceed with his own 
proper command to Macon and Andersonville, and release the Union pris- 
oners there confined. ‘“ There was something most captivating in the idea,” 
reports Sherman, “and the execution was within the bounds of probability 
of success.” He therefore consented. 

The expedition proved a failure. There seems to have been no attempt 
on Stoneman’s part to effect a junction at Lovejoy’s with Garrard and 
McCook. Garrard soon returned. McCook went down the west bank of 
the Chattahoochee to a point near Rivertown, where he crossed, and, moving 
on Palmetto Station, tore up a section of the West Point Road. Thence he 
advanced to Fayetteville, where he destroyed about 500 wagons belonging 
to the enemy. Pushing on to the railroad at Lovejoy’s, he burned the dépét 
and destroyed a portion of the road. In the mean time the enemy was ac: 


SOENE OF M¢PHEBSON'S DEATH. 


614 HARPER'S PICTORIAL 


HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [JuLyY, 1864. 


cumulating forces around him, and, receiving no tidings from Stoneman, he | as, to the west side of Proctor’s Creek, where it prolonged the Federal line 
moved south and west to Newman, on the West Point Road, where he en- | southward on the hills northwest of Atlanta—a position exactly opposite to 
countered a body of infantry on the way from Mississippi to Hood’s army. | that occupied by this army in the battle of the 22d. By orders of the Pres- 


This body, delayed by the break at Palmetto, together 


with the cavalry which had been pursuing McCook, 
completely surrounded the latter and compelled him to 
fight. McCook cut his way out with great difficulty, 
losing 500 men. Stoneman, disregarding all the instruc- 
tions which he had received, seems never to have come 
near Lovejoy’s. Keeping east of the Ocmulgee to Clin- 
ton, he sent detachments eastward, which succeeded in 
inflicting great damage upon the railroad, burning the 
bridges over Walnut Creek and the Oconee, With his 
main force he appeared before Macon. He made no at- 
tempt upon the town, however, nor did he proceed to- 
ward Andersonville, but began to retrace his steps, close- 
ly followed by various detachments of Confederate cay- 
alry under General Iverson. He was soon hemmed in 
by the enemy; and giving his consent to two thirds of 
his command to escape, with the remainder and a sec- 
tion of light guns he occupied the enemy. A brigade 
under Colonel Adams returned to Sherman almost in- 
tact. Another, commanded by Colonel Capron, was sur- 
prised on its way back, and, being scattered, a large num- 
ber were killed and captured. Stoneman surrendered 
himself, and the small portion of his command which 
remained with him. Very much was sacrificed in this 
expedition, and very little was gained, as the breaks 
made in the Macon Road were of such a character as 
to be easily repaired. 

On the 27th of July, one week after the battle of 
Peach-tree Creek, the Army of the Tennessee was moved 
from its position on the left, around Schofield and Thom- 


WUT) % CAVALRY RAIDS 
WY, ‘. IN CONNECTION WITH TRE 
u YA . ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 
S q LINES OF MARCH 
ME COOK 
STONEMAN axe 
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THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 615 


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SHERMAN IN COUNCIL DECIDES TO RAISE THE SIEGE OF ATLANTA 


ident, given at Sherman’s suggestion, General O. O. Howard had been, on 
the 27th, assigned to the command of the Army of the Tennessee, General 
Stanley succeeding to the command of the Fourth Corps. This appointment 
led to General Hooker’s departure from Sherman’s army. Howard was a 
junior officer as compared with Hooker, and the latter resented his promo- 
tion on the ground that, in the natural course, he should himself have been 
preferred. Hooker therefore threw up his command of the Twentieth Corps, 
and was succeeded by General H.W.Slocum. General Sherman had very 
properly considered that a good department commander must be selected, 
and for this purpose he preferred Howard to either Logan or Hooker, whom 
also he wished to retain in their present positions on account of their emi- 
nent efficiency as corps commanders, 


_ The following letter, addressed by Sherman to Halleck, August 16, 1864, fully explains this 
affair : 

“It occurs to me that, preliminary to a future report of the history of this campaign, I should 
record certain facts of great personal interest to officers of this command. 

“General McPherson was killed by the musketry fire at the beginning of the battle of July 22. 
He had in person selected the ground for his troops, constituting the left wing of the army, I be- 
ing in person with the centre, General Schofield. The moment the information reached me, I 
sent one of my staff to announce the fact to General John A. Logan, the senior officer present 
with the Army of the Tennessee, with general instructions to maintain the ground chosen by Gen- 


Dodge, with the Sixteenth Corps, took a position just west of Proctor’s 
Creek on the evening of the 27th, The next morning, Blair, with the Sev- 


eral McPherson if possible, but, if pressed too hard, to refuse his left flank, but, at all events, to 
hold the railroad and main Decatur Road; that I did not propose to move or gain ground by that 
flank, but rather by the right, and that I wanted the Army of the Tennessee to fight it out unaid- 
ed. General Logan admirably conceived my orders and executed them; and, if he gave ground 
on the left of the Seventeenth Corps, it was properly done by my orders ; but he held a certain hill 
by the right division of the Seventeenth Corps, the only ground on that line the possession of 
which by an enemy would have damaged us by giving a reverse fire on the remainder of the 
troops. General Logan fought that battle out as required, unaided save by a small brigade sent 
by my orders from General Schofield to the Decatur Road, well to the rear, where it was reported 
the enemy’s cavalry had got into the town of Decatur, and was operating directly on the rear of 
Logan; but that brigade was not disturbed, and was replaced that night by a part of the Fif- 
teenth Corps next to General Schofield, and General Schofield’s brigade brought back so as to be 
kept together on its own line. : 

‘¢General Logan managed the Army of the Tennessee well during his command, and it may be 
that an unfair inference might be drawn to his prejudice because he did not succeed to the perma- 
nent command. I am forced to choose a commander, not only for the army in the field, but of 
the Department of the Tennessee, covering a vast extent of country, with troops much dispersed. 
It was a delicate and difficult task, and I gave preference to Major General O. O. Howard, then in 
command of the Fourth Army Corps in the Department of the Cumberland. Instead of giving 
my reasons, I prefer that the wisdom of the choice be left to the test of time, ‘The President 
kindly ratified my choice, and I am willing to assume the responsibility. I meant no disrespect 
to any officer; and hereby declare that General Logan submitted with the grace and dignity of a 
soldier, gentleman, and patriot, resumed the command of his corps proper (Fifteenth), and enjoys 


616 


SS 


FZRA'S OUURCH. 


enteenth Corps, extended the line south and west to Ezra Church, on the 
Bell’s Ferry or Lickskillet Road; and Logan came in on Blair’s right, his 
own right being refused along a well-wooded ridge south of the road. By 
10 A.M. on the 28th Howard’s army was in position, and was rapidly forti- 
fying itself with breastworks of rails and logs. From that time until noon 
there was heavy artillery firing from the Confederate position. Evidently 
Hood was about to repeat the tactics of the 22d. Lieutenant General S. D. 
Lee, who on the 25th had relieved General Cheatham of the command of 
Hood’s former corps, was ordered to advance and attack Howard's right, and 
cover the Lickskillet Road. The attack about noon fell upon the corps of 
reneral Logan, who fought alone the battle which ensued. Several assaults 
vere made by Cheatham until 4 P.M., but were each repulsed with great 
loss to the enemy. Logan’s loss was less than 700. But when Cheatham 
abandoned the field he left 642 killed, which were counted and buried, be- 
sides many others buried but not counted. Sherman estimates the Confeder- 
ate loss in this battle of the 28th as “not less than 5000.” He had antici- 
pated this attack, and had made dispositions which, but for his ignorance of 
the topography on his right rear, must have converted Cheatham’s repulse 
into a disastrous rout. Up to this point Hood had been acting upon the 
plans which General Johnston had formed, but it is very doubtful whether 
the latter general would have executed them in the same manner. Certainly 
Johnston would not have attacked Howard’s army on the 28th, knowing 


the love and respect of his army and of his commanders. Itso happened that on the 28th of July 
I had again thrown the same army to the extreme right, the exposed flank, where the enemy re- 
peated the same manceuvre, striking in mass; the extreme corps deployed in line, and refused as 
a flank the Fifteenth, Major General Logan, and he commanded in person, General Howard and 
myself being near; and that corps, as heretofore reported, repulsed the rebel army completely, and 
next day advanced and occupied the ground fought over and the road the enemy sought to cover. 
General Howard, who had that very day assumed his new command, unequivocally gave General 
Logan all the credit possible; and I also beg to add my unqualified admiration of the bravery 
and skill, and, more yet, good sense that influenced him to bear a natural disappointment, and do 
his whole duty like a man. If I could bestow upon him substantial reward, it would afford me 
unalloyed satisfaction ; but I do believe, in the consciousness of acts done from noble impulses, and 
gracefully admitted by his superiors in authority, he will be contented. He already holds the 
highest commission known in the army, and it is hard to say how we can better manifest our 
applause. 

‘At the time of General Howard’s selection, Major General Hooker commanded the Twentieth 
Army Corps in the Army of the Cumberland, made up for his special accommodation out of the 
old Eleventh and Twelfth Corps, whereby Major General Slocum was deprived of his corps com- 
mand. Both the law and practice are and have been to fill the higher army commands by selec- 
tion. Ranks or dates of commission have not controlled, nor am I aware that any reflection can 
be inferred, unless the junior be placed immediately over the senior; but in this case General 
Hooker’s command was in no manner disturbed. General Howard was not put over him, but in 
charge of a distinct and separate army. No indignity was offered or intended; and I must say 
that General Hooker was not justified in retiring. At all events, had he spoken or written to me, 
I would have made every explanation and concession he could have expected, but could not have 
changed my course, because then, as now, I believed it right, and for the good of our country and 
cause. 

‘‘As a matter of justice, General Slocum, having been displaced by the consolidation, was deem- 
ed by General Thomas as entitled to the vacancy created by General Hooker’s voluntary with- 
drawal, and has received it.” 


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that the latter was intrenched. Half a dozen of such battles would have left 
Hood without an army. At any rate, no farther attempt was made by Gen- 
eral Hood to oppose Sherman’s extension by flank southward. As the Fed- 
eral army developed toward East Point, the enemy, without attacking, ex- 
tended his intrenched line in the same direction. 

By the Ist of August the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps had advanced 
beyond the Lickskillet Road. On that day Schofield’s army was transferred 
to Howard’s right, Palmer’s corps, of the Army of the Cumberland, follow- 
ing. Palmer took a position below Utoy Creek, and Schofield extended the 
line to near Kast Point. Here a question of rank arose between Schofield 
and Palmer, the former being instructed by General Sherman to give orders 
to the latter. This difficulty finally (on the 6th of August) led to Palmer's 
resignation, General Jeff. C. Davis succeeding him in command of the Four- 
teenth Corps. 

By this extension of his army southward, Sherman compelled Hood to 
lengthen the line of defense; and while Schofield attempted to turn the Con- 
federate left, and reach the Macon Road, Thomas and Howard pressed vig- 
orously on Hood’s right and centre. But, though the enemy’s line was fif- 
teen miles long, extending from Decatur around to below East Point, it could 
easily be held by militia, and was so well masked by the shape of the ground 
that it was impossible for Sherman to discover its weak points. It was be- 
ginning to be evident that, in order to reach the Macon Road, the whole of 
Sherman’s army would have to be transferred to the east and south of At- 
lanta. An attempt was first made to destroy the city by means of four 44- 
inch rifled guns, which on the 10th arrived from Chattanooga. These did 
good execution, but Hood was not willing to abandon the city so long as he 
could keep the forts, and the battering down of every building in Atlanta 
would not have altered his determination. 

In the mean time Hood had dispatched Wheeler, with a cavalry force 
4500 strong, against the railroad in Sherman’s rear. This, without frighten- 
ing the Federal commander, who had no immediate cause for concern as to 
supplies, greatly enhanced his opportunity for offensive operations. It then 
seemed possible that, without moving the entire army, a raid might be made 
by Kilpatrick which should break up the Macon Road. Kilpatrick started 
out and broke the road to West Point, and then advanced to Jonesborough, 
on the Macon Road, where he encountered and defeated a portion of the 
Confederate cavalry under Ross, and held the railroad for five hours, doing 
it sufficient damage to give the enemy about ten days’ work in repairing it. 
A brigade of Confederate infantry, with Jackson’s cavalry, put a stop to his 
work here. Moving east, he again encountered the enemy at Lovejoy’s, and, 
after defeating him and capturing four guns and a large number of prison 
ers, returned to Sherman’s army by way of Decatur. 

Not satisfied with what had been accomplished in this raid, Sherman, on 
the night of August 25th, raised the siege of Atlanta. General A.S. Wil- 
hams,! with the Twentieth Corps, was ordered back to hold the intrenched 
position at the Chattahoochee bridge, and the remainder of the army, with 
15 days’ rations, was set in motion toward a position on the Macon Road, at 
or near Jonesborough. On the first night of the movement, Stanley, with 
the Fourth Corps, drew out from the extreme left to a position west of Proc- 
tor’s Creek, and Williams moved back, as ordered, to the Chattahoochee, both 
movements being effected without loss. The next night the Army of the 
Tennessee moved south, well toward Sandtown, and the Army of the Cum- 
berland to a position south of Utoy Creek, Schofield remaining in position. 
Only one casualty occurred in this second stage of the army’s progress. A 
third movement, on the 27th, brought Howard’s command to the West Point 
Road, above Fairburn, Thomas’s army to Red Oak, Schofield at the same 
time closing in on the left. The 28th was spent in the destruction of the 
West Point Road, a break being made of over 12 miles. 

The railroad from Atlanta to Macon follows the ridge dividing the Flint 
from the Ocmulgee River, and between Hast Point and Jonesborough makes 
a wide bend to the east. It was against this ridge that the Federal army 
moved on the 29th—Howard toward Jonesborough on the right; Thomas, in 
the centre, toward Couch’s, on the Fayetteville Road, and Schofield on the 
left. As soon as Hood learned of this movement of Sherman, which, if suc- 
cessful, would compel the evacuation of Atlanta, he sent (on the 80th) Lee’s 
and Hardee’s corps to Jonesborough. ‘To Hardee was given the command, 
Hood remaining with Stewart’s corps in Atlanta, intending, in case of Har- 
dee’s success, to attack in flank. Hood does not seem to have been aware 
of the extent of the operation which Sherman was conducting, and supposed 
that Hardee, at Jonesborough, would encounter a force inferior to his own. 

The battle of Jonesborough was fought on the 31st of August. Sherman 
was making dispositions to advance Schofield’s and Davis’s corps to Rough 
and Ready, between Atlanta and Jonesborough, when Hardee, coming out 
of the latter place, attacked Howard in his intrenched position. Hardee was 
well aware of the importance of this battle, and fought his troops with des- 
perate obstinacy for two hours, when he withdrew from the field thoroughly 
beaten, having lost 1400 killed and wounded.? 

While the battle had been in progress, Stanley’s and Schofield’s, and a 
portion of Davis’s corps, had struck the railroad at several points, and were 
engaged in its destruction. A splendid opportunity was now offered for the 
destruction of Hardee’s command. Sherman saw this, and ordered his three 
corps to turn against Jonesborough. Howard was to occupy Hardee while 
Thomas and Schofield moved down upon him from the north, destroying 
the railroad on their march. What was done must be done on the 1st of 
September. By noon of that day Davis’s corps reached Howard’s left, and 
faced southward across the railroad. Blair was then with the Seventeenth 


‘ Williams commanded the Twentieth Corps until Slocum should arrive from Vicksburg. 
? Sherman estimates Hardee's loss as 2500. We have followed General Hood’s report. 


618 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [SEPTEMBER, 1864. 


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620 


Corps, and Kilpatrick’s cavalry thrown across the road south of Jonesbor- 
ough, About 4 P.M. Davis assaulted the enemy’s lines across the open, 
sweeping all before him, and capturing the greater part of Govan's brigade, 
including its commander. Repeated orders were sent hurrying up Scho- 
field and Stanley, but, owing to the difficult nature of the country, these two 
corps did not arrive until night rendered farther operations impossible ; 
and during the night the enemy retreated southward. 

During the same night, at 2 A.M. on the morning of September 2, the 
sound of heavy explosions was heard from the direction of Atlanta, 20 miles 
distant, indicating the evacuation of that place by General Hood. Without 
regarding these tokens, Sherman pressed on the next morning in pursuit of 
Hardee, but found it impossible to intercept his retreat. On the 2d Slocum 
entered Atlanta, followed by the whole army on the 7th. In this last move- 
ment of his army General Sherman had captured 8000 prisoners and 16 
guns. His loss had been 1500 men. 

In the mean time Wheeler’s raid on Sherman’s communications had been 
productive of little damage. He had broken the railroad near Calhoun, but 
had been checked by Colonel Laibold at Dalton until Steedman could ar- 
rive from Chattanooga, when he was headed off into East Tennessee.  F'- 
nally, Rousseau, Steedman, and R. 8. Granger, with their combined forces, 
drove him out of Tennessee. 

“ Atlanta is ours,” telegraphed Sherman to Washington on the 8d_of Sep- 
tember, “and fairly won.” The loss of this position by the Confederates 
was an irreparable misfortune. The wall which had hitherto protected the 
Cotton States was now obliterated. The victory electrified the nation; it 
was felt to be the consummation of the triumphs won at Vicksburg and 
Chattanooga, and its political effect in the loyal states can not be too highly 
estimated. President Lincoln wrote a letter of thanks to Sherman and his 
army. ‘The marches, battles, sieges, and other military operations that 
have signalized the campaign must render it famous in the annals of war, 
and have entitled those who have participated therein to the applause and 
thanks of the nation.” Lieutenant General Grant, before Petersburg, on the 
4th, ordered a salute to be fired in honor of the victory “with shotted guns 
from every battery bearing upon the enemy.” On the 12th, General Sher- 
man received from the President a commission making him a major general 
in the regular army.} 

Sherman’s outlook from Atlanta was magnificent. Though he had lost 
over 80,000 men in the numerous battles of the campaign, his army was as 
large as when he set out four months before. The Confederate loss must 
have been nearly equal to Sherman’s.? G. A. Smith’s militia had been sent 
to Griffin, and Hood now confronted Sherman with an army of 40,000 men 
of all arms. The next objective, if Hood attempted to cover Georgia, was 
Macon—108 miles east of Atlanta. But Sherman determined to give his 
army a brief period of rest before another advance. The Army of the Cum- 
berland went into camp about Atlanta, the Army of the Tennessee about 
East Point, and the Army of the Ohio at Decatur.’ At the latter point was 
also stationed Garrard’s cavalry division, while Kilpatrick’s, at Sandtown, 
guarded the western flank. To strengthen the railroad in the rear, two di- 
visions—Newton’s, of the Fourth, and Morgan’s, of the Fourteenth Corps— 
were dispatched to Chattanooga, and Corse’s division, of the Fifteenth Corps, 
to Rome. A new and more compact system of fortifications was also con- 
structed about Atlanta, which town Sherman now proposed to make exclu- 
sively a military post. 

To carry out this design, every thing in Atlanta, except churches and 
dwelling-houses, was burned. On the 4th of September Sherman issued an 
order commanding the inhabitants of the town to leave at once. “Iam not 
willing,” said Sherman, ‘to have Atlanta encumbered by the families of our 
enemies; I want it a pure Gibraltar, and will have it so by the first of Octo- 
ber.” This order was a surprise to the citizens, and doubtless occasioned 
them much hardship. But Sherman had broken through the protecting 
walls of the Confederacy, and now resolved that the people of the Cotton 
States should feel the heavy hand of war. He would not acknowledge the 
impunity of treason, The city authorities and General Hood protested 
against the order as unnecessary and cruel. But Sherman’s reply crushed 
all the meaning out of their words, brought them face to face with the war 
demon whom they themselves had invoked, and laughed to scorn their weak 
and impudent claims.° A cessation of hostilities was agreed upon between 


1 Lieutenant General Grant says in his official report : 

‘¢ General Sherman’s movement from Chattanooga to Atlanta was prompt, skillful, and brilliant. 
The history of his flank movements and battles during that memorable campaign will ever be read 
with an interest unsurpassed by any thing in history.” 

* Hood reports his loss in battle, since he assumed the command on the 17th of July, as 5247. 
It was probably, however, much higher than that. Indeed, in the four severe battles of July 20th, 
22d, and 28th, and September Ist, the casualties could not have been less than 10,000. We can 
place no confidence in Hood’s official estimates. 

3 Several changes now took place in the army, in consequence of the expiration of the terms of 
service of many of the regiments. ‘‘'The Army of the Tennessee was consolidated into two corps, 
the Fifteenth and Seventeenth, respectively commanded by Major General P. J. Osterhaus and 
Brigadier General Thomas E.G. Ransom; the former comprising the four divisions of Brigadier 
Generals Charles R. Woods, William B. Hazen, John E. Smith, and John M. Corse; the latter 
those of Major General Joseph A. Mower, and Brigadier Generals Miles D. Leggett and Giles A. 
Smith, with the First Alabama Cavalry and the First Missouri Engineer regiment, having in charge 
a large pontoon-bridge train. This organization was effected by transferring all the troops of the 
Seventeenth Corps remaining on the Mississippi to the Sixteenth Corps, breaking up the detach- 
ment of the latter corps in the field, and transferring Ransom’s division, now commanded by Briga- 
dier General Giles A. Smith, and Corse’s division to the Seventeenth Corps. Major Generals Lo- 
gan and Blair were temporarily absent, engaged in the important political canvass then in progress. 
Major General Schofield returned to the headquarters of the Department of the Ohio, at Knoxville, 
to give his personal attention to affairs in that quarter, leaving Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox in 
command of the ‘Twenty-third Corps. The cavalry was reorganized so as to consist of two divi- 
sions, under Brigadier Generals Garrard and Judson Kilpatrick.”—BSowman’s Sherman and his 
Campaigns. 

* Dispatch to General Halleck, September 9, 1864. 

5 We quote the correspondence which followed, as given in Bowman’s ‘‘ Sherman and his Cam- 
paigns ?? 

“*On the 11th of September, the town authorities addressed the fullowing petition to General 
Sherman, praying the revocation of his orders: 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[SEPTEMBER, 1864. 


Sherman and Hood, to continue for ten days following the 12th of Septem- 
ber. During this time 446 families were removed south from Atlanta, com- 
prising 1644 persons, of whom 860 were children and 79 servants. During 
the same period arrangements were made between Hood and Sherman for 
the mutual exchange of 2000 prisoners. 


‘< ¢Str,—The undersigned, mayor and two members of Council for the city of Atlanta, for the 
time being the only legal organ of the people of the said city to express their wants and wishes, 
ask leave most earnestly, but respectfully, to petition you to reconsider the order requiring them 
to leave Atlanta, 

‘** At first view, it struck us that the measure would involve extraordinary hardship and loss; 
but since we have seen the practical execution of it, so far as it has progressed, and the individual 
condition of many of the people, and heard their statements as to the inconveniences, loss, and 
suffering attending it, we are satisfied that it will involve, in the aggregate, consequences appall- 
ing and heart-rending. 

‘“* «Many poor women are in an advanced state of pregnancy; others now having young chil- 
dren, and whose husbands are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say, ‘‘I have such a 
one sick at home; who will wait on them when I am gone?” Others say, ‘‘What are we to do? 
we have no houses to go to, and no means to buy, build, or to rent any—no parents, friends, 
or relatives to go to.” Another says, “I will try and take this or that article of property, but 
such and such things I must leave behind, though I need them much.” We reply to them, 
‘General Sherman will carry your property to Rough and Ready, and General Hood will take it 
from there on.” And they will reply to that, ‘‘ But I want to leave the railway at such a point, 
and can not get conveyance from there on.” 

‘““¢We only refer to a few facts to try to illustrate in part how this measure will operate in 
practice. As you advanced, the people north of us fell back, and before your arrival here a large 
portion of the people had retired South, so that the country south of this is already crowded, and 
without houses to accommodate the people, and we are informed that many are now starving in 
churches and other out-buildings. This being so, how is it possible for the people still here 
(mostly women and children) to find any shelter? And how can they live through the winter in 
the woods—no shelter nor subsistence—in the midst of strangers who know them not, and with- 
out the power to assist them, if they were willing to do so? 

‘©¢This is but a feeble picture of the consequences of this measure. 
horror, and the suffering can not be described by words. 
and we ask you to take these things into consideration. 

‘**We know your mind and time are constantly occupied with the duties of your command, 
which almost deters us from asking your attention to this matter, but thought it might be that 
you had not considered the subject in all its awful consequences, and that, on more reflection, 
you, we hoped, would not make this people an exception to all mankind, for we know of no such 
instance ever having occurred—surely none such in the United States; and what has this helpless 
people done that they should be driven from their homes, to wander as strangers, outcasts, and 
exiles, and to subsist on charity ? 

“«¢ We do not know, as yet, the number of people still here. Of those who are here, we are 
satisfied a respectable number, if allowed to remain at home, could subsist for several months 
without assistance, and a respectable number for a much longer time, and who might not need 
assistance at any time. 

““*In conclusion, we must earnestly and solemnly petition you to reconsider this order, or 
modify it, and suffer this unfortunate people to remain at home and enjoy what little means they 
have. Respectfully submitted, James M. Catnoun, Mayor. 

E. E. Rawson, Councilman. 
L. C. WExLxs, Councilman,’ 

‘To this General Sherman replied, in full and clear terms, on the following day: 

‘** GpnTLeEMEN,—I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders 
removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your 
statements of the distress that will be occasioned by it, and yet shall not revoke my order, simply 
because my orders are not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the fu- 
ture struggles in which millions, yea, hundreds of millions of good people outside of Atlanta have 
a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, 
we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop the war, 
we must defeat the rebel armies that are arrayed against the laws and Constitution, which all 
must respect and obey. ‘To defeat these armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their 
recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. 

‘**Now I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, and that we may have many years of mili- 
tary operations from this quarter, and therefore deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The 
use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There 
will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here for the maintenance of families, and 
sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to.go. Why not go now, when all the arrange- 
ments are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting until the plunging shot of contending 
armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course I do not apprehend any such thing 
at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here till the war is over. I can not dis- 
cuss this subject with you fairly, because I can not impart to you what I propose to do, but I as- 
sert that my military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew 
my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible. 
You can not qualify war in harsher terms than I will. 

“«« War is cruelty, and you can not refine it; and those who brought war on our country 
deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making 
this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But 
you can not have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submit to a division 
now, it will not stop, but will go on till we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The 
United States does and must assert its authority wherever it has power; if it relaxes one bit to 
pressure, it is gone, and I know that such is not the national feeling. This feeling assumes various 
shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowl- 
edge the authority of the national government, and, instead of devoting your houses, and streets, 
and roads to the dread uses of war,I and this army become at once your protectors and sup- 
porters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few in- 
dividuals can not resist a torrent of error and passion such as has swept the South into rebellion ; 
but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government and those who insist 
on war and its desolation. 

“** You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of 
war. They are inevitable; and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live 
in peace and quiet at home is to stop this war, which can alone be done by admitting that it began 
in error and is perpetuated in pride. We don’t want your negroes, or your horses, or your land, 
or any thing you have; but we do want, and will have, a just obedience to the laws of the United 
States. That we will have; and if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we can not 
help it. 

“* ¢You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and ex- 
citement, and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters the better for you. I repeat, then, 
that by the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia which 
have never been relinquished, and never will be, that the South began the war by seizing forts, 
arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etce., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the 
South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen, in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and 
desperadoes, hungry, and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thou- 
sands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not 
see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very differently—you deprecate its horrors, 
but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells 
and shot to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, and desolate the homes of hundreds and 
thousands of good people, who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the gov- 
ernment of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and I believe it 
can only be reached through Union and war, and I will ever conduct war purely with a view to 
perfect and early success. 

‘“««But, my dear sirs, when that peace does come you may call upon me for any thing. Then 
will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your home and families against 
danger from every quarter. Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble; feed and 
nurse them, and build for them in more quiet places proper habitations to shield them against the 
weather, until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to 
settle on your old homes at Atlanta.’ 

‘* As soon as his arrangements were completed, General Sherman wrote to General Hood, by a 
flag of truce, notifying him of his orders, and proposing a cessation of hostilities for ten days from 
the 12th of September, in the country included within a radius of two miles around Rough and 
Ready Station, to enable him to complete the removal of those families electing to go to the 
south. Hood immediately replied on the 9th, acceding to the proposed truce, but protesting 
against Sherman’s order. He concluded: 

‘‘* Permit me to say, the unprecedented measure you propose transcends in studied and ini- 
quitous cruelty all acts ever before brought to my attention in this dark history of the war. In 
the name of God and humanity, I protest, believing you are expelling from homes and firesides 
wives and children of a brave people.’ ” 


asure. You know the woe, the 
Imagination can only conceive of it, 


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VIRGINIA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES. 


Marcn, 1864. ] 


——— eee 


75 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY 


OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


W ORKSHOP8—ARMY 


CHAPTER XLI. 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES. 


Result of Meade’s Campaign.—Action of the Committee on the Conduct of the War.—Grant ap- 
pointed Lieutenant General.—Retirement of Halleck.—Arrangements for the Campaign of 1864. 
—The Union Forces.—Changes in Organization and Command.—Hancock, Warren, Sedgwick, 
Burnside.—Sykes, French, Newton.—Kilpatrick, Pleasonton, Sheridan, Sherman.—Meade re- 
tained in command of the Army of the Potomac.—Grant’s Plans of Campaign.—Position and 
Strength of Lee’s Army.—Lee’s Right Flank to be turned.—Opening of the Campaign.—How 
conducted by Lee and Grant.— The Battles in the Wilderness: Passage of the Rapidan.—Posi- 
tions in the Wilderness.—Military Features of the Region.—Lee moves to the Wilderness.— 
Grant's proposed Line of March.—Ewell encounters Warren.—Forces him down the Turnpike. 
—Hiill checks him on the Plank Road.—Hancock ordered up.—Getty holds the Brock Road. 
—Sedgwick attacks on the Right.—Hancock arrives, and attacks Hill.—The Wadsworth 
Movement.—Hancock repulsed.—Close of the Action of May 5.—Its Results. —Preparations 
for the Battle of the 6th.—Simultaneous Attack by both Armies.—Slight Engagement between 
Ewell and Hancock.—Hancock attacks Hill, and forces him back.—Lee on the Field.—Han- 
cock checked.—Longstreet arrives.—Hancock forced back.—Wadsworth Killed.—Longstreet 
moves toward Hancock’s Rear.—Is Wounded.—Burnside’s Movements.—Lee assails Hancock’s 
Intrenchments.—Close of the Action on the Left.—Night Assault upon Sedgwick.—Seymour’s 
Division captured.—Results of the Battle. —Losses.—Grant and Lee move toward Spottsylvania. 
—Lee arrives First.—The whole of both Armies come up.—Fighting on the 7th.—The Action of 
the 9th.—Death of Sedgwick.—Fighting on the 10th.—Grant’s Dispatch.— Washington Bulle- 
tins.—Losses in these Actions.—The Battle of the 12th.—Hancock carries Works, and captures 
Johnson’s Division.—The Confederates rally.—Hancock repelled.—Other Operations.—Close 
of the Battle.-—Results and Losses. —Grant moves for the North Anna.—Lee assails and is re- 
pulsed.—Lee’s Plan of defending Rivers.—Grant crosses the North Anna.—Recrosses.—Both 
Armies re-enforced.—Sigel defeated at New Market.—He is superseded by Hunter.—Crooks’s 
fruitless Expedition.—Hunter adyances.—Defeats Jones at Piedmont, and move: upon Lynch- 
burg.—Retreats northwestward.—Loses his Trains.—Butler moves up the James.—Intrenches 
at Bermuda Hundred. — Kautz cuts the Weldon Railroad.—Beauregard in Virginia.—Grant’s 
Plan for Butler.—Butler attacks Fort Darling.—He is assailed by Beauregard, and retreats to 
his Intrenchments.—Beauregard’s Plans.—The “‘ Bottling-up” at Bermuda Hundred.—Grant 
moves toward the Chickahominy.—Lee’s corresponding Movement.—Positions assumed.—Sheri- 
dan occupies Cold Harbor.—Is assailed.—Smith brought from Bermuda Hundred.—Action of 
June 1.—Value of Intrenched Positions.—Grant’s Purposes. —Battle of Cold Harbor, June 3.— 
Hancock, Wright, and Smith attack and are repulsed.—Burnside’s Movement.—Defeat of the 
Federal Army.—Losses.—Results of the Battle.—Both armies intrench.—Skirmishing.—Grant 
moves to the James River.—Lee falls back to Richmond. 


HE result of the ineffective campaigns at the Hast brought with it the 
conviction that the command of the armies in Virginia must be com- 
mitted to other and stronger hands. The Congressional Committee on the 
Conduct of the War had hardly begun their investigations into the opera- 
tions conducted by General Meade when the two members by whom it had 
been mainly conducted! repaired to the President and Secretary of War, 
and “demanded the removal of General Meade, and the appointment of some 
one more competent to command.” They suggested the reinstatement of 
Hooker, but would acquiesce in that of any other general whom the Presi- 


* Senators Wade and Chandler ; see Com. Rep., ii., xvii.—xix. 


OF THE POTOMAC, 


dent might think better fitted for the place, but declared emphatically that 
unless some change was made “it would become their duty to make the tes- 
timony public which they had taken, with such comments as the circum- 
stances of the case seemed to require.” But events had been so shaping 
themselves as to obviate the necessity of farther action. Congress, after 
much deliberation, had passed a bill reviving the grade of lieutenant gen- 


OO a sa Ny OO, 


eral, which had never been held except by Washington, for Scott was such / 


only by brevet. Congress also recommended that this appointment should , 


be conferred upon General Grant, and that he should be placed in actualy 
command of all the armies of the United States. The bill was passed, and 
approved on the 2d of March, and on the 9th Grant was formally presente/d 
with his commission. ‘The nation’s appreciation of what you have dong,” 
said the President, “and its reliance upon you for what remains to be done 
in the existing great struggle, are now presented with this commission ‘con- 
stituting you lieutenant general in the armies of the United States. JW ith 
this high honor devolves upon you a corresponding responsibility. +As the 
country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you. I need scarce- 
ly add that with what I here speak for the nation goes my own hearty per- 
sonal concurrence.” } 

No man was ever more heartily rejoiced at being relieved from an oner- 
ous task than was the President when thus enabled virtually ‘to resign his 
position as commander-in-chief of the army. He had at length found a 
man into whose hands that trust might be confided. Halleck’s occupation 
as general-in-chief was gone. He was relieved from active duty, and made 
chief of staff of the army, under the direction of the President, the Secre- 
tary of War, and the Lieutenant General. He was to remain at Washington, 
while Grant’s headquarters were to be with the Armyy of the Potomac in the 
field, whence the operations of all the Union arrnies were to be directed. 
Henceforth the war was to be carried on by a soldier uncontrolled by civil- 
ian direction. Even the strong-willed Secretary of War ceased from inter- 
fering with operations in the field.’ 

The arrangements for the spring campaign of 1864 were made for a force 
of a million of men. On the first of May all the armies nominally counted 
within 30,000 of that number; but of these 109,000 were on detached serv- 
ice, 117,000 were in hospitals or unfit for duty, 66,000 were absent on fur- 
lough or prisoners of war, 15,000 were absent without leave. The entire 
force “available and present for duty” was 662,345. Nothing was left un- 
done to put this immense force into a condition of the utmost efficiency, 
Congress made appropriations with unsparing hand. Vast amounts of arms, 


1 «So far as the Secretary of War and myself are concerned, he has never interfered with my 
duties, never thrown any obstacles in the way of any supplies I have called for. He has never dic- 
tated a course of campaign to me, and never inquired what I was going to do. He has always 
seemed satisfied with what I did, and has heartily co-operated with me.”—Grant’s Testimony, May 
18, 1865, in Com, Rep., ii., 524. 


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LIEUTENANT-GENERAL PHILIP HENRY SHERIDAN. NOVEMBER 1, 1883. 


ammunition, stores, clothing, and medical supplies were provided and dis- 
tributed in dépéts. The means of transportation, by land and water, were 
multiplied. Of this great army 310,000 men were in Virginia and upon its 
borders, and in the Carolinas. The Army of the Potomac numbered 140,000, 
including the Ninth Corps, which acted with it from the first, and was soon 
formally incorporated with :t. In and around Washington were 42,000. In 
Western Virginia were 31,000. In the Department of Virginia and North 
Carolina were 59,000; of these, fully 25,000, known as the Army of the 
James, were available for active service in the field. In South Carolina and 
Georgia, the Department of the South, were 18,000. In the various minor 
departments were 20,000. To oppose these, the Confederates had in the 
field not more than 125,000, in Virginia and the Carolinas. The immediate 
struggle was to be between the Union Army of the Potomac, 140,000 strong, 
and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, of less than half that num- 
ber, probably not much exceeding 60,000.1 

Considerable changes were made in the organization of the Army of the 


— 
* My estimates of the Confederate forces differ considerably from those generally given. 
hereafter give the data upon which mine are based. 


I shall 


| 


Potomac. The five corps of which it had consisted were concentrated into 
three,! to be known as the Second, Fifth, and Sixth. The former First and 
Third Corps were broken up, the troops being distributed among the Second 
and Fifth. There was little room for hesitation as to the choice of corps 
commanders. Hancock, having recovered from his wound at Gettysburg, 
resumed the command of the Second. Warren, who had manifested great 
military capacity, was placed at the head of the Fifth. There was no ques- 
tion as to continuing Sedgwick in command of the Sixth. Hooker had in- 
deed sharply censured his operations near Chancellorsyille,? but when men 
came to learn the history of the disastrous operations at that place, they 


1 This change was suggested by Warren on the day following Grant’s formal investiture. He 
said: ‘‘I would consolidate the army into three corps. Then I would get the best man to com- 
mand the army ; then I would allow him to have the choice of his corps commanders ; then I would 
allow these corps commanders to choose their own subordinate commanders, and hold them to a 
strict accountability for what they did—let them understand that their position depended upon their 
doing well; not merely excusing themselves, but doing something.”—Com. Rep., ii. , 384. 

2 “ By his movements [after carrying the heights at Fredericksburg] I think that no one would 
infer that he was confident in himself, and the enemy took advantage of it. He was a perfectly 
brave man, and a good one; but when it came to manceuvring troops, or judging of positions, then, 
in my judgment, he was not able or expert.” —Hooker, in Com. Mep., ii., 146. 


» aN 


GOUVERNEUR K. WARREN, 


could not fail to perceive that, wherever lay the blame for that inexplicable 
disaster, it did not rest upon Sedgwick. Had Hooker shown half the 
promptitude and energy displayed by Sedgwick, the result would have been 
far other than what it was. The command of the Army of the Potomac had 
been more than once urged upon Sedgwick, and as often declined by him. 
Besides these three corps, there was the Ninth, under Burnside, which had just 
returned from Tennessee, having lately been recruited, notably by a division 
of colored troops. The original intention was to send it to North Carolina, 
and it was not until within a week of the opening of the campaign that it 
was decided to retain it in Virginia. Then it was proposed to hold it in 
reserve, but the exigencies of the campaign rendered it necessary to bring it 
forward. It really formed, from the first, a part of the Army of the Poto- 
mac, although for three weeks it was not under the command of Meade, but 
received its orders directly from Grant. Burnside was superior in rank to 
Meade, and could not, in military etiquette, be called upon to serve under 
him, but, with characteristic unselfishness, he waived his priority in rank, 
and served under his former subordinate. 

The change in organization involved many changes in officers of high 
rank. Generals Sykes, French, and Newton, who had commanded corps, 
were relieved from services in this army, and sent to other departments. 
Kilpatrick was sent to Sherman to act as his chief of cavalry. Pleasonton, 
who had led the cavalry with great vigor, was sent to Missouri; for Grant 
had already fixed upon a leader for his cavalry. This was Philip Sheridan, 
a young man of barely thirty, who, in command of an army division in the 
West, had manifested a dashing bravery and a genius for command which, 
to the keen eye of the lieutenant general, pointed him out as the man to 
lead his cavalry. The people had before—not altogether unreasonabl y— 
complained that the Federal cavalry had not performed service commensu- 
rate with that of the Confederates. The fault rested not upon the men, nor 
of late upon the leaders, but rather upon the commanding generals, who 
failed to appreciate the true work of this arm of the service. They had 
been mainly employed as scouts and in guarding trains. Sheridan “ took 
up the idea that our cavalry ought to fight the enemy’s cavalry, and our in- 
fantry his infantry ;” and he resolved to correct “the want of appreciation 
on the part of infantry commanders as to the power of a large and well- 
managed body of horse,” which led to “the established custom of wasting 
cavalry for the protection of trains, and for the establishment of cordons 
around a sleeping infantry force.” 

The general command of all the forces of the Union had been conferred 
upon and assumed by Grant. East of the Mississippi the bulk of these 
forces was concentrated into two great armies, confronting the two main 
armies of the Confederacy—that in Virginia under Lee, and that in Georgia 
under Johnston. It was evidently necessary that each of the main Union 
armies, so widely separated, should be under the immediate command of 
one general. There was no question that all the forces operating against 
Johnston should be confided to Sherman. No two men of great military 
capacity could well differ more widely in the type of their genius than did 
Grant and Sherman. But they had planned together for months during 
and after the wearisome Vicksburg campaign, and each had interpenetrated 
the other with his own ideas, so that it would be hard for either to say how 
much belonged to each other in the scheme of operations in the Southwest. 
They were in perfect accord; and Sherman was left in command of the 


* Sheridan’s Report. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ May, 1864. 


great military division of the Mississippi. ‘I had,” says Grant, “ talked over 
with him the plans of the campaign, and was satisfied that he understood 
them, and would execute them to the fullest extent possible.” 

Grant having decided to take his position with the Army of the Potomac 
in the field, the choice of an immediate commander of that army involved 
very different considerations. By the necessity of the case, Grant must take 
upon himself the supreme direction of operations. What he here needed 
was an executive officer able and willing to carry out his designs. The 
choice fell upon Meade. The very defects which he had exhibited during 
his command—defects which showed him to be ill fitted for the actual lead- 
ership of a great army, proved him to be admirably fitted for any position 
short of the first. His patriotism and earnestness were beyond doubt; his 
bravery upon the field was unquestioned; his tactical abilities had been 
proved. His failures had all arisen from want of self-confidence. Instead 
of directing, he was ever in search of some one to direct him. In default 
of better authority, he was perpetually calling consultations and councils of 
war, and yielding to their decision instead of acting upon his own respons- 
ibility. A council of war, not the general in command, decided that the 
army should not abandon the heights of Gettysburg on the night before the 
last decisive day. A council of war decided by a bare majority that Lee 
should not be followed up when he retreated from that lost field. A coun- 
cil of war decided, against Meade’s own judgment, that the Confederate 
army should not be assailed when brought to bay on the banks of the swol- 
len Potomac. The lack of moral courage on the part of Meade caused the 


| unaccountable retreat from Culpepper to Centreville. Fear of responsibili- 
_ty led him to abandon the Mine Run expedition. If Senators Wade and 


Chandler, of the Congressional Committee, had waited but two days more, 


until General Meade’s own testimony had been given, they could have made 
| out a much stronger case for demanding his removal. But if Meade lacked 
the faculty of command—the first requisite of a great general, he possessed 
the second requisite—the faculty of comprehending and executing the or: 
ders of another. As commander of the Army of the Potomac, under the 
immediate direction of a higher intelligence and a stronger will, he proved 
himself, in the long campaign which followed, to be “the right man in the 
right place.”} 

Grant had, in the mean while, matured his plans for the campaign. His 
purpose was to attack simultaneously the two great armies of the Confeder- 
acy—“to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and 
his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way,” they should be de- 
stroyed. Sherman, in the West, was simply instructed to “move against 
Johnston’s army, break it up, and go into the interior of the enemy’s coun- 
try as far as he could, inflicting all the damage he could upon their war re- 
sources.” With what vigor and skill this order was executed will be shown 
hereafter. The Army of the Potomac, under Grant’s own eye, was to be 
directed upon a principle altogether new to it. The instructions to Meade 
read like a covert censure upon all previous operations of the Army of the 
Potomac. “Lee’s army is to be your objective point; wherever that goes 
you must go.” ‘There was to be no more of that indecisive manceuvring 
whereby had been lost the fruit so ripe and ready for plucking at Antietam 
and Gettysburg. The Army of the Potomac was to move, not from, nor 
merely toward the enemy, but upon him. Butler, with the Army of the 
James, was to co-operate, at first indirectly, in this movement upon Lee. 
With at least 20,000 men he was to go up the James River, lay siege to 
Richmond, if possible, or, at all events, take up a position so threatening to 
the Confederate capital as to insure that none of the force which it was fore- 
seen would be brought up from the Carolinas would be pushed forward to 
Lee. Sigel’s 80,000 men were actually confronted by not a third of their 
number; but he had a large frontier to defend against raids and partisan 
adventurers. Yet this defense could be better performed by pushing for- 
ward a large part of his force than by lying idly in garrison. He was there- 
fore to organize two columns, one to march up the Valley of the Shenandoah, 
the other to move down the western flank of the Alleghanies, and then, 
crossing that ridge, to fall upon the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, one of 
the great avenues of supply for the Confederate army and capital, destroy- 
ing also the salt-works whence was derived the main portion of the supply 
of this great necessary of life. All these movements were to commence sim- 
ultaneously, as nearly as possible on the first of May. 

The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had lain in winter quarters 
along the bluffs which skirt the south bank of the Rapidan, the lines extend- 
ing for a distance of twenty miles. The position, strong by nature, had 
been industriously fortified. Rifle-pits commanded every ford, and intrench- 
ments crowned every hill-top. So little had an advance during the winter 
been apprehended, that after the demonstration at Mine Run a third of the 
soldiers had been allowed leave of absence upon furlough. In January and 
February the muster-rolls showed but 85,000 men present for duty. As 
spring opened the absentees were gradually recalled. On the 10th of March 
there were about 40,000; on the 10th of April, 538,000. The returns for 
May are wanting, but it may be assumed that on the first of the month, 
when the campaign opened, the numbers had increased to fully 60,000, 
probably somewhat more. Before these, at and around Culpepper, from ten 
to thirty miles distant, was the Union Army of the Potomac, 140,000 strong, 
Burnside’s corps included. 

An assault in front upon the Confederate lines was neither meditated by 
Grant nor apprehended by Lee. The attack would be made by turning, 


* “Commanding, as I did, all the armies, I tried, as far as possible, to leave General Meade in 
independent command of the Army of the Potomac. My instructions for that army were all 
through him, and were general in their nature, leaving all the details and the execution to him. 
The campaigns that followed proved him to be the right man in the right place.”— Grant's Report, 
| July 22, 1865. 


May, 1864.} 


_ either upon the right or left. There were many advantages and many dis- 
advantages in either case. If the lines were turned by the left, the Union 
army would still cover Washington ; but if the enemy fell back, as it was 
assumed he would do, every step would carry the assailing force farther and 
farther from its base of supply. Practically it must do all that it did while 
the rations with which it started held out. If the turning was by the right, 
the distance to be marched, in case the enemy fell back to Richmond, would 
‘be much greater, and, moreover, Washington would be uncovered, and the 
way open for another invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, should Lee 
dare to venture it. But, on the other hand, should the enemy fall back to- 
ward Richmond, the Union base of supply could be shifted as the army 
moved—from Brandy Station to Acquia Creek, thence down the Rappahan- 
nock to the York, or even, as it proved, to the James. Moreover, Grant 
seems not to have shared in the nervous apprehension for the safety of the 
capital which had for two years paralyzed every fresh movement; and he 
had good reason to be assured that Lee, taught by Antietam and Gettysburg, 
would not venture to renew the experiment of crossing the border. With 
60,000 men he would not attempt to perform that in which he had twice 
failed to succeed with 100,000. So it was decided that the turning should 
be made on the Confederate right, that is, to the east, not by the left, to the 
west. But it so happened that Lee, bearing in mind the result which had 
followed the movement of Burnside, and reasoning from what he presumed 
to be the views of the authorities at Washington—not knowing that the mil- 
itary power had passed from their hands—assumed that the movement 
would be made upon his left. He therefore massed the bulk of his force in 
that direction. Of the three corps of which his army was composed, those 
of Ewell and Hill lay behind the defenses of the Rapidan, the mass being at 
Orange Court-house, near the centre, while Longstreet’s corps, just returned 
from its disastrous expedition to Tennessee, was at Gordonsville, thirteen 
miles farther to the southwest. 

The combined operations of all the Union armies was to take place in the 
early days of May. On the 1st Sigel began his movement up the Valley 
of the Shenandoah. On the 6th, Sherman, with the combined armies of the 
Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Ohio, advanced from Chattanooga. On 
the 4th, Butler, with the Army of the James, moved up the James River. 
On the night of the 8d the Army of the Potomac broke up its camps around 
Culpepper, and marched for the Rapidan. With this movement began the 
closing campaign of the war. The campaign lasted for eleven months. On 
the part of Lee it soon resolved itself into a purely defensive scheme, and, as 
such, will stand among the great defensive campaigns of history. Two of 
the campaigns of Frederick of Prussia may be fairly set down as its equal. 
That of Napoleon in 1814, when, with not more than 110,000 men, he well- 
nigh foiled 600,000 which the Great Alliance poured into France, is its only 
superior. That the one, after a hundred days, closed with the exile to Elba, 
and the other, after more than three hundred, with the surrender at Appo- 
mattox Court-house, detracts nothing from their merits. All that skill on 
the part of the Confederate commander, all that bravery on the part of his 
troops could do, was done to win victory in the teeth of impossibilities. 

T have had occasion more than once to take exceptions to the generalship 


VIRGINTA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES. 


625 


of Lee where he was successful, and where he avoided what should have 
been certain destruction. In this final campaign, which resulted in his total 
overthrow, I find little done which should have been left undone, nothing 
left undone which should have been done, to insure success. It has been 
the fashion to say that with the death of Jackson expired the dash and vigor 
of the Confederate Army of Virginia. Impartial history will record that its 
greatest achievements, whether of daring or endurance, were performed 
thereafter. Lee was indced overcome, but he was overcome by forces great- 
ly superior, wielded by generalship certainly not inferior to his own. It 
has sometimes been asked what would have been the result had the two 
commanders changed places. The careful military student will answer that 
the result would have been just what it was. Lee, in command of Grant’s 
army, would have won; Grant, in command of Lee’s army, would have fail- 
ed. What would have been the result had each general had an equality of 
force and situation, no wise man will venture to say. 

It has been alleged against Grant that the campaign at last assumed a 
shape wholly different from what he had proposed. This is only partly 
true. He indeed expected to fight and win a decisive battle north of Rich- 
mond; but, failing in this, he from the outset proposed to take his army to 
the south of the James.1 It has also been said that after two months of 
marching and fighting, wherein he suffered losses far greater than he inflict- 
ed, he gained a position which he might have reached in a fortnight, with- 
out the loss ofa man. But those who urge this overlook the cardinal point, 
that the army of Lee, not merely the geographical spot known as the capi- 
tal of the Confederacy, was the thing aimed at. If that army were destroy- 
ed, the capital and all else was won. If that army remained, it mattered lit 
tle where the capital of the Confederacy was placed. The army of Lee was, 
relatively to its opponent, far weaker when it fell back to Richmond and 
Petersburg than it would have been had not the great battles been fought in 
the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, on the North Anna, and at Cold Harbor. 
War is a game in which there are two players, and it is the one who is upon 
the whole the stronger that wins. Looking forward, as Grant could only 
do, there could be little doubt as to the wisdom of his plans. Looking back, 
as we now can, we must still conclude that it was the wisest which could 
have been adopted, and brought the war to a more speedy and decisive close 
than any other which lay before him. 


THE WILDERNESS. 

Before daybreak on the morning of the 4th of May the Army of the Po- 
tomac broke up camps and commenced its march for the fords of the Rap- 
idan. It moved in two columns—Warren’s corps, followed by that of Sedg- 
wick, on the right for Germania Ford; Hancock’s, with the bulk of the 
trains, for Ely’s Ford, six miles to the east. Burnside’s corps was to remain 
in its position on the Alexandria Railroad, stretching as far back as Bull 
Run, until the passage of the Rapidan had been effected, when it was to ad- 


1 “* My idea, from the start, had been to beat Lee’s army north of Richmond, if possible. Then, 
after destroying his lines of communication north of the James River, to transfer the army to the 
south side, and besiege Lee in Richmond, or follow him south if he should retreat.” —Grant's Re- 
port. 


HANOOOK'S CORPS OBOSSING THE BAPIDAN, 


626 


vance. The march of so great an army could not be effected without being 
perceived by a watchful enemy, and as the columns approached the fords the 
Confederate signal-fires were seen blazing from hill-top to hill-top, summon- 
ing the corps to concentrate. But the crossing was to be made ten miles 
below the extreme of the Confederate lines, at Raccoon Ford, held by Ewell, 
and as much farther from Orange Court-house, where Hill’s corps was lying, 
while Longstreet was thirteen miles farther away. It was therefore impos- 
sible for Lee, had he been so inclined, to oppose the passage of the Rapidan. 
The vedettes at the fords were swept back by Sheridan’s cavalry, and both 
columns, with their great train of 4000 wagons, crossed in the afternoon. 
Grant believed, as Hooker had done a twelvemonth before, that with the 
passage of the Rapidan the great danger was overpast. That evening War- 
ren’s corps, the advance of the right column, pressed on half a dozen miles, 
and encamped in the very heart of the Wilderness. Sedgwick halted near 
the bank of the river. Hancock moved to Chancellorsyille, which he reach- 
ed a little after noon. 

On the evening of Wednesday, the 4th, the entire Army of the Potomac 
was thus encamped in the very heart of the Wilderness, the two columns 
being about five miles apart. Grant assumed that Lee, finding his position 
turned by a greatly superior force, would fall back toward Richmond, and 
his order for the next day was based upon that assumption. But Lee had 
resolved upon a wholly different movement—a movement apparently peril- 
ous and even desperate. With his 60,000 men, he resolved to fling himself 
upon the enemy, whom he knew to have twice that number. This determ- 
ination was justified by the soundest military reasons. To set these forth, it 
is necessary to take a survey of the region. 

We have before! described the general features of the “ Wilderness,” 
touching mainly upon that portion of it wherein were fought the battles 
of Chancellorsville. The Wilderness Tavern, where Grant and Meade es- 
tablished their headquarters on the evening of the 4th, is at the very centre 
of this wild region. Six miles northward is the Rapidan; as far southward 
begin the cleared fields of Spottsylvania; eight miles westward is Mine 
Run; just as far eastward is Chancellorsville. The Wilderness, stretching 
from a dozen to 4 score of miles in either direction, is traversed north and 
south, west and east, by two systems of roads, which, in conjunction with the 
jungles and chaparrals pierced by them, constitute its military features, 
From north to south, or more accurately from northwest to southeast, start- 
ing from Germania Ford, runs a tolerable plank road, continued after a few 
miles by the “ Brock Road,” over which Jackson in May, 1868, marched to 
the attack upon Hooker’s weak right. Nearly parallel to this, some six 
miles away, starting from Ely’s Ford, and passing by Chancellorsyille, goes 
another road. These two, after many windings and turnings, come together 
near Spottsylvania Court-house, eight miles southeast of Chancellorsville. 
These are the main roads running southwardly by which Grant’s two col- 
umns were to pass through the Wilderness, Running from west to east are 
two good roads, the northern known as the Old Turnpike, the southern as 
the Orange Plank Road. These, starting from Orange Court- house, run 
nearly parallel at a distance of about three miles, coming together again near 
Chancellorsville. They strike at a right angle those by which Grant would 
move, and the Confederates, pressing down these roads, would strike square- 
ly upon the flank of the long Union columns slowly defiling through the 
tangled mazes of the Wilderness, with every probability of cutting them 
in two. In these labyrinths of forests, thickets, and swamps, which no eye 
could penetrate for more than a few yards, and where artillery could not be 
brought into action, Grant’s preponderance of numbers would be neutral- 
ized; and indeed Lee, having two good parallel roads, might reasonably 
expect to be able to throw a superior force upon the decisive point. He 
had, moreover, the great advantage of a thorough knowledge of the country, 
which was wholly unknown to his opponent. 

When, therefore, on the morning of the 4th, Lee learned that the Union 
army was heading for the Rapidan, he put his columns in motion to inter- 
cept it on its march through the Wilderness. Ewell moved by the turn- 
pike, and the head of his column lay that night within three miles of the 
camp of Warren at the Wilderness Tavern. Hill moved by the plank road, 
but, having a longer march, was somewhat farther away. Longstreet, a day 
behind, was ordered up with all speed. Grant’s plan for the ensuing day 
contemplated a leisurely march mainly for the purpose of concentrating his 
somewhat scattered corps. Warren was to march by a wood path south- 
westward till he struck the plank road, up which he was to proceed three 
miles to Parker's store; Sedgwick was to follow, joining upon Warren’s 
ight; Hancock was to move from Chancellorsville southward to Shady 


trove Church, and stretch his right to unite with Warren’s left. Meade’s | 
whole army, none of it having marched more than ten miles, would then | 
tave cleared the Wilderness, its movements being masked in front by | 


Sheridan’s cavalry. Burnside’s corps would have reached Germania Ford, 
eady to cross and follow in the track of Meade. Grant would then be pre- 
vared for a rapid advance toward Gordonsville, whither it was taken for 
yranted that Lee would retire. 

Warren began to move at five o’clock on the morning of Thursday, the 
th. Wilson’s division of cavalry. had on the preceding afternoon scouted 
or some distance up the turnpike without encountering any enemy, for 
{well, who was coming down the road, was yet miles away. Warren, how- 
ver, by way of precaution, threw Griffin’s division westward up the turn- 
ike. Ewell at the same time moved eastward down the road, and the head 
f the columns came unexpectedly in collision. Even now the Union com- 
nanders were wholly unaware that the enemy were approaching in force. 
‘They have left a division here to fool us,” said Meade, “ while they con- 
a ’ Ante, p. 488. — TES Sao oe 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE OIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1864. 


centrate and prepare a position toward the North Anna, and what I want 
is to prevent these fellows from getting back to Mine Run.” Only a single 
division—that of Johnson, forming the van of Ewell’s corps—had as yet 
come up. Griffin fell furiously upon this, and drove it back for a space. 
Strongly re-enforced, the Confederates turned at bay, held their ground, and 
soon advanced in turn, and forced Griffin back over all the space which he 
had won. Wadsworth, endeavoring to join Griffin, missed his way through 
the woods, and exposed his naked flank to a fierce fire, from which his di- 
vision recoiled in confusion. In the mean time, Crawford, who had struck 
the plank road, and was moving up it toward Parker’s store, encountered 
the cavalry scouts dashing back with tidings that a heavy force was pour- 
ing down that road. Crawford’s movement was suspended, and his divis- 
ion withdrawn; one brigade, however, became isolated, and lost in prisoners 
nearly the whole of two regiments. 

It was an hour past noon. ‘T'wo hours before, Grant, perceiving that the 
enemy were in force and bent upon delivering battle in the Wilderness, had 
sent orders to Hancock to suspend his southward march, and, taking the 
Brock Road, to hurry to the scene of conflict. He had also sent Getty, with 
his division of Sedgwick’s corps, to the junction of this road with the Orange 
Plank, with orders to hold the position, at all hazards, until Hancock, who 
was ten miles away, should come up. Thus far the brunt of the fight had 
been borne by Warren’s corps, opposed to that of Ewell. Warren had been 
pressed back to the line whence he had started in the early morning, where 
he stood stoutly at bay. Ewell’s on-coming brigades, spreading northward, 
threatened to turn Warren’s right. Sedgwick’s corps, or, rather, two of its 
three divisions, for the strongest, under Getty, had been sent elsewhere, was 
ordered to advance through the thick woods upon Warren’s right. As they 
pressed on through the dense undergrowth, broken here and there by a 
slight clearing, they would encounter a body of Confederate skirmishers, 
hidden in the skirts of the chaparral. These would deliver a sharp fire, 
and disappear in the thickets. At length they came square in front of a 
strong line of battle. The Confederates charged fiercely and unavailingly 
upon the leading brigades, and then, with equal ill success, endeavored to 
turn their flank. At four o’clock they suspended their offensive movements, 
fell back, and began to fortify their position. The confronting lines now 
lay upon the opposite slopes of a swampy, wooded hollow. They were but 
a hundred or two yards apart, and though the ring of axes felling trees to 
form breastworks and abatis filled the air, not a man on either side could 
be discerned from the other. 

At four o’clock the fight had lulled upon Warren’s and Sedgwick’s front, 
But in the mean while, and thereafter, it was raging on the plank road, 
barely three miles to the southward. Here Getty held grimly to the vital 
point at the junction of the Brock and Plank Roads, which he had been or- 
dered to maintain, toward which Hancock was advancing. Hill’s corps of 
the Confederates was pressing strongly down the Plank Road. Getty seem- 
ed on the point of being overwhelmed, when at three o’clock the welcome 
sound of Hancock’s approach up the Brock Road was heard. Hancock 
drew up his force fronting that of Hill, and began to level the woods and 
throw up breastworks, designing simply to receive an assault. But Meade 
had ordered Getty to take the offensive, and drive Hill up the plank road. 
Getty had but three hundred paces to go to encounter the Confederate line. 
He found them in superior force, lying hidden in the woods bordering the 
road. Hancock backed up the attack by divisions from his own corps. 
The assaults were hot and furious—“ repeated and desperate assaults,” as 
Lee styles them; “‘a fierce fight, the lines being exceedingly close, the mus- 
ketry continuous and deadly along the entire line,” says Hancock. It was 


ALEXANDER HAYS. 


May, 1864. | VIRGINIA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES. 627 


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628 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


all in vain. Hill could not be pushed back, and the hot volleys of musket- 
ry caused more than one of the assailing divisions to waver and break. In 
the effort to repair one such break, General Alexander Hays, who had won 
high renown at Gettysburg, was shot dead, while leading his command into 
the heart of the fight. So for four hours, until night closed in, the contest 
raged with no decisive advantage on either side. 

Late in the afternoon, the fight in front of Warren and Sedgwick having 
been suspended, Wadsworth’s division was ordered to press southward 
through the forest, and thus fall upon the flank and rear of Hill, who was 
holding his position against the hot assaults of Hancock. But, though the 
distance was hardly three miles, the appointed position was only reached at 
nightfall, when the conflict was over. Wadsworth rested on the field, in 
line of battle, in a position where he could strike when the fight should be 
opened the next morning. Hancock’s and Hill’s forces, who had been 
marching and fighting all day, lay upon their arms upon the opposite side 
of the Brock Road, awaiting what the next day should bring forth. But as 
darkness closed in, an irregular contest was opened in the woods on the ex- 
treme Union right, and the gloom of the forest was lighted up by volleys 
of musketry which rolled along the opposing lines. At two hours past mid- 
night, and three hours before dawn, the noise sank away into silence. 

The engagement of this day can hardly be styled a battle. It was rather 
a series of fierce encounters between portions of two armies, each ignorant 
of the position, strength, and force of the other. Neither commander had 
succeeded in effecting his purpose. Lee had hoped to fall upon the flank 
of Grant’s columns while stretched out in a long, feeble line of march, cut 
them in two, and annihilate one portion while it was isolated from the oth- 
er. Ifthe collision had taken place two hours later, when the whole of 
Hill’s and Ewell’s divisions would have come up, while the Federals were 
fairly on the march, it could hardly have failed to succeed. But Grant had 
now been able to place his force in line of battle, opposing his front instead 
of his flank to the enemy. He had failed, however, to push the Confeder- 
utes back upon the roads by which they had advanced. But the state of 
ufairs was such as to warrant both in renewing the issue the next day. 
Grant, indeed, had no choice but to fight. He was still enmeshed in the 
Wilderness. He could not go southward without exposing himself to a dis- 
wstrous flank assault. It would have been equally perilous to have attempt- 
od to recross the Rapidan, even had he been of a temper to give up his for- 
ward purpose. He might, indeed, have fallen back eastward toward Freder- 
cksburg by way of the Brock Road, plank, and turnpike, and thus have got 
lear of the Wilderness, but there was nothing in the position of affairs to 
warrant such a resort. Moreover, neither general had used his whole force. 
Burnside’s corps, 20,000 strong, had pushed on by forced marches, were 
rossing at Germania Ford, and could be brought into action the next day. 
Lee could not be aware of this accession to the numbers to be opposed to 
iim. He also had fresh forces at hand. Longstreet’s veteran corps was 
noving on from its cantonments forty miles away. During the afternoon 
1e had reached a position ten miles from where the battle was raging, but 
n these close woods the noise of the musketry was unheard, and he was ig- 
iorant that a battle was being fought until midnight, when he received or- 
lers from Lee to advance. Two hours later he was on the march, and 
vould come up. Anderson’s division, moreover, one third of Hill’s strong 
orps, had been left behind to watch the upper fords of the Rapidan. These 
vere now close at hand. Longstreet and Anderson would add 20,000 fresh 
nen to Lee’s force on the field. With two thirds of his army he had gained 
ome apparent advantage; with this addition it was not unreasonable to 
1ope that he could win a decisive victory. 

So both commanders resolved to fight; and, a rare occurrence in warfare, 
ach proposed at daybreak to assault the lines of the other. Grant united 
is heretofore disjointed line by bringing forward Burnside and posting him 
yetween Warren and Hancock, so that the line from right to left ran thus: 
sedgwick, as before, on the right; then Warren, who had been severely 
andled on the preceding day; then Burnside; then, on the left, Hancock, 
trengthened by detachments from Sedgwick and Warren. There was no 
oom for the display of elaborate manceuvres or skillful combinations. 
rrant’s plan of battle was simply a simultaneous assault along the whole 
ine of five miles, each division attacking whatever appeared in its front. 
ee, however, had two good avenues of approach. His plan was more elab- 
rate. The main attack was to be made by Longstreet and Hill upon the 
Jnion left, while Ewell was to make an assault, or, rather, demonstration 
pon the right. If Longstreet succeeded, Hancock would be forced back 
pon the centre, and the whole Union army flung together in inextricable 
onfusion in the almost impenetrable forests, where it could not act as an 
rmy. 

Five o'clock, the hour when the gray dawn was breaking into day, was 
he time fixed by Grant for attack. But Ewell anticipated him by fifteen 
uinutes, moving out of his lines upon Sedgwick’s extreme right. The at- 
uck was not seriously made, and probably not seriously intended. It was 
asily repelled. Sedgwick and Warren then advanced, pushing the enemy 
ack for a space until he regained the strong position from which he had 
ullied. Upon this no impression could be made, and the contest ceased to 
e a battle at this point. 

Hancock, in the mean while, deploying his skirmishers, pushed half of 
is force through the thickets on each side of the plank road, straight west- 
yard upon Hill’s front. Wadsworth, who had slept the night before hard 
y, advanced southward upon the Confederate flank. The attack was wholly 

nexpected. Longstreet, who was just coming up, was to take the position 
1 front, relieving Hill, whose front divisions, those of Heth and Wilcox, 
rere just preparing to retire. These divisions broke and fled back in disor- 


[May, 1864. 


IQ 


MGQ 


SR 


SS 


JAMES 8 WADSWORTH. 


der for a mile and a half, overrunning Lee’s headquarters, which were in the 
way, and not halting until they touched the head of Longstreet’s advancing 
column. But here they met three regiments of Kershaw’s division, who 
briefly stayed the flight. Other troops were hurrying up; the whole line 
seemed wavering and on the point of again breaking. Lee, who had nar- 
rowly escaped being shot down, flung himself at the head of Gregg’s Tex- 
ans, and ordered them to follow him in a charge. First one soldier, and then 
the whole brigade, shouted out a remonstrance, and refused to advance until 
their commander had retired from the front. But in the fierce rush through 
the pathless woods the Federal troops had likewise lost all semblance of bat: 
tle array—every thing which distinguishes an army from isolated groups of 
Indian fighters. Coming upon a line somewhat firm, it was necessary to halt 
and readjust their own broken formation. This, in a tangled wilderness, was 
a work of time. T'wo hours passed—from seven to nine—before the Union 
line was reformed. Those hours had wrought an entire change in the as- 
pect of the field. Longstreet’s whole corps had come up, Hill’s entire corps 
was concentrated, and the Confederate line had gained such force that it was 
able not only to repel assault, but to give attack. The Union force was 
swept back over all the space which it had won, and reformed only upon the 
Brock Road, whence it had started. In a vain attempt to stay the retreat 
of his command, which had fallen into disorder, Wadsworth was mortally 
wounded, and his body remained in the enemy’s hands. Few as noble men 
have ever fallen upon the field of battle. He was the largest landholder, 
and one of the wealthiest men of Western New York. Past the prime of 
life, verging closely upon threescore, his years had been devoted to peaceful 
pursuits. When the war broke out he offered his purse and his person 
to the government. At the battle of Bull Run he acted as aid-de-camp to 
McDowell. Appointed brigadier general, he for a time acted as Military 
Governor of the District of Columbia. In the dark year of 1862 he was the 
Republican candidate for Governor of New York, but was defeated by Ho- 
ratio Seymour. Then assigned to the command of a division in the Army 
of the Potomae, he did good service at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsyille. 
At Gettysburg the heaviest brunt of the first day’s fighting, whereby the 
Confederates were prevented from occupying the heights, fell upon his di- 
vision. 

Hancock had sallied out from his intrenchments with only half the force 
under his command. The reason of this was that Longstreet was said to be 
coming up by a way which, passing south of the plank road, would bring 
him upon the left of his position on the Brock Road, and so, if that point was 
abandoned, by an advance the enemy would be upon his rear. Longstreet 
was, indeed, at six o’clock, making this very movement; but so urgent was 
the stress caused by the unlooked-for attack upon Hill, that Lee was obliged 
to change the direction of Longstreet, and bring him to the front. When 
now Hancock’s advance had been stayed, Lee reverted to his original plan, 
the execution of which was committed to Longstreet, who was to senda por- 
tion of his corps to make a detour beyond the extreme Union left, gain the 
Brock Road, and thus fall upon its rear. Not until this force was well in po- 
sition was the front assault to be made. This took until noon, by which 
time Hancock’s advanced right had been forced back to its intrenchments. 
Longstreet then rode down the plank road to direct the turning column. 
He met General Jenkins, an old comrade whom he had not seen for months. 
Mahone’s brigade, a portion of his own flanking force, lay hidden in the 
bushes. They mistook Longstreet and others for Federal officers, and fired 
upon them. Jenkins fell dead, and Longstreet received a ball in his throat, 
which passed out through the shoulder. He was borne away fatally 
wounded, as was thought. But he survived, and months afterward was 
able to take part in the closing scenes of the war, the only survivor of the 
three lieutenants of Lee who fought in the battles of the Army of Northern 


May, 1864.] 


VIRGINIA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES. 


THE WILDERNESS—SOENE OF WADSWORTH'S DEATH. 


Virginia, for Hill fell almost a year later, and Jackson had a year before re- 
ceived his death-wound hardly six miles from the spot where Longstreet fell 
wounded. 

The fall of Longstreet checked for a space the execution of the operation 
which had been committed to him. ‘Lee assumed immediate command of 
this part of the field, and at length, as the afternoon was wearing away, urged 
the whole strength of the two corps of Longstreet and Hill against Hancock’s 
lines, then resting behind their intrenchments, but also preparing for a re- 
newed assault. Much had been hoped from an advance of Burnside’s corps 
through the woods between Hancock and Warren. Two of his three white 
divisions—for the colored one had been left behind to guard the trains— 
touched the fight somewhat sharply, losing a thousand men; but they failed 
to attain a place wherein their action seriously affected the fortunes of the 
day. Now the woods wherein the battle of the morning had been fought 
were on fire, and a strong westerly wind blew the flames right down upon 
the Federal intrenchments, forcing the foremost lines to abandon the works. 
The Confederates, following the fire, swept down, the foremost troops crown- 
ing the parapet and planting their colors upon the blazing breastworks. 
But they were met by a rush from Carroll’s brigade, which came up first by 
flank and then straight forward, and driven back in wild disorder. With 
this sharp assault ended the fighting upon the left. Hach side had advanced 
upon the other, and each, after winning some success, had been repelled. 
Both, as night again fell, occupied substantially the same positions which 
they had held when morning broke. 

The battle of the day was over on the left of the field, where Hancock 
was struggling against Longstreet and Hill. But on the right, where the 
contest had lulled for hours, there was at dusk one more stirring episode. 
The Confederate left overlapped the Union right, held by some brigades of raw 
troops of Sedgwick’s corps. They had wearily kept their post for thirty hours 
in front of breastworks which had been thrown up, behind which they might 
retire in case of attack. None having been made, they at dusk began to re- 
tire to this sheltered line. The vigilant enemy, perceiving this movement, 
made a sudden rush upon their flank, and threw every thing into confusion. 
One of these brigades had on that very day been given to Seymour, just re- 
leased from captivity, into which he had fallen at the battle of Olustee, in 
Florida; another was commanded by Shaler. These brigades, four thou- 
sand strong, were enveloped, and, with their commander, captured, almost to 
aman. For a space it seemed that the fatal rout of the Eleventh Corps at 
Chancellorsville was to be renewed. But the sudden assault was soon re- 
pelled, and the Confederates fell back to the lines from which they had so 
suddenly emerged. This brilliant feat, wherein they made three thousand 
prisoners, cost the Confederates, it is said, only twenty-seven men.’ 

The morning of Saturday found both armies in a mood different from that 
of the day before. Each, while quite willing to be assailed in its intrench- 
ments, was indisposed to attack the other. The losses had been heavy. 


1 So Pollard, doubtful authority, says: Lost Cause, p. 516. If one chooses to see a Federal ac- 
count, describing a hot fight, with charges and countercharges, he is referred to Stevens’s Three 
Years in the Sixth Corps, p, 311-813. 

7U 


Those of the Federals numbered fully 20,000 men, of whom about 5000 
were prisoners. The Confederate loss was hardly 10,000, of whom few were 
captured. The two days’ action had otherwise been a fairly drawn battle. 
Both commanders had failed in their purpose. Grant had turned the im- 
pregnable position of the Rapidan only to find himself confronted in the 
Wilderness by the enemy in a new position equally unassailable. In this 
first blow the hammer had suffered more than the anvil. According to all 
precedent in the Army of the Potomac, Grant should have abandoned the 
enterprise, and cast about for something new. But of this he had no 
thought. To strike and keep striking, as he had done at Vicksburg, was his 
fixed purpose. 

The first thing to be done was to flank the enemy from the Wilderness. 
The movement was to be upon Spottsylvania Court-house, fifteen miles 
southwest of the battle-field. The direct route was by the Brock Road; a 
more indirect one was by a detour eastward to Chancellorsville, then south- 
ward to the point of destination. Warren’s and Hancock’s corps were to 
follow the first route; Sedgwick’s and Burnside’s, with all the trains, were 
to take the latter. The wounded were to be sent through Chancellorsville 
to Fredericksburg. Warren was to commence his march at half past eight 
in the evening. If he met no obstruction he would soon after daylight 
reach the Court-house, of which possession in the mean time was to be taken 
by Wilson’s cavalry. The other corps would not be long behind. Then 
the whole army would be again upon Lee’s flank, ready to fling itself be- 
tween him and Richmond. 


SPOTTSYLVANIA. 


But Warren, upon reaching Todd’s Tavern, about half way, found the nar- 
row road obstructed by Meade’s cavalry escort, and it was an hour and a 
half before the way could be cleared. T'wo miles beyond that point the road 
was blocked by Stuart’s Confederate cavalry, who had been posted there 
the day before, and which Merritt's troopers, who were in advance, had not 
succeeded in dislodging. It was now daylight. Warren, advancing, cleared 
the way and pressed on slowly, for barricades had been formed by felling 
trees, which could be removed only by the axe. Here and there, also, there 
was a slight show of opposition by dismounted troopers. At last, at half 
past eight, four hours behind time, the head of the column emerged from the 
woods into an open clearing, beyond which rose the wooded ridge whereon 
is the Court-house, still two miles away. Thus far there had been no inti- 
mation of any enemy except the few dismounted troopers. But when half 
way across the clearing the advancing column encountered a fierce musketry 
fire from infantry lying hidden in the opposite wood, and fell back across 
the plain. By one of those accidents which sometimes change the course of 
a whole campaign, the Confederates were first at Spottsylvania. 

When Lee, on the afternoon and evening, saw the Federal trains moving 
due east toward Chancellorsville, he at once inferred that the enemy was 
heading for Fredericksburg; the Brock Road also at first trends in that di- 
rection; and when columns were perceived defiling down that road, the con- 
clusion was confirmed. Lee was not undeceived until the next day; for on 


630 


JOHN SEDGWIOK. 


the 8th he sent a dispatch to Richmond stating that “the enemy have aban- 
doned their position, and are marching toward Fredericksburg. I am moy- 
ing on their right flank”—that is, toward Spottsylvania. The march was at 
first leisurely, for it was’ not his purpose to overtake the Federal army, but 
simply to interpose between it and what was assumed to be its march down 
he Fredericksburg Railroad toward Richmond. It was, indeed, by accident 
hat this march was commenced during the night of the 7th. At ten in the 
evening, Anderson, who now commanded Longstreet’s corps, was ordered to 
withdraw his troops from the breastworks from before which the enemy had 
lisappeared, and encamp in readiness to march next morning. Anderson, 
inding no good place to bivouac in the burning woods, kept on. Thus, dur- 
ng that night, Warren and Anderson were moving by roads nearly parallel 
1pon Spottsylvania. Although Warren had the start by an hour or two, 
Anderson, meeting with no obstructions, as day broke was ahead. Then for 
he first time learning the approach of the enemy, he double-quicked his 
narch and reached the Court-house some hours in advance. The Federal 
avalry who held the place abandoned it, and Anderson drew up his men 
cross the road by which Warren, ignorant of his presence, was advancing. 
Te had time to throw up slight breastworks, behind which, and hidden in 
he woods, he awaited the approach of his enemy. Some sharp fighting 
ere took place, continuing all the morning; and at last Warren began to 
ntrench close in front of the Confederate line. Hancock's corps, which was 
ollowing that of Warren, was delayed all day at Todd’s Tavern in readiness 
9 repel an attack upon the rear, which was apparently threatened by Lee, 
rho, now perceiving the real aim of the Federal movement, was hurrying his 
hole force on toward Spottsylvania. Some time in the afternoon Sedgwick 
ame up from Chancellorsville and took command of the field. Toward 
vening a slight attack was made upon the Confederate line, but nothing of 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| May, 1864, 


Ss ce ee 


NORATIO G. WRIGHT. 


importance was effected. Lee, with his whole force, was firmly posted upon 
Spottsylvania ridge, and every hour was strengthening his position, from 
which it was clear that he could be driven only by hard fighting. Grant, 
Whose entire army was now well in hand, and notwithstanding its severe 
losses in the Wilderness, was in sound heart, resolved to try what could be 
effected by heavy blows. 

Monday, the 9th, was mainly employed by Grant in making his disposi- 
tions, and by Lee in fortifying his lines, which mainly followed the course 
of a wooded ridge, from the Court-house on the east, Sweeping in an irreg- 
ular semicircle to the north and east. Artillery and musketry firing was 
kept up at points from the Confederate lines, especially upon points where 
batteries were being established. At one of these points Sedgwick was su- 
perintending the placing of a battery. The men seemed to wince at the fire 
poured in upon them. “ Pooh!” said Sedgwick, drawing himself up to his 
full height, “they can’t hit an elephant at that distance.” At that moment 
a rifle-shot struck him fairly in the face, and he fell dead. The command 
of the Sixth Corps now devolved upon Wright. 

The 10th was spent in tentatives upon the left of the Confederate lines, 
These, though fiercely made, were unsuccessful, though Grant at the close 
sent an encouraging dispatch to Washington, which was duly published, 
and, for the time, was held to announce a victory ; at all events, it indicated 
a determination which, in view of his known superiority in numbers, was 
held to be a sure presage of speedy and decided success,’ He ‘‘ proposed 
to fight it out on that line, if it took all summer,” If he had known it, he 
was to fight all summer, and autumn, and winter, and far into the next 
spring. The “indecisive actions of these three days had cost wellnigh 
10,000 men, the very flower of the Army of the Potomac. The enemy, 
fighting almost wholly behind intrenchments, could have suffered hardly a 
third as much.’ 

Lee’s left had been found, by bitter experience, to be impregnable. But 
it seemed that his centre presented a weak point through which an entrance 
might be forced. Here his lines were thrust forward in a sharp salient 
which might be carried by a sudden dash. All the day of the 11th was 

spent in arrangements. ‘Toward night a heavy rain set in, and under the 
cover of this and the darkness, Hancock’s corps was brought around from 
| the left, and posted twelve hundred yards from this salient angle. This 
_ point seemed to be so difficult of approach that it was weakly held and care- 
lessly guarded. In the gray dawn, and through a dense fog, Hancock’s men 
moved softly and noiselessly, sweeping over the Confederate pickets with- 
out firing a shot; then, with a shout and a rush, they dashed through the 
abatis, and over the breastworks on every side. Johnson’s division of 


BIRE-PEOOF WHEEE SEDGWICK FELL. 


* Grant’s Dispatch, May 11th, 8 P.M. ‘‘ We have now ended the sixth day of yery hard fighting. 

The result to this time is very much in our favor. Our losses have been heavy, as well as those of 

| the enemy. I think the loss of the enemy must be heavier. We have taken oyer 5000 prisoners, 

' while he has taken from us but few except stragglers. I propose to fight it out on this line if it 

takes all summer.” In his report a year later, he says, ‘‘ The 9th, 10th, and 11th were spent in 

| Maneeuvring and fighting, without decisive results.” It is worth while to recall some of the official 

| dispatches of this period put forth by the War Department. Sunday, May 9th: ‘ Lee’s army com- 

menced falling back on Friday. Our army commenced the pursuit on Saturday. The rebels were 

in full retreat for Richmond by the direct road. Hancock passed through Spottsylvania Court- 

house at daylight yesterday.” Same day : ‘* Dispatches haye just reached here direct from General 

| Grant. They are not fully deciphered yet ; but he is on to Richmond.” The President appointed 
a day of thanksgiving for the victories Of the last five days. 

____? No returns have been rendered of the separate losses during the seven days, 
The entire number is given together as follows: killed, 3288; wounded, 19,278: missing, 6844 ; 
total, 29,410. Allowing, as we have done, 20,000 for the Wilderness, there remain fully 10,000 
for these three days at Spottsylvania. The Confederate loss is wholly a matter of estimate, In 

| placing it at 15,000 during this period, we can not yery greatly err. 


from May 5 to 11. 


VIRGINIA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN 


TO THE JAMES. 63] 


SPOTTSYLVANIA OOURT-HOUSE, 


Ewell’s corps, 4000 strong, were nearly all captured. Hancock sent back a 
hasty note to Grant, “I have finished up Johnson, and am now going into 
Karly.” But this salient was after all an outwork, adopted because the 
heights swelled out in that direction. Behind it, at the distance of half a 
mile, a second line had been laid out and partly completed. Here the Con- 
federates rallied, Ewell in the centre, Hill rushing in from the right, and 
Longstreet from the left. The position was vital. If these works were car- 
ried the Confederate line would be cut in two, and their whole position forced. 
Hancock, struggling alone—for so rapid had been his rush that he had far 
outstripped Wright who was to support him—was speedily thrown back to 
the captured salient. The Sixth Corps now came up, and the Confederates 
could not gain another inch. Half of Warren’s corps were sent to support 
Hancock and Wright, and the battle raged with hardly an interval during 
the whole day and far into the night. Five several assaults were made by 
the Confederates, and five times they were bloodily repelled. At midnight 
Lee withdrew to his interior line, which was still intact. During the day 
Burnside and Warren had demonstrated strongly upon their fronts, Burn- 
side carried the rifle-pits, but could make no impression upon the intrench- 
ments behind them. ‘The resistance,” says Grant, ‘‘ was so obstinate that 
the advantage gained did not prove decisive.” The Union loss this day 
was probably 10,000, that of the Confederates quite as many.’ 

Grant had struck a heavy blow, but the enemy were by no means crushed. 
For six days longer he manceuvred in the hope of turning the lines; but, in 
whatever direction he moved, he found himself confronted by intrenchments 
which forbade assault. He was, moreover, awaiting re-enforcements which 
were hurried on from Washington. On the 18th, orders were given to 
break up the position at Spottsylvania, and move southward to the North 
Anna. Lee, who now seemed to divine the purposes of his opponent, saw 
in the preparatory movements a chance for a blow. He launched Ewell 
through the woods upon Grant’s right flank; but the attack was easily re- 
pelled, and Ewell, after heavy loss, fell back to his intrenchments. This 
demonstration delayed Grant’s movement until the night of the 21st. Next 
morning Lee saw before him no trace of the great army by which he had 
been confronted. Breaking up his camps, he hastened once more to fling 
himself athwart the line of the enemy’s advance. 


THE NORTH ANNA. 


When, after a two days’ march through a fertile region as yet untrodden 
by armies, Grant reached the North Anna River, he found his vigilant ad- 
versary confronting him upon the opposite bank. Lee’s settled policy was 
never strongly to oppose the passage of a river in his front. He had not 
seriously contested the passage of the Chickahominy, the Rappahannock, 
the Antietam, or the Rapidan. He chose rather to intrench himself a little 
distance back, allow his adversary to cross, hoping to fight him with a stream 
in his rear. Here, however, he made some show of opposition to the pas- 
sage, though his main line of defense was some distance beyond the stream. 
The opposition was speedily brushed away. Hancock and Warren crossed 
at two points four miles apart. But now Lee thrust his army like a sharp 
wedge right between the two Union columns, repelled all attempts to unite 
them, and was in a position to strike either. The manceuvre was a brilliant 
one. Grant, perceiving his peril, and the impossibility of assailing his op- 
ponent, after two days recrossed the river, and on the 26th resumed his 
old turning movement, which was to bring him within view of the Chicka- 
hominy. 

While at Spottsylvania Grant had received re-enforcements fully equal 


' The losses in the Army of the Potomac are grouped together for the period from the 12th to 
the 21st of May. They sum up 10.881; but after the 12th there were probably not more than 
2000, leaving 8381 for the 12th. Of the Confederate losses we have no reliable statement. Pol- 
lard says (Lost Cause, 520), ‘‘ The enemy had taken twenty-five pieces of artillery and about 2000 
men in Johnson’s division; he had inflicted a loss of 6000 or 7000.” Whether he means to in- 
clude the 2000 prisoners in the ‘‘loss” is uncertain; but the prisoners certainly numbered 3000 ; 
and, considering the character of the fighting, it can not be doubted that, in the main action at the 
salient, the Confederates lost most heayily. On the other parts of the field it is probable that the 
Union loss was in excess. It may be safely assumed that in a persistent assault, which is repulsed, 
the assailants suffer most. 


to all his losses. Here, upon the North Anna, Lee was joined by Pickett’ 
division and Hoke’s brigade from North Carolina, and Breckinridge’s com 
mand from the Valley of the Shenandoah. All told, they numbered som: 
15,000 men, considerably less than his losses, so that Grant was relativel. 
stronger than at the opening of the campaign. ‘To understand how it wa 
possible for these re-enforcements to be given to the Army of Norther 
Virginia requires a rapid survey of operations in other quarters. 


OPERATIONS OF SIGEL, HUNTER, AND BUTLER. 


It had been a part of Grant’s plan that Sigel, with 7000 men, should moy 
up the Valley of the Shenandoah, and Crook, with 10,000, up the Kanawhe 
These two columns were designed to hold in check the scattered Confede1 
ate forces in that region, and destroy the salt-works in the Valley of th 
Kanawha, and threaten the communications between Richmond and th 
West by way of the Tennessee Railway. Sigel moved from Wincheste 
on the 1st of May. On the 15th he reached Newmarket, a distance of fift, 
miles, having encountered no serious opposition. Here he encountere 
Breckinridge with a force somewhat superior.'. Sigel suffered a severe an 
mortifying defeat, and fell back, leaving behind him his trains and 700 pris 
oners. At the instance of Grant he was superseded by Hunter. The co! 
umn under Crook met with somewhat better fortune, inasmuch as it suffer 
ed no actual defeat, although Averill, who had been detached with 200 
men to destroy the lead-works at Wytheville, was foiled by Morgan ; an 
Crook, having reached the railroad, destroyed the track for a short distance 
and, on a slight encounter, defeated McCausland. But, finding the enem, 
gathering in his front, he retreated by the way he came. Breckinridg 
thus relieved from immediate pressure, was free to join Lee with the whol 
of his movable force.2 Hunter, a fortnight later, collected 20,000 men, an: 
and moved up the valley. He encountered W.E. Jones at Piedmont on th 
5th of June, defeated him, took 1500 prisoners, and, crossing the mountain: 
advanced upon Lynchburg. So important was the possession of this place 
as the key to one of his main avenues of supply, that Lee, although Grant’ 
whole army was in his immediate front near Cold Harbor, detached Karl. 
with a quarter of the whole Army of Northern Virginia to oppose the ac 
vance of Hunter. They reached the vicinity of Lynchburg at about th 
same time with Hunter. Some skirmishing ensued; but Hunter was no 
quite destitute of ammunition, and, not daring to seek a battle, retreatec 
From some unaccountable reason, instead of falling back northward dow: 
the valley, he struck northwestward down the Kanawha. His supple 
were nearly exhausted, but large quantities had been collected at a point 
few marches on the way. These were guarded only by a few cavalry, tw 
regiments of hundred-days’ men. Gilmor, an active partisan, dashed upo 
the train, destroyed the whole, and disappeared. Hunter kept up his r 
treat by a long detour by way of the Kanawha and Ohio, through th 
mountains of Western Virginia, and it was several weeks before he wa 
able to regain the Potomac. This absence of Hunter's force gave oppor 
tunity for thc annoying invasion of Maryland by Karly, whereby the safet 
of the Federal capital was seriously endangered. 

Another simultaneous co-operative movement was to be made from York 
town by Butler. His available force consisted of the Tenth Corps unde 
W.F.Smith, and the Eighteenth under Gillmore, which had not long befor 
been brought from before Charleston, numbering together about 25,000 mer 
besides 3000 cavalry under Kautz, who were posted at Suffolk. To thi 
force was given the name of the Army of the James. The army lay ¢ 
Yorktown, apparently threatening a movement upon Richmond across th 
peninsula, by the route followed by McClellan two years before. Butler, o 
the 4th of May, embarked his infantry on board transports, passed down th 


1 Breckinridge’s returns for April show 6435 men ; but, besides these, he collected many sca 
tered bands, among them a company of 250 boys, cadets in the Military Academy at Lexingtot 
These cadets were pushed to the front, and fonght like veterans, losing a third of their number. 

2 According to Early, Breckinridge brought only 2500 men. Little reliance, however, can 1? 
placed upon any statement of this officer. Thus he states that the force with which he was som 
months later defeated by Sheridan was only 8500 men, whereas Sheridan showed that he had take 
more than that number of prisoners, and Early’s losses in killed and wounded were very severe, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 


THE CIVIL WAR. 


JERICHO MILLS, NORTIT ANNA. 


York River and up the James, and next day occupied City Point, at the 
junction of that river and the Appomattox, and Bermuda Hundred, a nar- 
row-necked peninsula between those rivers. Here he intrenched himself 
in a position which he affirmed he “could hold against the whole of Lee’s 
army.” Kautz, at the same time, made a dash upon the Weldon Railroad, 
by which it was known that troops from South and North Carolina were 
approaching Richmond. 

Beauregard, who had been conducting the defense of Charleston, had not 
long before been placed in command of the Department of South Virginia 
and North Carolina, The departure of Gillmore rendered it safe to with- 
draw nearly all the force from South Carolina. Hoke, also, had, about the 
middle of April, captured Plymouth, North Carolina, almost the only point 
yet held by the Federals in that state, and he had been able to bring to Rich- 
mond Pickett’s division, then under his command. On the 2ist of April 
Beauregard passed through Wilmington with a considerable force, and pro- 
ceeded toward Richmond. Butler supposed that most of them were still on 
the way, and when he found that Kautz had cut the railroad he assumed 
that they could not advance.’ 

Having intrenched himself at Bermuda Hundred, Butler, on the 7th, made 
1 demonstration against the railroad from Petersburg to Richmond, and suc- 
seeded in destroying a small portion of it. Had he pushed straight to Pe- 
ersburg that city would have been easily taken, for the defenses which had 
veen begun two years before were of little account, and there were there few 
or no troops. But the capture of Petersburg formed no part of the plan 
which had been agreed upon between him and Grant. The essential part 
of it was that, as soon as Grant should approach Richmond from the north- 
ast, Butler should move up southeastwardly, and the two armies would 
hen invest Richmond on the south, west, and north, thus avoiding the al- 
nost impregnable lines of works which protected the city on the east. On 
he 9th he resumed his attack upon the railroad in considerable force, and 
vith favorable results, and proposed to follow up the success next day. But 
hat night he received the glowing dispatches from Washington announcing 
hat Lee was in full retreat for Richmond, with Grant close upon his heels. 
Pausing for two days to strengthen his lines at Bermuda Hundred, on the 
3th he began an attempt to carry out his part of the programme. On the 
3th a portion of the outer lines near Fort Darling, which formed the ex- 

reme southern point of the defenses of Richmond, were carried. But the 


* On the 9th he telegraphed to the Secretary of War: ‘ Beauregard, with a large portion of his 
sree, was left South by the cutting of the railroad by Kautz. ‘That portion which reached Peters- 
urg under Hill I have whipped to-day, killing and wounding many, and taking many prisoners, 
fter a severe and well-contested fight. General Grant will not be troubled with any farther re- 
nforcements to Lee from Beauregard’s army.” 


RIFLE-PITS8, NORTH ANNA, 


QUARLESS MILLS, NORTH ANNA, 


interior lines were strong, and their extent was unknown. Butler, after 
spending two days in examination and concentrating his force, determined 
to attack on the morning of the 16th. 

But, in the mean while, Beauregard, with all the force which he could 
gather, had reached the scene. What with the former garrison of Richmond 
of some 7000 men, and these additions, there were there some 20,000 men. 
Beauregard, who had studied the position from the lines at Fort Darling, 
conceived a bold plan for the destruction of Butler. He proposed that 
15,000 men from Lee’s army should be brought by rail and temporarily 
added to his command; with these he would overwhelm Butler's army, 
which lay weakly stretched over a considerable space, and then, with the 
whole of his victorious force, march northward. Lee was to fall back to- 
ward Richmond, Grant, of course, following. Beauregard would then fall 
upon Grant’s left flank when on the march, while Lee, turning, should assail 
him in front. But Davis, who kept in his own hands the direction of all 
military matters, saving that he rarely interfered with Lee’s operations, re- 
fused his consent, and ordered Beauregard to attack with what force he had. 

The evening of the 15th was somewhat overcast, but not dark, for the 
moon was up. There were no indications of any movement among the Con- 
federates. About midnight a fog arose from the river so dense that nothing 
could be seen at a distance of ten yards. Under this dense pall Beauregard 
quietly assembled his whole force, and before dawn burst upon the sleeping 
Federal camps. Butler, not dreaming that he would be assailed, had made 
the worst possible disposition of his force to resist an attack. His front was 
widely extended, and his right was a mile and a half from the river. Through 
this gap, only watched by a few cavalry, Beauregard proposed to strike this 
flank, cutting it off from Bermuda Hundred: this was the main assault, to 
be conducted by Ransom. The left was to be more lightly assaulted by 
Hoke, while Colquitt, held in reserve, was to act as occasion should require, 
But the dense fog interfered with these plans. Ransom, after gaining some 
ground against Smith, suffered heavy loss, and his division fell into disorder, 
and even with the aid of Colquitt could hardly hold its own; Gillmore, on 
the left, pressed severely upon Hoke; Whiting, who, with 4000 men, was to 
have come up from Petersburg and fall upon Butler’s rear, did not make his 
appearance. When the fog fairly cleared away it seemed as though Beau- 
regard had utterly failed. His elaborate plan of assault had wholly miscar- 
ried, and there was nothing to replace it. But Smith, though he had foiled 
every effort against him, was apprehensive that he would be cut off by a 
turning movement from Bermuda Hundred, and fell back a little ; Gillmore, 
instead of swinging around and taking Beauregard in reverse, fell back 
to the same line with Smith; and then Butler ordered a general retreat. 
Beauregard began to follow, but a 


heavy rain came up, and he could 


do no more than open a distant ar- 


tillery fire upon the retreating col- 
umns. And so, as night fell, Butler 
found himself unassailed behind his 


intrenchments, A more insignifi- 


cant action, save for the loss which 
it involved, was never fought. Beau- 


regard took 1400 prisoners. Apart 


from these, the Union loss was about 


BATTERY ON THE 


ORTH ANNA. 


2500; that of the Confederates, in 
killed and wounded, somewhat great- 
er; but they lost no prisoners. But- 
ler now began to set about strength: 
ening his intrenchments across the 
narrow neck of the peninsula to keep 
the Confederates out. Beauregard 
threw up parallel works, to keep 


May, 1864. ] 


VIRGINIA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES. 


633 


OROSSING THE NY. 


the Federals in. Either line could be held against double the force that 
could be brought against it. Butler found himself, as he phrased it, securely 
“bottled up”? at Bermuda Hundred. And thus it happened that Beaure- 
gard was enabled to send a large part of his force to the aid of Lee; but 
Grant was also able, as soon as he saw fit, to draw still larger re-enforce- 
ments from the Army of the James. 


' This phrase of Butler’s, repeated by Grant, who also speaks of Butler’s being ‘‘ hermetically 
sealed up,” has really very little pertinence. Butler could not, indeed, get out toward Richmond ; 
but he could at any time move his army down the James, as he had come, or cross the Appomattox 
toward Petersburg, or cross the James, haying pontoons for these purposes. All three of these 
movements were actually made at different times without opposition, or, indeed, the possibility of 
any by the enemy. Grant, in fact, was as much ‘‘ bottled up” at Spottsylvania and on the North 
Anna as was Butler at Bermuda Hundred. Neither could march straight upon Richmond, but 
either could move in any other direction. 


COLD HARBOR. 


Grant’s turning movement from the North Anna brought him, by a wide 
detour, to the Pamunkey River, formed by the junction of the North and 
South Anna, and this, uniting with the Mattapony, forms the York. At the 
head of this was the White House, where Grant’s base of supplies was to be 
established. Hitherto his great army had to be supplied from an ever-shift- 
ing base by wagons, over narrow roads through a densely wooded country. 
Now they could be brought by water close to his lines, wherever they should 
be posted. The Pamunkey was crossed, after several sharp skirmishes, 
on the 28th of May, and after three days Lee was found in his new posi- 
tion. The Union losses at the North Anna, and in the actions from the 21st 


NG 
ber ah 


NOM re oT 
= co — 


OROSSING THE NORTH ANNA, 


634 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [JUNE, 1864, © 


TIT . to the 31st, were 1607, of whom 827 were prisoners. 
HIN The loss of the Confederates was much greater. 

From the North Anna Lee had fallen back in a 
straight line, and assumed a position still covering 
Richmond. The two armies were now verging to- 
ward the scene where they had contended two years 
before. Since then, in anticipation of what was soon 
to happen, the ground had been thoroughly survey- 
ed by the Confederates, lines of intrenchments and 
barricades laid out and partly constructed. The 
lines covered the upper fords and bridges of the 
Chickahominy. As finally developed, they formed 
a curve, the convex side turned toward the quarter 
from which Grant was advancing. The southern 
extremity, which was as yet only slightly held, was 
as far southward as Cold Harbor, a mere point where 
converge several roads from the fords of the Chick- 
ahominy to the Pamunkey and York. Here, in a 
quite isolated position, was a body of Confederate 
horse and foot, posted behind some slight breast- 
works. Torbert’s and Custer’s cavalry had scouted 
in this direction, and these generals had formed a 
plan to seize this point by a sudden dash. Sheri- 
dan, coming down, agreed to this. The attack was 
made on the 21st, and the place carried. Sheridan 
notified Meade of this, but said that he could not re- 
ain it, for the enemy was hard by in considerable 
force. He was directed to hold it at all hazards 
until relieved by infantry. Grant had some days 
before embarked two thirds of the Army of the 
James from Bermuda Hundred, and ordered them 
to join the Army of the Potomac; they were now 
on the march, but still some miles distant. On the 
in ANS ANH HA morning of June Ist the enemy made efforts to drive 
we | DMA ih | out Sheridan; they were twice repulsed with severe 
ee loss. Meanwhile Wright’s Sixth corps was sent by 
Grant, and Longstreet’s corps by Lee, marching by 
roads almost parallel, to the point. Wright came 
up at 10 o’clock, arriving first, Longstreet halting 
behind intrenchments in a thick wood hard by. 
Smith came up soon after, and the two corps made 
an attack upon the Confederate position. An ad- 
vanced line of rifle trenches was carried, and six 
hundred prisoners taken. But the second line was 
too strong to be forced. But the possession of Cold 
Harbor had been secured, though at a cost of two 
thousand men. Hancock’s corps was now brought 
down and posted on the right of Wright’s. 

Grant had proposed to cross the Chickahominy 
here, having thus swung two thirds of his army 
around the Confederate left. Lee, anticipating this, 
moved Hill and Ewell in the same direction, so that 
now, on the 2d of June, he occupied almost the po- 
sition which Fitz John Porter had occupied two 
years before, while Grant held that from which Lee 
and Jackson had advanced. The fords were then 
covered by Lee, as they had before been by Porter, 
and to cross without a battle was clearly impossible. 
These movements had not been effected without col- 
lision. Lee sallied out upon Burnside’s corps, which 
was moving to take post behind Warren, who was to 
hold the extreme right. His skirmish line was driy- 
en through a swamp, and some hundreds of prison- 
ers taken. But the movement had no real signifi- 
cance. 

The Confederate position, as finally assumed, was 
exceedingly strong; breastworks had been thrown 
up, which could only be reached by passing through 
thickets and swamps. These thickets and swamps 
had, indeed, opposed Lee’s advance two years be- 
fore; but the breastworks and intrenchments had 
been wanting, for officers of that day were opposed 
to field-works. “It made men timid,” they said. 
Had there been in Porter’s army axes with which 
to have felled a few trees in his front, it is believed, 
by those who took part in his battle, that Lee would 
have suffered a disastrous repulse, and the whole 
issue of the seven days have been changed. Por- 
ter had that morning called for re-enforeements and 
axes, but the messenger, being somewhat deaf, heard 
only half of his order, and so the axes never came. 
Both armies had now grown wiser; they had learn- 
ed that even a slight intrenchment will stop three 
fourths of the bullets which would otherwise have 
borne wounds or death, while an abatis that will de- 
tain an attacking force under direct fire for fifteen 
minutes, with the present improvements in fire-arms, 
more than doubles the defensive power of its defend: 


MANOVER FKERRY—CROSSING THE PAMUNKEY. 


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Junz, 1864. ] VIRGINIA.—FROM THE RAPIDAN TO THE JAMES. 635 


ers. There is, indeed, hardly an instance in our war in which a line of 
works stoutly defended by half the assailing force has been carried. 

Still, things had now come to such a pass that it seemed necessary to 
Grant to drive the enemy from his position. There was no longer room 
for any turning movement which should do more than cause Lee to retire 
within the defenses of Richmond, and then the campaign would resolve 
itself into a long siege of that city. It was his last chance to hammer 
against Lee in the field, and a blow sufficiently weighty might shatter to 
» DD fragments the Confederate army. So he resolved to assault the enemy in 
VY CUMIN Mt his lines. If he could be forced from these he would be thrown back upon 
ID J WWM VP the Chickahominy, or at least be driven pell-mell up its bank, pressed in the 
rear by the victorious columns, while Sheridan’s 10,000 horsemen, flushed 
by a long series of success, would assail his flank, and throw themselves in 
his front.. The catastrophe which began at Five Forks, and ended at Ap- 
pomattox Court-house, would have been antedated by ten weary months. 
If numbers could avail against position, Grant had good reason to hope for 
success. Now that he had been joined by Smith’s corps, he had fully 
150,000 men, while Lee had barely a third as many, 

The 2d of June was spent in getting the troops into position for the bat- 
tle. Hancock’s corps was placed on the left, next Wright’s, then Smith’s, 
closely massed opposite the Confederate right. Then came Warren’s, 
stretched in a long thin line, continued by Burnside’s, with his right flung 
back. The plan of attack was simple. Hancock, Wright, and Smith, at 
daybreak, were to make a simultaneous assault upon the lines in their front. 

In the gray dawn, under a drizzling rain, these corps, already formed into 
line, sprang forward from their rude parapets—for now neither army rested 
for a moment in front of the enemy without intrenching themselves as best 
they might, using, in default of better implements, the tin cups slung by 
their haversacks. Barlow’s division, formed into two lines, was the left of 
Hancock’s corps. The first line in a few minutes came upon a sunken road 
in front of the Confederate intrenchments, strongly held. This was cleared 
with a rush, the defenders flying to their works, the assailants hard on their 
heels, capturing, indeed, some hundreds of prisoners; but a solid mass of 
lead and flame was poured into the advancing line; for a few minutes—not 
fifteen, it is said, they held their ground—the second line fortunately, perhaps, 
lingering a little behind. It was the tragedy of Fredericksburg and Gettys- 
burg re-enacted. The division, leaving a third of its numbers behind, re- 
coiled, but not in rout, and only some twoscore yards, where a slight swell 
of ground sheltered them from the fierce fire. Gibbon’s division, which 
had won the honors on the last day of Gettysburg, supported by Birney’s, 
dashed on simultaneously. The story of their charge reads like that of 
Pickett against Cemetery Mill. They had to pass a swamp; skirting this on 
either side, they swept clear up to the very works, breasting the torrent of 
musketry. Some even mounted the parapets, crowning them with their 
colors. But it was all in vain; they could not pass the intrenchments, but 
clung to them for a space. Wright and Smith assaulted with equal and 
equally unavailing valor, though the contest was of longer endurance. But 
in an hour the contest was over. It had been virtually decided by the re- 
pulse of Barlow. Warren’s division was not expected to do more than hold 
in check the force in its front; but Burnside, his left pivoting upon War- 
ren’s right, was to swing round and strike the Confederate left flank. The 
movement was made, but not till the main action had been decided. The 
Confederate outposts were driven in, and a little before noon Burnside was 
in position to make an assault upon the Confederate left. He was directed 
to attack at one o’clock. But just before that hour the order was counter- 
manded, Meade judging that the failure on the right had rendered it useless. 
The skirmish line was drawn in, and the corps began to intrench itself in its 
position. The enemy made a rather feeble sortie upon this point, but was 
repulsed. With this closed the battle of Cold Harbor.! Grant’s blow had 
utterly failed. His loss had been severe—not less than 7000, mostly in less 
than half an hour. That of the Confederates was far less—probably not 
half as many.? 

The result of the battle of Cold Harbor decided conclusively that the 
campaign was to take the shape of a siege of Richmond. However Grant 
might manceuvre, the result would be that Lee would fall back to the lines 
so elaborately fortified. Two courses lay open to the Union commander. 
He might move around Lee’s left, and invest the city upon the north; or 
around his right, crossing the James River, and invest it from the south. 
Both plans had been considered by Grant in case he should fail, as he had 
done, to crush the enemy in the field. Then the former seemed most feasi- 
ble; but, now that the Army of the James could not co-operate in it, he de- 
termined upon the latter, meanwhile sending Sheridan’s cavalry to endeay- 
or to cut the railway connections between Richmond and the Shenandoah 
Valley and Lynchburg, one of the main avenues of supply for the capital 
and the great army soon to hold it. Meanwhile, for a few days, the army 
mi was left essentially in its position, now intrenched, facing the Confederate 

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1 Swinton (Army of the Potomac, 487) says, ‘‘Some hours after the failure of the first assault, 
General Meade sent instructions to each corps commander to renew the attack without reference 
to the troops on his right or left. The order was issued through these officers to their subordi- 
nate commanders, and from them descended through the wonted channels; but no man stirred, 
and the immobile lines pronounced a verdict silent, yet emphatic, against farther slaughter.” This 
statement is accepted by subsequent writers ; but it is so utterly at variance with the whole con- 
duct of the army, before and after, that I do not sdmit it into the text, even upon the authority of 
Mr. Swintor, whose statements of facts I rarely find occasion to question. 

2 <<'The loss on the Union side,” says Mr. Swinton, p. 487, ‘‘in this sanguinary action was over 
13,000, while on the part of the Confederates it is doubtful whether it reached as many hundreds.” 
This is a singular dapsus of the author, for the very tables which he cites as authority give the en- 
tire loss, killed, wounded, and missing, during the ten days from June 1 to 10, at 13,153. Nearly 
every day during this period was marked by severe fighting. 


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they showed themselves in the trenches. For ten days the army remained 
nearly in the same position, only gradually extending its lines to the south, 
and approaching the Chickahominy, covering itself with intrenchments as it 
moved. Lee, presuming that the purpose of Grant was to effect a crossing 
at Bottom’s Bridge, made correspondent movements, extending his right far- 
ther and farther down the stream, likewise intrenching at every step, so that 
the whole arid plain was dug over until it resembled an immense prairie- 
dog town. General officers had their tents pitched in deep excavations 
fronted by high embankments. Pickets and outposts excavated burrows, 
in which they lay unsheltered under the fierce sun. High breastworks were 
thrown up, and deep trenches dug at every conceivable angle, under shel- 
ter of which the men pvssed to and fro, from front to rear, without being 
observed. The intricate system of mounds and trenches, which still scar the 
plain upon the north bank of the Chickahominy, were the work of these 
days. ‘The Confederates made several sallies upon portions of the line, but 
were invariably repulsed, and after the third day ceased from formal offen- 
sive operations ; yet the lines were within rifle range, and a continual fire 
of sharp-shooters was kept up. Not an hour passed without its quota of 
dead and wounded. This was interrupted only for two hours on the 7th, 
when a truce was entered into for removing the wounded and burying the 
dead. 

Grant, while making preparations to transfer his army to the south bank 
of the James, still hoped that the enemy would make some movement which 
would give a favorable opportunity for a renewed attack. But Lee re- 
mained immoyable in his intrenchments, which the experience of Cold Har- 
bor had shown to be inexpugnable. On the evening of the 12th the move- 
ment for the passage of the James began. Warren, preceded by Wilson’s 
cavalry, marched six miles down to the Long Bridge over the Chicka- 
hominy, where he crossed, masking the movements of the other corps. 
Hancock followed, and then, taking the advance, marched down to the 
James, which it struck a little below the point where McClellan had lain 
after the battle of Malvern Hill. Wright and Burnside moved by an ex- 
terior and longer route, crossing the Chickahominy at Jones’s Bridge, six 
miles below the Long Bridge. The trains, making a wide detour to the 
south, crossed at a ferry twelve miles below. The columns moved rapidly 
over the sandy road, hardly stopping for a moment until the night of the 
13th, when the wearied troops bivouacked upon the high lands from which 
they could behold the James lying broad before them, bordered by fields 
now ripening for the harvest. Smith’s corps had in the mean while marched 
to the White House, whence, embarking on transports, it sailed down the 
York and up the James, rejoining Butler at Bermuda Hundred on the 
14th, while the Army of the Potomac was crossing the James fifteen miles 
below. 

Lee, of course, could not be for many hours ignorant of the general move- 
ment, but he was in no position to offer any resistance. He had already 
extended his line so far that it was as weak as he dared make it. He evi- 
dently supposed that it was Grant’s purpose to march toward Richmond by 
the north bank of the James instead of crossing and transferring operations 
to the south bank. Warren, indeed, was so posted for two days near White 
Oak Swamp as to give color to this supposition. Lee, therefore, hastily 
abandoned his position, and, crossing the Chickahominy, fell back to Rich- 
mond. 

The cavalry under Sheridan, 10,000 strong, had in the mean while been 
active. No sooner had Grant taken his position near Spottsylvania, than, on 
the 9th of May, Sheridan was sent toward Richmond to operate upon the 
enemy’s lines of communication, The design was masked by a movement 
eastward toward Fredericksburg, which drew Stuart’s Confederate cavalry 
in that direction. Sheridan, then turning sharply southward, struck straight 
for the railroad between Lee’s army and Richmond. Stuart followed for a 
space, and ineffectually assailed Sheridan’s rear. Then, imagining that Rich- 
mond was the aim of the enemy, he urged his horsemen to their utmost 
speed, and gained Sheridan’s front, placing himself between him and Rich- 
mond. Sheridan meanwhile moved leisurely, destroying the railroad as he 
advanced. At Ashland Station he fell upon Lee’s provision trains, which 
had been brought down from Orange Court-house, and destroyed a million 
and a half of rations, and most of the medical stores. On the 11th a sharp 
encounter took place between the opposing cavalry forces at Yellow Stone 
Tavern, a few miles north of Richmond; the Confederates were repulsed, 
and in the mélée, Stuart, their ablest cavalry leader, was mortally wounded. 
The loss was irreparable. The Union cavalry had by this time been raised 
to a higher state of efficiency than that of the enemy, and, now that their 
ablest commander was gone, the disparity became marked. From this time 
forth the Union cavalry always went into action with the prestige of success. 
Pursuing his advantage, Sheridan crossed the Chickahominy, passed the ex- 
terior line of the defenses of Richmond, but, reaching the inner line, he found 
it unassailable by a cavalry force. Turning back, he crossed the Chickahom- 
iny at Meadow Bridge, skirted down its northern bank, and recrossed at a 
lower passage. He had been misinformed by negroes, who told him that 
Butler had taken up a position on the north side of the James. Then, after 
communicating with Butler on the James, he again recrossed the Chicka- 
hominy, made a wide detour across the Peninsula, and at length, on the 25th 
of May, rejoined the Army of the Potomac, and aided in its forcing the pas- 
sage of the Pamunkey, and in the earlier operations at Cold Harbor. 

Hunter was now supposed to be moving down the Valley of the Shenan- 


doah toward Lynchburg, and on the 7th of June, Sheridan, with two of his. 


three divisions, was sent in that direction to join him, and, after breaking up 

the Virginia Central Railroad, to unite with Hunter, when both were to join 

the Army of the Potomac. Sheridan did some damage to the road, and 
PRS 


THE INVESTMENT OF PETERSBURG. 


637 


had several sharp encounters with the Confederate cavalry, the severest being 
on the 12th of June, at Trevillian Station, where each side lost wellnigh a 
thousand men, of whom a third were prisoners. Sheridan here found that 
Hunter, instead of coming by way of Charlottesville, as was supposed, had 
turned off westward toward Lexington, and, moreover, Lee had dispatched 
a large force toward Lynchburg, which lay right in his way. The ammuni- 
tion which he had brought with him was nearly expended; his horses were 
fast becoming exhausted, for the region was destitute of forage. He turned 
eastward, passed over the battle-field of Spottsylvania, thence down the Pa- 
munkey to the White House. The Confederate cavalry were just then 
about to attack the dépét, which had not been wholly withdrawn. Sheridan 
drove them off after a sharp conflict, and then, crossing the James, on the 
25th of June rejoined the Army of the Potomac. In these two raids he had 
lost 5000 men, but had inflicted a loss quite as great. 

During the thirty-seven days from the Battle of the Wilderness, May 5, 
to the close of the fighting on the Chickahominy, Grant had lost 54,551, of 
whom 7289 were killed, 87,406 wounded, 9856 missing. Of the killed, 
539 were officers, and 6750 privates; of the wounded, 1764 were officers, 
35,642 privates; of the missing, 262 were officers, 9594 privates. This does 
not include the losses of the Army of the James at Bermuda Hundred. The 
Confederate losses, exclusive of those of Beauregard at Bermuda Hundred, 
were about 82,000, of whom about 8500 were prisoners, 4000 having been 
captured at Spottsylvania, and 2000 by Sheridan’s cavalry. 


CHAPTER XLII. 
THE INVESTMENT OF PETERSBURG. 

Richmond to be besieged.—Prospects for its Defense.—Napoleon on the Defense of fortified Cities. 
—Forces of Lee and Grant.—Character of the Fortifications.— Butler’s unsuccessful Attempt 
upon Petersburg.—Importance of Petersburg in relation to Richmond.—Smith ordered to assail 
Petersburg, June 15.—Delays and Misapprehensions.—The Attack suspended.—Renewed on the 
16th.—The Confederates re-enforced by Beauregard.—The Confederates driven from their 
Lines.—Beauregard checks the Flight.—Withdraws to an inner Line, where he intrenches.— 
Butler advances from Bermuda Hundred, and is driven back.—Actions of June 17 and 18,— 
The Confederates hold their new Line.—Forces and Losses from May 5 to June 20, 

VENTS had now so shaped themselves that it was apparent that, in- 
stead of a conflict in the open field, the campaign was to resolve itself 

into a siege of Richmond, held by the entire Army of Northern Virginia, 
with such re-enforcements as could be gathered from the Carolinas and 
Georgia. The Confederate authorities had good right to believe, upon the 
soundest military reasons, that, provided they could supply their army, 
Richmond could hold out against any besieging force. ‘‘ Empires,” said 
Napoleon, “frequently stand in need of soldiers, but men are never wanting 
for internal defense if a place be provided where their energies can be 
brought into action. Fifty thousand National Guards, with three thousand 
gunners, will defend a fortified capital against an army of three hundred 
thousand men. The same fifty thousand men in the open field, if they are 
not experienced soldiers, commanded by skilled officers, will be thrown into 
confusion by the charge of a few thousand horse.” When Lee fell back 
within the lines of Richmond, he had about 70,000! men, nearly half more 
than the great master of war pronounced sufficient to hold a fortified capital 
against 800,000; Grant had, including the Army of the James, about 150,000, 
half the number which Napoleon judged could be foiled by 50,000. The 
fortifications, indeed, bore little resemblance to the formidable works consti- 
tuting the defenses of the fortified cities of Europe, which Napoleon had 
probably in mind. They consisted of redoubts of low profile, with ditches, 
parapets, and abatis, and forts at all salient points from which the lines 
could be swept by artillery. But Todtleben had demonstrated at Sebasto- 
pol, and Lee was to demonstrate at Petersburg, that the defensive power of 
such works, resolutely held by an adequate force, is fully equal to the elab- 
orate masonry of Vauban and Cohorn. Indeed, with modern artillery, of 
which Napoleon never dreamed, it is doubtful whether any system of forti- 
fications of extent sufficient to protect a great capital can be constructed on 
any other plan. At all events, Lee’s works were never pierced until, con- 
strained by the menaces upon his lines of supply, he virtually abandoned 
them. 

Strangely enough, the vital importance of Petersburg seems not to have 
been at all appreciated on either side. While McClellan lay at Harrison’s 
Landing, some works had been commenced on the northern and eastern 
sides, but upon his retreat nothing farther was done. Again, a year later, 
about the time of the battle of Chancellorsville, when an advance from Suf- 
folk was threatened by Peck, a trench, not unlike the first parallel of a siege, 
had been dug upon the south; but there were then no works over which 
even cavalry could not pass. There was now here scarcely the semblance 
of a garrison. Butler could easily have taken it from the east at any time 
up to three days before he settled himself at Bermuda Hundred. On the 
10th of May he made such an attempt. He had—Smith being yet with 
Grant—barely 7000 men in the “ bottle,” which was tightly enough corked 
at the mouth, but had no bottom. Gillmore, with 8500 men, was sent across 


1 The Confederate muster-roll of the Army of Northern Virginia, on the 30th of June, showed 
51,833 ‘‘ present for duty.” In the Department of Richmond, that is, the proper garrison of the 
city, now commanded by Ewell, who had for some time been disabled from acting in the field, 
were 6176. In the Department of South Virginia and North Carolina, under Beauregard, were 
12,592 at Richmond and Petersburg. It will be borne in mind that Lee was at this time merely 
commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Davis, with Bragg for his ‘‘ military adviser,” keep- 
ing in his own hands the direction of all the other forces. Some months later, Lee having been 
appointed general-in-chief of all the armies, all of the troops at Richmond excepting the garrison 
proper, which was still a separate organization, was consolidated into the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia. In November this numbered 69,290 ‘‘ present for duty,” about 20,000 more being returned 
as ‘‘ present,” the aggregate ‘‘ present and absent” being 181,826, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 


CIVIL WAR. [ JUNE, 1864. 


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the Appomattox to attack from the north, while Kautz, with 1500 cavalry, 
was to dash in from the south. Gillmore advanced to within two miles of 
the city, driving the enemy’s skirmishers before him until he came to their 
works. These, though feeble and feebly manned, he thought yet too strong 
to be assailed by his small force; so he retreated. Kautz, meanwhile, had 
rode straight over the ditch on the south, and penetrated the town; but the 
retreat of Gillmore permitted the enemy to return, and Kautz was easily 
forced back. The whole assailing force was too weak to effect any thing 
unless by sheer surprise; and even if it had succeeded, they could not have 
held Petersburg, and Butler could spare no more to re-enforce them. 

Grant now went in person to Bermuda Hundred, and saw at a glance the 
vital importance of Petersburg, and the ease with which it could be taken 
by an adequate force, provided only the attempt were made in time. Hence 
it was that he directed Smith’s corps to be sent by water so as to reach the 
scene at the earliest moment, before, it was hoped, it could be re-enforced 
from Richmond. 

Petersburg was a quiet town of 18,000 inhabitants, on the southern bank 
of the Appomattox. In itself it was of little consequence to either army. 
Its military importance arose solely from its relations to the system of rail- 
roads which connected Richmond with the region from which its supplies 
were almost wholly to be drawn. Had the Confederate capital been provi- 
sioned for a siege, Petersburg might safely have been abandoned. But at 
no time were full rations for a fortnight in advance ever accumulated—often- 
er there was not three days’ supply in dépét. Northward from Richmond 
runs the Virginia Central Railroad, which, crossing the Orange Road at Gor- 
donsville, penetrates the fertile region known by way of eminence as “‘ The 
Valley,” the granary of Virginia. The Orange Road, running southwest- 
ward through Lynchburg, merges into the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, 
which, with its connections, penetrates into the extreme southwest. Itis the 
great artery of communication between the Atlantic and the Mississippi. 
From Lynchburg, following the windings of the James, is the James River 
Canal. This place, therefore, became one of the natural dépéts of the Con- 
federacy. Next, starting from Richmond, and running southwestward, is the 
Danville Road, passing through North Carolina, and uniting with all the rail- 
ways branching through the Carolinas and Georgia. Next, running south, 
is the railway to Petersburg. From Petersburg, running southward to 
Lynchburg, where it connects with the Tennessee Road, is the Southside 
Railroad. Then, running south to Wilmington, where it joins with the 
southern system, is the Weldon Railroad. Now the occupation of Peters- 
burg by the Federals would not only give them the control of the Weldon 
and Southside Roads, but would place them in a position to strike the Dan- 
ville Road at any point south of Richmond. The possession of Petersburg 
would insure the capture of Richmond by giving to the assailants the abso- 
lute control of the Weldon and Southside, and rendering almost certain that 
of the Danville railways; two certainly, and almost inevitably a third, of 
the five avenues of supply for the Confederate army. Moreover, Grant 
hoped, by means of his cavalry, and Hunter’s expedition, to destroy the 
Central Road and the James River Canal. But. even should these latter 


fail, the Danville and Central roads and the canal would be inadequate to 
transport supplies to the army of the capital. 

Smith’s corps reached Bermuda Hundred on the 14th of June, crossed the 
Appomattox that night, and next day were pushed forward toward Peters- 
burg, seven miles distant. By noon, having been somewhat delayed by 
carrying an advanced line of rifle trenches covered with a light battery, he 
came upon the works, two and a half miles from the town.’ These works 
were not strong, and were only feebly held. In and around Petersburg, 
apart from a few militia, there were but two infantry and two cavalry regi- 
ments.?, There was, however, a considerable quantity of artillery, which was 
briskly served, and it was assumed that there must be a strong infantry sup- 
port. Smith wore away the whole afternoon in reconnoitring and making 
his dispositions, and then, at sundown, instead of attacking in force, threw 
forward a heavy line of skirmishers. Even these were successful, and the 
feebly- manned lines were fairly carried at every point where they were 
assailed, fifteen guns and three hundred prisoners being taken. Hancock, 
with two divisions of his corps, now came up. He had been marching since 
ten o'clock, but, owing to an incorrect map, in a direction quite different 
from that which was intended. By some strange misadventure, also, he had 
not even been notified that he was to assist Smith in an attack upon Pe. 
tersburg; this notice only reached him between five and six o’clock. He 
reached Smith’s position just as the attack had been suspended. Waiving 
his superior rank to Smith, whom he naturally supposed must be the best 
judge of what should be done, he placed his troops at the disposal of that 
officer. Smith, instead of taking these troops and pushing straight into 
Petersburg, merely requested Hancock to occupy a part of the captured 
works.? 

Grant came on the ground next morning. Burnside’s corps was advanc- 
ing, and, to give them time to aid, the attack was postponed until six in the 
afternoon. Another unaccountable delay ;* for, although some slight re-en- 


1 Grant says in his Report that Smith ‘‘ confronted the enemy’s pickets near Petersburg before 
daylight.” He seems to have fallen into an error as to time, for the march from the Appomattox 
did not begin until after daylight. He had ordered Butler to send Smith forward the night before, 
and probably assumed that he had marched straight.on ; Grant himself returned to the Army of 
the Potomac to hurry it on, division by division, as rapidly as possible, assuring Butler that ‘‘ we 
could re-enforce our armies more rapidly than the enemy could bring troops against us.” But this 
discrepancy as to time is of no real importance. There was, even after noon, as will be seen, abun- 
dant time to have assailed Petersburg with a force fourfold the number by which it was that day 
defended. 

2 For the details of the actions of this and the ensuing days on the Confederate side, I am in- 
debted to Fletcher’s History of the American War. ‘The author, a colonel'in the British service 
derived his information mainly from General Beauregard, and officers of his staff. 

2 Grant’s Report, and Hancock’s, the latter as yet unpublished, but quoted in Swinton, Army of 
the Potomac, 502, 503. 

4 To whom this delay is to be attributed is not clear. Swinton says (p. 508, 509) that ‘* Han- 
cock, to whom, in the absence of Grant and Meade, the command of the field fell, was fully alive 
to the importance of securing all the commanding ground before heavy Confederate re-enforce- 
ments should arrive,” and had the night before instructed Birney and Gibbon to attack and take 
all these positions before daylight, and that these instructions were not complied with. For au- 
thority he refers to, but does not quote, Hancock’s Report. He also states that ‘‘ Hancock was 
admonished by General Meade to refrain from attack until the remaining corps of the army, the 
Fifth and the Ninth, should arrive. Of these, the Ninth reached the front at noon, and an as- 
sault was ordered to be made about 4 P.M. by Haneock and Burnside—Smith to demonstrate 
merely.” Grant places the time of the attack at six o’clock. From a comparison with Fletcher 
(p. 261), I judge the attack must have been made not later than four. Grant seems to imply that 


640 


forcements had arrived, the Federals were in overwhelming force, and had 
full possession of all the defensive works. Beauregard had hastened down 
from Richmond. By withdrawing every thing from the intrenchments at 
Bermuda Hundred, he had gathered 8000 men at Petersburg. In vain he 
telegraphed to Richmond for re-enforcements, or at least for orders. Should 
he abandon Petersburg or Bermuda Hundred? he could not hold both. 
He received neither help or orders; so, acting on his own responsibility, he 
evacuated the intrenchments at Bermuda Hundred, leaving only a few sen- 
tries—took the cork out of the broken bottle—and during the day concen- 
trated his command before Petersburg. The attack on the afternoon of 
the 16th was made with great vigor. The Confederates held their ground 
stoutly, but at length began to give way. Late in the day Beauregard had 
left the front to snatch a hasty meal. All at once a horseman, galloping at 
full speed, dashed through the streets, announcing that all was lost; the 
enemy had broken through the defenses, and were now entering the city. 
Beauregard, ordering the man to be arrested and shot if his report should 
prove false, mounted and galloped to the front. He soon met crowds of 
fugitives, unarmed, hatless, panic-stricken, swarming along all the roads. 
In vain he essayed to check the wild rout. The fugitives poured onward, 
and the day seemed hopelessly lost. Just then Gracie’s single brigade from 
Bermuda Hundred came on. Beauregard formed these and his escort 
across the road, with orders to shoot down every man who refused to come 
into line. At length order was restored; the Confederates regained their 
abandoned line, from which, indeed, they had not been pursued. The fight- 
ing was by no means over, but continued long after dark. It died away by 
midnight, and under cover of the thrice-welcome darkness Beauregard with- 
drew his weary troops to an inner and shorter line, which he had chosen 
with the quick eye of an engineer. This line was as yet wholly unfortified, 
and must be intrenched in the brief hours before morning should most like- 
ly renew the conflict. With bayonets, split canteens, and hands—for they 
had no intrenching tools—the men dug in the darkness and through the 
hours of the early morning. By noon of the 17th the intrenchments had 
assumed a defensive character, and, moreover, their defenders“sad been 
largely re-enforced. These intrenchments, so hastily flung up, were’ the 
beginning of those great works which for so long a time held in check the 
Union army before Petersburg.! 

Butler meanwhile, perceiving that the lines in his front were abandoned, 
moved out a force upon the railroad from Petersburg to Richmond. But 
he had hardly touched it when he was forced back by a heavy column com- 
ing down from Richmond; for Lee, fully alive to the necessity of holding 
Petersburg, had sent Longstreet’s corps, now commanded by Anderson, to 
the aid of the sorely-pressed Beauregard. Butler returned to his old posi- 
tion. Anderson, leaving as he passed a force to hold the lines from which 
Gracie had been withdrawn, hurried on his remaining troops to the defense 
of Petersburg. 

The morning of the 17th had begun to wear away before the fighting 
was renewed. It was fierce but undecisive. The contest was mainly for 
some portion of the original Confederate line, which had not as yet been 
abandoned, and which, as events proved, was of great value. At heavy 
cost, hardly less than 4000 men, Hancock and Burnside, upon whom the 
brunt fell, succeeded in winning and holding these points. “The advan- 
tages of position gained,” says Grant, “were very great.” Next day, the 
18th, a general assault was to be made early in the morning; but when 
the skirmishers moved forward it was found that the enemy had abandoned 
every point which was to be assailed, and had firmly taken up their new 
and interior position, from which, says Grant, “they could not be dis- 
lodged.” 

These attempts upon Petersburg, lasting four days, had cost fully 9000 
men.” The result was, as expressed by Grant, that while “the advantages 
of position gained by us were very great, yet the enemy were merely forced 
into an interior position from which he could not be dislodged,” and, con- 
sequently, “the army proceeded to envelop Petersburg, as far as possible 
without attacking fortifications.” 

Petersburg, which on the 10th of June had been an easy prey, which, in 
effect, was already taken by Smith, who needed only to have pushed on to 
have marched straight into the town, defended by only a mere handful of 
men, was now garrisoned by almost the whole of the Confederate army. 
Two days of heavy fighting, in which Grant employed fully three fourths 
of his army, had demonstrated, at a cost of wellnigh 10,000 men, that Beau- 
regard’s intrenchments, hastily flung up, but growing stronger hour by hour, 
could not be taken by assault, and that nothing now remained but to lay 
regular siege to them. ‘The siege of Petersburg, upon which was soon con- 
centrated the interest of the war in the East, fairly began on the 19th of 
June. 


NOTE ON FORCES AND LOSSES FROM MAY 5 TO JUNE 20. 


The numbers of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the whole of this cam- 
paign, down to its final close in April, 1865, have been studiously and persistently understated. 
The Confederate authorities after 1862 never made public their force or losses. Pollard, the only 
formal historian upon the Confederate side, had no accurate means of information. 
after the close of the war, he had every motive to understate. He says: 


—————————————— 


he was on the ground, and that the delay for Burnside’s arrival was by his order. His words are: 
*‘ By the time I arrived next morning [the 16th] the enemy was in force. An attack was ordered 
to be made at six o’clock that evening by the troops under Smith and the Second and Ninth 
Corps. It required until that time for the Ninth Corps to get up and into position.” 

* Fletcher, p. 260-263. 

? Losses from June 10 to 20: killed, 1198; wounded, 6853; missing, 1614—in all, 9665. Of 
these, all except a few hundred were during the days from the 15th to the 18th, 


he 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


Writing 


[ JUNE, 1864, 


‘The Confederate Army on the Rapidan, at the beginning of the campaign, consisted of two 
divisions of Longstreet’s corps, Ewell’s corps, A. P. Hill’s corps, three divisions of cavalry, and 
the artillery. Ewell’s corps did not exceed 14,000 muskets at the beginning of the campaign. 
On the 8th of May the effective strength of Hill’s corps was less than 13,000 muskets, and it could 
not have exceeded 18,000 in the beginning of the month. Longstreet’s corps was the weakest of 
the three when all the divisions were present, and the two with him had just returned from an 
arduous and exhausting winter campaign in East Tennessee. His effective strength could not 
have exceeded 8000 muskets. General Lee’s whole effective infantry, therefore, did not exceed 
40,000 muskets, if it reached that number. ‘The cavalry divisions were weak, neither of them 
exceeding the strength of a good brigade. General Lee’s whole effective strength at the opening 
of the campaign was not over 50,000 men of all arms. There were no means of recruiting the 
ranks of the army, and no re-enforcements were received until the 23d of May.” 

The captured Confederate returns (cited ante, p. 383, as far as relate to this army) enable us 
to fix the number far more accurately. On the 10th of April the returns of the Army of North- 
ern Virginia show a nominal force of 97,576, of whom 61,218 were ‘‘ present,” and 52,626 ‘‘ pres- 
ent for duty.” The conscription was in operation, and was still rigorously enforced. During the 
preceding month Lee’s army was augmented by 12,000, sent in from the various camps of instruc- 
tion, and, according to their judicious system, incorporated at once into regiments already in the 
field. It is not at all probable that these accessions during the three weeks preceding the open- 
ing of the campaign could have been less than 10,000 or 15,000, which would raise Lee’s strength 
at the beginning of May to between 60,000 and 70,000. This continual access went on all 
through the summer, quite compensating for the losses in action and from sickness. Thus, on 
the 30th of June, his army had present for duty 51,863—within eight hundred as many as on the 
10th of April—while its nominal strength was 92,685, which includes those absent from all causes 
—sick, disabled, and deserters. This was after a series of sharp actions, including those of June 
15 to 18, and those which, from June 23 to 28, hereafter to be described, resulting from the first 
attempts made upon the Weldon, Southside, and Danville Railroads. On the 10th of July the 
nominal force, present and absent, was 135,808, so that within ten days 43,000 were added to the 
muster-rolls of the army; but of these only 68,844 were present, and 57,097 present for duty, 
showing an actual increase of effective men only about 6000, to which should be added some 
small losses suffered in the interval. At the close of August the nominal strength was 146,838, 
of whom there were present for duty but 44,247. But at this time Early, with some 15,000 of 
this army, was on detached service in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and this body is not counted 
among those ‘‘ present for duty’”’ with the Army of Northern Virginia. Owing to a clerical error 
in copying the returns, this number, 44,247, is given in our table (p. 883) as the force for May 
instead of August. ‘This is of some importance, as it vitiates an estimate by Mr. Swinton of Con- 
federate losses, which will presently be referred to. The considerable apparent access to the 
Army of Northern Virginia after October is owing to the return of the remnants of Early’s force, 
and the incorporation of the troops heretofore formally under Beauregard at Petersburg. 

Of the losses of the Confederates during this period (May 5 to June 10) there is no report even 
approximating to an official character. The ‘‘impression” of General Lee’s adjutant general 
(Swinton, 492) was that it was about 18,000. Mr. Swinton finds corroboration of this estimate 
in a comparison of figures. He says, in substance, that Lee opened the campaign with 52,626; 
that he received re-enforcements (7000 under Pickett and 2000 under Breckinridge) of 9000, 
making in all 61,626; that on the 31st of May he had 44,248; the difference showing a loss, up 
to the battle of Cold Harbor, of 17,478. To this he adds less than 1000 for Cold Harbor, making 
18,000. He, however, is dubious as to the correctness of these figures, and estimates the entire 
loss at 20,000. ‘This estimate is worthless, from the fact that each one of the elementary data 
upon which it is based is erroneous. The original force (52,626), as shown by the returns which 
he cites, was that of April 10 instead of May 5, during which interval it must have been consid- 
erably augmented. ‘The re-enforcements are considerably understated. Pollard says that Breck- 
inridge brought ‘2000 muskets with a battalion of artillery.” Certainly not less than 3000, and 
probably more, for in April he had present for duty 6500, and after the defeat of Sigel at New- 
market there was no immediate necessity for retaining a man of these in the Valley. ‘The re- 
enforcements brought from North Carolina were certainly more than 7000. ‘They consisted, ac- 
cording to Pollard (Lost Cause, 505), of ‘‘ Pickett’s division of Longstreet’s corps, and one small 
brigade of Early’s division of Ewell’s corps, which had been in North Carolina with Hoke’”—Pick- 
ett being ill, and not then in actual command, Now we find that in February Pickett and 
Whiting had in North Carolina about 18,500; at the close of April Whiting had there about 
5000; Hoke must then have brought to Richmond early in May some 12,000 or 15,000. They 
lost considerably in the action of May 16, which resulted in the shutting up of Butler at Bermuda 
Hundred; but the bulk of the command, which could hardly have been less than 10,000, were 
thereby at liberty to join Lee, which they did during the last week in May, simultaneously with 
the arrival of Breckinridge from the Valley. These conjoined re-enforcements must have been 
fully 15,000 instead of 9000, as stated. Finally, the number (44,247) given by Mr. Swinton as 
Lee’s effective strength on the 31st of May should be put down as the number of the army of 
Northern Virginia on the 31st of August, when a quarter or more of its force was with Early in 
the Valley of the Shenandoah. I, as well as Mr. Swinton, was misled by a clerical error in copy- 
ing these returns, whereby ‘* May” appeared in place of ‘‘ August,” which error will be found in 
the table heretofore given. 

All statements of the Confederate losses, whether based upon the impressions of officers. or upon 
assumed calculation of forces, being wholly unreliable, we are driven to a consideration of the 
character_of the fighting for an approximate estimate of the loss. ‘There can be no doubt that in 
the two days’ battles in the Wilderness, and in the five days which followed (May 5 to 11), the 
Confederate loss was far less than the Federal. During these days the Federal loss, including 
wellnigh 7000 missing, was 29,410, of which 20,000—12,000 killed and wounded—were lost on 
the 5th and 6th; the Confederate loss was probably about 10,000, of whom not more than 1000 
were prisoners. At Spottsylvania, previous to the great battle of the 12th, the Federal loss was 
about 10,000; that of the Confederates nct more than 5000. In the battle of the 12th the Fed- 
erals lost about 8000, and in the operations which followed up to the 20th about 2000, of whom 
not 300 were prisoners, The Confederate loss must have been quite equal, including the 3000 
prisoners. At the North Anna, and in the turning operation which followed (May 21 to 81), the 
losses were about equal, not far from 2000 upon each side. At Cold Harbor, including the sharp 
engagement of June 1, the main action of June 3, and the subsequent skirmishing up to the 10th, 
the Federal loss was 13,000, of whom 2400 were captured. The Confederate loss during this 
time could hardly have exceeded 5000, including 2000 prisoners brought in by Sheridan from his. 
cavalry raid. In the main assault on the 3d, where the Federals lost 8000 in less than an hour, 
the Confederates lost hardly 1000. On the 2d, when the Federals lost 2000, the Confederates 
suffered far less, probably not more than 1000, of whom 500 were prisoners. In the subsequent 
skirmishing and sharp-shooting from the 4th to the 10th, the losses were about equal. ‘The entire 
Confederate loss from May 5 to June 10, thus approximately estimated, is 33,000. There is no 
statement of the Confederate losses in the actions before Petersburg from June 15 to 18, in which 
the Union loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners was 9665, there being 1600 prisoners. The 
Confederates, fighting mainly behind slight intrenchments, certainly suffered far less—probably 
not more than 5000, of whom about 1000 were prisoners. 

The Union force at the opening of the campaign is officially given. The Army of the Potomac, 
including Burnside’s corps, numbered, according to the Report of the Secretary of War, 141,164, 
of whom 10,000 were cavalry. While resting at Spottsylvania, re-enforcements were received 
from Washington fully equaling the losses which had been sustained, At Cold Harbor, the ac- 
cession of Smith’s command raised the Union force to fully 150,000; after the battles there, other 
re-enforcements arrived, so that when the crossing of the James was effected, Grant had still, in- 
cluding Butler’s command, at least 140,000. 

The losses in the Army of the Potomac during this period are accurately given. The follow- 
ing statement was furnished Mr. Coppée (Grant and his Campaigns, 399) by a member of Grant’s 
staff, the report being subsequently officially indorsed. We place with it our approximate esti- 
mate of Confederate losses, merely attempting to discriminate between the killed and wounded 
and the prisoners. Meade, in his congratulatory address, issued May 13, claims 8000 prisoners 
—considerably in excess of the true numbers captured up to that time. The number actually re- 
ported from May 4 to 12 is 7000, of whom many were taken by Sheridan, of whom, at that time, 
Meade could know nothing. In the 2500 put down as taken at Cold Harbor are included the 
captures by the cavalry during the whole series of operations. With these explanations, we think 
that the summation in the following table gives very closely the respective losses during the period 
therein embraced. 


Losses From May 5 To June 18. 


CONFEDERATE. 


Killed and i al, 


Battles. 


. | Wounded. | Missing. | Total. 


29, 410 

10,381 

1,607 

13,153 

9,665 

12,073 | 64,216 


Wilderness, May 5-11 

Spottsylvania, May 12-20... 
North Anna, May 21-31... 
Cold Harbor, June 1-10... 
Petersburg, June 15-18 .... 


[37,500 | 10,500 


A 


=” -. = 
» 


December, 1863. ] 


CHAPTER XLIV. 
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1863. 

The Reaction against the Administration in the Autumn of 1862.—The Elections show a Loss in 
the Republican Vote.—The President ahead of the People in his Emancipation Proclamation.— 
The need of decisive Military Victories. —The Elections in the Spring of 1863 show no better 
Result.—Meeting of the Second Regular Session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, December 1, 
1862.—The President’s Message.—His proposed Plan for compensated Emancipation.—The 
Arguments in its Favor.—It is not adopted by Congress. —The Change produced in the popular 
Sentiment by two Years of Civil War.—Repudiation of Compromise.—The political Problem 
made subservient to the Military.—The Tactics of the Opposition.—The Action of Congress in 
regard to Military Arrests.—The Case of Vallandigham.—He is arrested under Order No, 38 by 
General Burnside, May 4, 1863.—His ‘Trial by a Military Commission.—His Application for a 
Writ of Habeas Corpus refused by Judge Leavitt.—The Sentence of Imprisonment commuted 
by the President, who orders Vallandigham to be transported beyond the Federal Lines, not to 
return during the War.—Vallandigham is nominated the Democratic Candidate for Governor 
of Ohio.—Indignation of the Democratic Party at his Arrest and Punishment.—Correspondence 
with President Lincoln.—The Conscription Act adopted by Congress. —Necessity and Justice of 
the Measure.—Its Constitutionality,—Debate upon its Passage.—The Features of the Bill.—De- 
bate in the House on the Relation of the Insurgent States to the General Government.—Thad- 
deus Stevens states his Position.—Lovejoy repudiates Stevens’s Theory of Subjugation.—Passage 
of the Bill to provide a National Currency.—Admission of West Virginia. —The Members from 
Louisiana admitted to the House.—Resolutions against Foreign Mediation.—Correspondence be- 
tween Secretary Seward and M. Mercier.—Dissolution of the Thirty-seventh Congress, March 
4, 1863.—The Political Situation in the following Summer.—The Efforts of the Opposition. — 
Fourth of July Speeches by Seymour and Pierce.—The New York Draft Riots; their Cause and 
Meaning.—The Influence of the Victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg upon the National Poli- 
ties. —The Autumn Elections. —Overwhelming Triumph of the Administration. 

HE policy of the Federal and Confederate governments has already 
been followed in this history down to the close of the year 1862.1 We 
purpose in this and the following chapter to continue the political history of 
the war down to the close of President Lincoln’s administration. The Unit- 
ed States government, while contending against the armies arrayed for its 
destruction, was from an early period of the contest embarrassed by a pe- 
culiar form of treason in the loyal states at the same time that it was also 
menaced by hostile intentions on the part of European powers. 

The conflict with armed rebels was in itself sufficiently difficult, from its 
gigantic proportions, to overwhelm any other government, and at times its 
final issue appeared doubtful. In the darkest hours of the struggle was 
tested the patient endurance of the patriotic, and the treacherous infidelity 
of the disloyal was exposed. The universal enthusiasm which had glorified 
the few months immediately following the capture of Fort Sumter by the 
insurgents could not be sustained through a long war. This was not to be 
expected. Thousands upon thousands of those who had, in the April of 
1861, been carried along by the tide of popular emotion when the first 
check was given to the progress of the national arms, wavered, hesitated, 
and fell back to their old landmarks. The reaction was natural. Men do 
not from momentary impulse, however strong, abandon sentiments which 
have become habitual. A majority of the Democratic party in the North 
were undoubtedly faithful adherents to the cause of loyalty; but a consid- 
erable number of that party believed that the Southern revolution was jus- 
tifiable, both on the basis of state sovereignty, and because the long-contin- 
ued and ever-increasing agitation on the subject of slavery had so menaced 
the slaveholding states that instant revolution was the only means of re- 
dress. Naturally, therefore, this portion of the Democratic party sympa- 
thized with the revolutionists. It was overawed for a season; but when it 
became evident that the rebellion was not to be put down in a few months, 
and that the war would be long and burdensome, then this faction found 
room and opportunity for political manceuvre, and began to throw aside its 
disguise. Every disaster to the Union army, every doubt as to ultimate 
victory for the nation, furnished these rebel sympathizers with arguments 
against the war. The boldest among them maintained their position by an 
open and direct appeal in favor of peace, even at the price of disunion. The 
more cautious resorted to strategy. Instead of making a direct assault, they 
moved by the flank, and sought to reach and destroy the base of supplies. 
Their political batteries were masked by various pretexts. Under that of 
conservatism they opposed the emancipation of slaves; in the name of lib- 
erty they cried out against conscription, and against interference with their 
own licentious use of speech and of the press; and the pretext of economy 
served them in their opposition to the appropriation of such vast sums of 
money as were needed for the prosecution of the war. The defeat of this 
cunning political strategy was a glorious national triumph, deserving to rank 
with the decisive victories achieved on the field of battle. 

In any war politics becomes subservient. Whenever men appeal to the 
arbitration of arms, logic is silent, and waits upon victory or defeat. The 
victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg, as we shall see, materially altered the 
political situation. There had been Union victories early in 1862—princi- 
pal among them the capture of New Orleans—but they were not of a deci- 
sive character; they were not so positive as to counterbalance political prej- 
udice against the action of the President on the question of slavery. Thus 
we find that, in the autumn elections of 1862, the administration was by no 
means supported by the popular vote. Even where the opposition candi- 
dates were not elected there was a noticeable falling off of the administra- 
tional support, as compared with the presidential election of 1860. By these 
elections Horatio Seymour was made governor of New York in place of 
Morton; Joel Parker, of New Jersey, in place of Olden; and in Pennsylva- 
nia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois there were opposition majorities.” 

Thus it is clear that the President, in his proclamation for emancipation, 
instead of following, was far ahead of the majority of the voters in the loyal 
states. Of course, the other elements involved had much to do with the re- 


+ See Chapters VII., VIII., and IX. 
* The following table shows the results of these elections, as compared with the presidential 
election of 1860: 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1863. 


f 


641 


sult of these state elections, but the sentiment in regard to slavery was the 
paramount and determining motive. 

The elections in the spring of 1863, in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, 
and Connecticut, though resulting in a triumph for the administration, were 
closely contested, and showed a falling off in the Republican party vote as 
compared with that of 1860. The election in New Hampshire took place 
on the 10th of March; a governor and members of Congress were to be 
chosen. For the first time in several years a Democratic representative was 
returned to Congress from that state. For the office of governor there were 
three candidates, Eastman, the Democratic, polled 32,823 votes; Gilmore, 
the Republican, 29,035; Harriman, War Democrat, 4372. Eastman lack- 
ing 574 of a majority, the election devolved upon the state Legislature, and 
only by this circumstance was a Republican victory secured. 

On the first of April, in Rhode Island, the Republicans carried both the 
state and congressional ticket, electing Governor Smith over Cozzens by a 
majority of a little over 8000—a decided reduction from that of previous 
years. 

In Connecticut the election was held on the 6th of April. Here the two 
candidates for governor were exactly opposed to each other on the war 
question. The Republicans nominated the then incumbent, William A. 
Buckingham, a strenuous advocate of “coercion.” Colonel Thomas H. Sey- 
mour, the Democratic nominee, was as distinctly recognized as an opponent 
of the war. Buckingham was elected by a majority of less than three thou- 
sand votes. 

The second regular session of the Thirty-seventh Congress opened on the 
1st of December, 1862.1 The political complexion of Congress remained es- 
sentially the same as in the previous session. The President’s message, in 
so far as it related to foreign affairs, contained very little of special importance. 
He announced that the treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the 
slave-trade had been put into operation, with a good prospect of complete 
success. He alluded to the subject of African colonization. The Spanish- 
American republics had protested against the sending of negro colonies to 
their territories; only in Liberia and Hayti would the negro be received 
and adopted as a citizen. The negroes, however, did not seem so willing to 
migrate to these countries as to some others—not so willing, the President 
thought, as their interest demanded. 

Turning from foreign to domestic affairs, the President alluded to the 
prosperity of our Territories, which had, with unimportant exceptions, been 
exempt from the ravages of war. He recommended to Congress measures 
for the rapid development of the mineral resources of these Territories as a 
means of increasing the national revenues. While he justified as necessary 
and expedient the legalization of the paper currency during the last session, 
he advised Congress to keep ever in view the speediest return to specie pay- 
ments which would be compatible with the public interest. To meet the 
demand for a circulating medium, and at the same time to secure the advan- 


1860— PRESIDENT. 1862—For Governor on ConGREsS. 

Lincoln, All Others. Adininistration. Opposition. 

NewoY orkecesrsceseasne ee 362,646 312,510 295,897 306, 649 
Newdierseysseverersseert ee 58,324 62,801 46,710 61,307 
Pennsylvania...... ceaelias 268,030 208,412 215,616 219,140 
QUO vst ac cesccscassenssneeeks 231,610 210,831 178,755 184,332 
Indiana srcecees 139,033 133,110 118,517 128,160 
Pilinotssccsecsess 172,161 160,215 120,116 136,662 
IMICHIZER cmccuscscesce cess 88,480 66, 267 28,716 62,102 
WVISCONSINcstenscved ser tes 86,110 66,070 66, 801 67,985 
Towatis;t. assess ona ects vot 70,409 57,922 66,014 50,898 
IMAMTICSOLD see vassenee ss ou 22,069 12,668 15, 754 11,442 
1,498, 872 1,290, 806 1, 192,896 1,228,677 


1860—Lincoln’s majority, 208,066. 1862—Opposition majority, 35,781. 


The following table gives the comparison in regard to Representatives in Congress elected in 
1860 and 1862: 


1860. 1862. 
Republican. Democratic. i Administration. Opposition. 

NGwWaVOrkvetes. eeceesceeee 23 10 14 17 
ING Wie) CXECVicccese ve eset 2 3 1 4 
Pennsylvania.......+..00+. 18 7 12 12 
QhIOs sesesastasdecetkeesoe 13 8 5 14 
Indiana.,....... aomabdvatees Uf 4 4 7 
HIN OISisyccnsvarcstsovevesss 4 5 5 9 
IMICHICRI. iwesessrececbeores 4 0 5 1 
IWiSCONSIN scenes censaceccans 3 0 3 3 
LOW AisercdscshovanWatgn<esseny 2 0 6 0 
MINIT ESOLR i aesc<tonsslesets « 2 0 2 0 

78 | 37 57 67 | 

1860—Republican majority, 41. _1862—Opposition majority, 10. | 


: The following changes in the constitution of this session should be noticed. 

In the Senate, Samuel G. Arnold, of Rhode Island, sueceeded James F. Simmons, resigned. 
Richard §S. Field had been appointed for New Jersey, in place of John R. Thompson, deceased 
On the 21st of January, 1863, Field was succeeded by James W. Wall, who had been elected to 
fill the vacancy. January 14th, 1863, Thomas H. Hicks, of Maryland, succeeded, first by appoint- 
ment and then by election, James A. Pierce, deceased. Garret Davis, of Kentucky, succeeded 
John C. Breckinridge, expelled December 4th, 1862. Joseph A. Wright, of Indiana, succeeded 
Jesse D. Bright, expelled. Wright was, on the 22d of January, 1863, superseded by David Tur- 
pie. January 30th, 1863, William A. Richardson, of Illinois, superseded by election O. H. Brown- 
ing. Waldo Johnson, of Missouri, expelled, had been succeeded by R. Wilson, and Trusten Polk, 
of the same state, expelled, by John B. Henderson. Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan, had sue- 
ceeded K. S. Bingham, deceased. Edward D. Baker, of Oregon, killed at Ball’s Bluff, had been 
succeeded by Benjamin F. Harding. 

In the House, Thomas A. D. Fessenden, of Maine, had succeeded Charles A. Walton, resigned. 
Amasa Walker, of Massachusetts, succeeded Goldsmith F. Bailey, deceased. Samuel Hooper, of 
the same state, had (December 2d, 1861) succeeded William Appleton, resigned. John D. Stiles, 
of Pennsylvania, June 3d, 1862, had succeeded J. B. Cooper, deceased. George H. Yeaman, of 
Kentucky, succeeded James S. Jackson, deceased; Samuel L. Casey had, on March 10th, 1862, 
succeeded Henry C. Burnett, expelled. February 25th, 1863, George W. Bridges, of Tennessee, 
was qualified. A. L. Knapp, of Illinois, had (December 12th, 1861) been qualified in place of J. 
A. McClernand, resigned; June 2d, 1862, William J. Allen had been qualified in place of John 
A. Logan, resigned; and on January 30th, 1863, William A. Richardson withdrew to take a seat 
in the Senate. Thomas L. Price, of Missouri, had succeeded John W. Reid, expelled ; William 
A. Hall had succeeded John B. Clark, expelled. James F. Wilson, of Iowa, had succeeded Samuel 
R. Curtis, resigned. On the 26th of January, 1863, Walter D. McIndoe, of Wisconsin, succeeded 
Luther Hanchett, deceased. In February, 1863, Michael Hahn and Benjamin F. Flanders, of 
Louisiana, were confirmed. 


; 7Z 


642 


tages of a safe and uniform currency, he recommended the organization of 
bank associations by the act and subject to the regulation of Congress, For 
the year ending June 30th, 1862, the receipts from all sources, including 
loans and the balance from the preceding year, had been $583,885,247. The 
balance from the preceding year was $2,257,065. The loans of all forms had 
amounted to $529,692,460. From customs, direct tax, public lands, and 
miscellaneous sources, the receipts amounted to nearly $52,000,000. The 
balance left in the treasury, July 1st, 1862, was $18,053,546. Of the expend- 
itures, $437,042,977 had been for the army and navy. 

Notwithstanding the burdens laid upon the nation by the war, the Presi- 
dent had favored the project for connecting the United States with Europe 
by an Atlantic telegraph, and a similar project to extend the telegraph from 
San Francisco, to connect by a Pacific telegraph with the line then being 
laid across Russian Asia. A Department of Agriculture had been estab- 
lished, and the President pressed upon Congress the claims of the Pacitic 
Railroad project. 

A very prominent feature of the President’s message was his recom- 
mendation of a constitutional amendment providing for the compensated 
emancipation of slaves. This provision was to the effect that every slave 
state which should abolish slavery before January 1, 1900, should receive 
compensation from the United States; that this compensation should be ex- 
tended to all loyal owners of slaves freed by the chances of the war; and 
that Congress might appropriate money, and otherwise provide for coloniz- 
ing free negroes, with their own consent, at any place outside of the United 
States.) The President’s proposition, coming in this form, indicates that he 
was not at this time fully convinced as to the justice of abolishing slavery 
in the loyal states, even by a constitutional amendment, without compensa- 
tion to the slave owners. In regard to those states which were in open war 
against the government, he had no hesitation either as to the powers of the 
government to abolish slavery, or as to the justice of the measure. He still 
adhered to his proclamation of September 22d, and on the 1st of January, 
1863, consummated the act therein contemplated. He believed that “ with- 
out slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could 
not continue.” In the loyal slave states he was disposed to compromise, and 
would respect the opinions of all classes. 

‘“‘ Among the friends of the Union,” he says, “there is great diversity of 
sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among 
us. Some would perpetuate slavery; some would abolish it suddenly and 
without compensation; some would abolish it gradually and with compen- 
sation; some would remeve the freed people from us, and some would re- 
tain them with us; and there are yet other minor diversities. Because of 
these diversities we waste much strength in struggles among ourselves. By 
mutual concessions we should harmonize and act together. This would be 
compromise; but it would be compromise among the friends, and not with 
the enemies of the Union.” 

The length of time contemplated in the proposed amendment, and the 
compensation of the owners of slaves, would, thought the President, weaken 
the opposition of those who did not favor emancipation. They would yield 
something by conceding emancipation as a fact to be accomplished, while 
those already in favor of emancipation would sustain the disappointment 
occasioned by the delay, and bear their portion of the financial burden im- 
posed upon the country by compensation. Besides, he argued, immediate 
emancipation would lead to vagrant destitution; therefore the system of 
gradual abolition would be best for the generation of slaves now passing 
away, while it promised freedom to their posterity. While, by offering 
compensation, the government presented to every state a strong motive for 
adopting emancipation before the close of the century, it left to each state 
within that limit freedom to choose its own time and mode of effecting the 
object in view. In answer to the objection that by this plan some must 
pay who would receive nothing in return, he replied that the measure was 
both just and economical. 

In the first place, it was just. ‘In a certain sense, the liberation of slaves 
is the destruction of property; property acquired by descent or by pur- 
chase, the same as any other property. It is no less true for having been 
often said that people of the South are not more responsible for the original 
introduction of this property than are the people of the North; and when 
it is remembered how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and sugar, and share 
the profits of dealing in them, it may not be quite safe to say that the South 
has been more responsible than the North for its continuance. If, then, for 
a common object, this property is to be sacrificed, is it not just that it be 
done at a common charge?” 


1 The following is a copy of the resolution recommended by the President: 

‘* Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Con- 
gress assembled (two thirds of both houses concurring), That the following articles be proposed to 
the Legislatures (or Conventions) of the several states as amendments to the Constitution of the 
United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures 
(or Conventions), to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz. : 

“ ArTIcLE 1. Every state wherein slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein at 
any time or times before the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand and nine 
hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit: 

“The President of the United States shall deliver to every such state bonds of the United 
States, bearing interest at the rate of — per cent. per annum, to an amount equal to the aggregate 
sum of $ for each slave shown to have been therein by the eighth census of the United 
States, said bonds to be delivered to such state by installments or in one parcel, at the completion 
of the abolishment, accordingly as the same shall have been gradual or at one time within such 
state ; and interest shall begin to run upon any such bond only from the proper time of its deliv- 
ery as aforesaid. Any state having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterward reintroducing or 
tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value 
thereof, and all interest paid thereon. 

‘* ArTICLE 2. All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the war at 
any time before the end of the rebellion shall be forever free ; but all owners of such who shall not 
have been disloyal shall be compensated for them at the same rates as is provided for states adopt- 
ing abolishment of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be twice accounted for. 

‘‘ ArticLE 3. Congress may appropriate money, and otherwise provide for colonizing free col- 
ored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[DECEMBER, 1862. 


It was also economical. The adoption of this plan, by securing an earlier 
termination of the war, would save more than it would cost. Besides, the 
expense caused by the war was an immediate burden, and must be borne 
all at once, whether we would or no; while the cost of compensation would 
be gradually incurred, and the full burden would fall upon the people thir- 
ty-seven years hence, when it would be sustained by one hundred millions 
instead of thirty-one millions.' 

While the President was strongly in favor of the colonization, with their 
own consent, of the freed negroes, he thought the objection to their remain- 
ing in the country on the ground that they displaced white laborers was 
“largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious.” 

Eyen if this plan should not be adopted by the slave states, the President 
proclaimed his willingness that the national authority should be restored 
without it; also, that notwithstanding its recommendation, neither the war, 
nor proceedings under the proclamation of September 22d, would be stayed. 
It is evident, however, that in the event of the universal and immediate 
adoption of this plan, the President contemplated its substitution in place of 
sudden emancipation, except in the cases of those slaves who had been or 
might be freed by the chances of war, and even in these cases loyal owners 
would receive compensation. ; 

‘The plan is proposed,” said the President, “as permanent constitutional 
law. It can not become such without the concurrence of, first, two thirds 
of Congress, and, afterward, three fourths of the states. The requisite three 
fourths of the states will necessarily include seven of the slave states. Their 
concurrence, if obtained, will give assurance of their severally adopting 
emancipation, at no very distant day, upon the new constitutional terms. 
This assurance would end the struggle now, and save the Union forever. 

“T do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed 
to the Congress of the nation by the chief magistrate of the nation, nor 
do I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you have 
more experience than I in the conduct of public affairs; yet I trust that, 
in view of the great responsibility resting upon me, you will perceive no 
want of respect to yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to dis- 
play. 

“Ts it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten 
the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it 
doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosper- 
ity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here—Congress 
and executive—can secure its adoption? Will not the good people respond 
to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other 
means, so certainly or so speedily assure these vital objects? We can suc- 
ceed only by concert. It is not, ‘Can any of us émagine better?’ but, ‘Can 
we all do better?’ Object whatsoever is possible, still the question recurs, 
‘Can we do better?’ The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the 
stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must 
rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act 
anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. 

‘‘Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We, of this Congress and 


1 «Taking the nation in the aggregate, and we find its population and ratio of increase, for the 
several decennial periods, to be as follows: 


TOON setarcaseaserats 3,929,827 

IPCLOD Ee Seercr sconce DUO, Mod ke dewataeny evar ae 55.02 per cent. ratio of increase. 
TRC Aen es sinootonoacs MG DOO Ol Apes smedeaesc cera 36.45 “ “ 
1S20F sccws Secaecarse DIGES Lolcats tose tiees< 83.18 « 66 ‘c 
TER sce geese 12-866. 090. dorks te 33.49 « ae dh 
1840.....00000e cscaees MT UGU ADS pateesriecrcteee ss 32.67 & & “ 
TOGO ete te Wl Rec hay en ee 35.87“ & “ 
$860 eRe oe 81,445,790. cee 35.58 «“ ‘ 


“This shows an annual decennial increase of 34.69 per cent. in population through the 70 years 
from our first to our last census yet taken. It is seen that the ratio of increase at no one of these 
seven periods is either 2 per cent. below or 2 per cent. above the average, thus showing how in- 
flexible, and, consequently, how reliable the law of increase in our case is. Assuming that it will 
continue gives the following results: 


1870.2 eee 42,323,341 1910. viraateks Sgetad 1G ONE nae 
1SSOM Re ee veers 56,967,216 1920..ccet ssosseseeees 186,984,385 
1890 Jaz cee ee 76,677, 872 1980;.8euaes sssesesese 251,680,914 
1900... tees hee 103,208, 415 


“¢These figures show that our country may be as populous as Europe now is at some point be- 
tween 1920 and 1930—say about 1925—our territory, at 734 persons to the square mile, being of 
capacity to contain 217,186,000. 

“‘ And we will reach this, too, if we do not ourselves relinquish the chance by the folly and evils 
of disunion, or by the long and exhausting war springing from the only great element of national 
discord among us. While it can not be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of seces- 
sion, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population, no one can doubt that the extent 
of it would be very great and injurious. The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, per- 
petuate peace, insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of the country. 
With these, we should pay all that emancipation would cost, together with our other debt, easier 
than we should pay our other debt without it. If we had allowed our old national debt to run 
at 6 per cent. per annum, simple interest, from the end of our revolutionary struggle until to-day, 
without paying any thing on either principal or interest, each man of us would owe less upon that 
debt now than each man owed upon it then; and this because our increase of men through the 
whole period has been greater than 6 per cent.—has run faster than the interest upon the debt. 
Thus time alone relieves a debtor nation so long as its population increases faster than unpaid 
interest accumulates on its debt. ..... A dollar will be much harder to pay for the war than 
will be a dollar for emancipation on the proposed plan. And, then, the latter will cost no blood, 
no precious life.” —President’s Message. 

2 “Tt is insisted that their presence would injure and displace white labor and white laborers. 
. . . . Is it true, then, that colored people can displace any more white labor by being free than by 
remaining slaves? If they stay in their old places, they jostle no white laborers ; if they leave their 
old places, they leave them open to white laborers. Logically, there is neither more nor less of it. 
Emancipation, even without deportation, would probably enhance the wages of white labor, and 
very surely would not reduce them... .. But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm 
forth and cover the whole land. Are they not already in the land? Will liberation make them 
any more numerous? Equally distributed among the whites of the whole country, and there would 
be but one colored to seven whites. Could the one, in any way, greatly disturb the seven? There 
are many communities now having more than one free colored person to seven whites, and this 
without any apparent consciousness of evil from it. The District of Columbia, and the States of 
Maryland and Delaware, are all in this condition. . . . . But why should emancipation South send 
the freed people North? People of any color seldom run unless there be something to run from. 
Heretofore colored people, to some extent, have fled North from bondage, and now, perhaps, from 
both bondage and destitution. But if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will 
have neither to flee from. . . . . Again, as practice proves more than theory, has there been any 
irruption of colored people northward because of the abolishment of slavery in this district last 
spring ?”—President’s Message. 


DECEMBER, 1862. ] 


this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal 
significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. ‘The fiery trial 
through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest 
generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that 
we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do 
know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the re- 
sponsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free 
—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly 
save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed ; 
this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, 
if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” 

It is clear from this proposed plan of the President, urged with such earn- 
estness, that, notwithstanding his proclamation of September 22d, he prefer- 
red gradual and compensated to sudden and arbitrary emancipation. His 
reasons for this preference have already been given at some length. They 
may be briefly enumerated thus: 

1. Gradual emancipation was better for the slave. While freedom was 
secured to all future generations, the present would be relieved of the desti- 
tution which it might be presumed would follow their sudden emancipation. 

2. The measure proposed would reconcile differences of opinion, and 
therefore meet with less opposition. Undoubtedly the autumn elections of 
1862 gave cogency to this argument. 

3. The nieasure was dictated by justice, the North being no less responsi- 
ble for slavery than the South. 

4, By its tendency to restore peace, it would substitute for a war debt 
another, less in amount, and more easily borne. 

The President, in a previous message to Congress (March 6, 1862), had 
recommended the passage of a joint resolution, declaring that the United 
States ought to co-operate with any state which should adopt the gradual 
abolition of slavery, by giving pecuniary aid to such state ;? and this resolu- 
tion had been passed by the House March 11th, 1862, and by the Senate on 
the 2d of April following. The President had urged the border states to 
embrace this opportunity, but no state had responded. It is not strange, 
therefore, that when the President, in the Message of December Ist, 1862, 
again brought the subject before Congress, it met with little consideration. 
On the 6th of January a bill passed the House, 83 to 50, offering compensa- 
tion to Missouri in the event of that state adopting immediate emancipation. 
In the Senate the bill came up for consideration, and on the 14th of January 
Mr. Trumbull reported a substitute granting compensation to Missouri if, 
within twelve months, that state should adopt measures either for immediate 
or gradual emancipation. This substitute passed the Senate, 283 to 18, on 
the 12th of February ; but, returning to the House, it was six days later re- 
committed, and never again considered. A similar bill in regard to Mary- 
land was submitted in the House on the 19th of January, was on the 25th 
recommitted, and never heard of again; it did not even reach the Senate. 
No proposition was ever offered in Congress to incorporate into the Consti- 
tution the articles recommended by the President. 

The President’s proclamation of September 22d more completely met the 
views of Congress on the subject of slavery. This proclamation cut the 
Gordian knot with a single blow of the sword. By this, all the slaves with- 
in the limits of the Confederacy were henceforth and forever free. This act 
might be extreme; it might be arbitrary, and involve, in some measure, in- 
justice to certain owners of slaves; it might even involve distress to the 
slaves thus suddenly released from bondage; but its advantage to the coun- 
try was deemed so great as to outweigh such petty considerations. It was 
emphatically a war measure, and none but war measures, in the opinion of 
Congress, could hasten the termination of the war. It was bold, positive, 
and conclusive. It said plainly to Southern Revolutionists, “‘ The decree of 
the nation has gone forth declaring absolute freedom in your fortified strong- 
holds of slavery ; only by the destruction of the nation can you nullify this 
decree.” Clearly nothing was to be gained, as against the Confederacy, by 
any measure less decisive; and among Loyalists what was to be gained by a 
weak compromise? ‘The offer of compensation in return for gradual eman- 
cipation had already been held out to the border states, and had been re- 
fused. Congress must choose between renewing this offer, which would cer- 
tainly be again rejected, or declaring that henceforth the preservation of the 
nation was identified with the destruction of slavery. The moral strength 
thus gathered up, to be hurled against the rebellion, was as a mountain to a 
mole-hill when compared to the injury which could come to the nation by 
the repulsion of those who would identify the safety of their country with 
the perpetration of a monstrous wrong. f 

On the 15th of December, 1862, a resolution, offered by Mr. S. C. Fessen- 
den, was adopted in the House, 78 to 52, declaring that the President’s proc- 
lamation of September 22d indicated a policy of emancipation well adapted 
to hasten the restoration of peace, was well chosen as a war measure, and 
was an exercise of power with proper regard for the rights of the states and 
the perpetuity of free government. Two Democrats voted in favor of the 
resolution, and six Republicans against it. 

And here it is proper to remark the change which had been effected in 
Congressional sentiment by two years of civil war. The burden of the con- 
flict now began to be palpable. Every day the public debt increased by 
hundreds of thousands of dollars. The credit of the nation was disturbed 
not so much by this daily augmentation of the debt as by a prevailing disqui- 
etude as to the final success of the war. Once it had been confidently pre- 
dicted that three months would conclude the struggle. But the tremendous 
energies which had been enlisted in the rebellion were not then appreciated. 
Tt had been hoped that compromise might neutralize and disarm treason; 


1 See Chapter VIII. of this History, p, 204. 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1868. 


643 


and in the special session of 1861, Congress had distinctly proclaimed its 
willingness to restore every rebellious state to its former position in the 
Union, with all its ancient rights and institutions undisturbed, upon the sim- 
ple condition of returned allegiance. This attitude of Congress only pro- 
voked the scorn of the Revolutionists, and was interpreted by them as a sign 
of weakness in the national government. “ We have,” said these rebels, 
“given our challenge. We have appealed to arms. Subdue us if you can. 
If you can not, grant us our independence. But by no political overtures 
which you can make will we be induced either to resume our allegiance, or 
to abate the violence of our attempted revolution.” After two years of 
fighting, with the exception of the capture of New Orleans, no great nation- 
al victory had been won. The national reverses had been many, and were 
balanced only by temporary advantages and indecisive battles. One mili- 
tary leader and then another had been tried and set aside, but as yet no 
masterly generalship had been developed. The first outburst of martial en- 
thusiasm had given place to partial discouragement. Still, the nation was 
not dismayed, nor did its armies shrink from the conflict because the latter 
had become doubtful and difficult. Ifthe sentiment of patriotism had been 
in great measure exhausted, its place had been taken by patriotic good 
sense. As the strength and persistency of the rebellion became manifest, 
all attempts at political compromise were summarily set aside. The defi- 
ance of armed rebels could only be met by the confidence of the nation in 
its power to maintain itself by the strength ofarms. In such a struggle the 
wisest political theories were useless, because such a struggle was, in the 
first instance, an appeal from the decision of statesmen to the decision of 
battles, in which physical and material conditions were the controlling ele- 
ments—in which even moral forces could only be considered in their rela- 
tions to a purely military problem. Legislation had not been able to pre- 
vent civil war, and the direct and primary authority of law was now equal- 
ly powerless to procure peace. Jnier arma leges silent. The very existence 
of the government was threatened, and so long as the menace endured, so 
long must the government stand behind its army, which was at once its rep- 
resentative, its shield against treason, and its uplifted arm for the punish- 
ment of traitors. The executive, the legislative, and the judicial functions 
of the government, in their bearing upon the war, had no significance or 
value except in so far as they subordinated all things else to the support of 
the army, and to measures which would secure its ultimate success. If this 
lesson had not been learned at once, two years of bitter experience had im- 
pressed it upon the popular mind. Thus the political problem which was 
presented for immediate solution became very simple by its subordination to 
military necessity. In this way there was also furnished a palpable line of sep- 
aration between parties—between those who were willing to surrender every 
thing for national preservation, and those who preferred national dissolution 
to any surrender or any sacrifice whatsoever. Those who heartily support- 
ed the war did so because only by war could the nation be saved, and these 
were willing to legalize any method, not in itself dishonorable, which would 
help to secure military success, even if it involved a violation of the Consti- 
tution. In justification, no resort need be had to extraordinary statesman- 
ship; the dictates of common sense were sufficient. The Constitution, and, 
a fortiori, all laws growing out of the Constitution, can never override the 
law of national existence itself. This principle needs no argument to sup- 
port it, nor any amplification. 

But, in fact, no great strain need be put on the Constitution, which, though 
not contemplating a violent civil war, yet in most respects adequately pro- 
vided for the national safety in any event. 

Those who opposed the war based their opposition on various grounds, 
Some held it to be unjust—an opinion very nearly allied to treason, and 
acts of opposition based upon it were treason. Others expected defeat, and 
this timidity was an insult to patriotism. Others counted the success of the 
war a poor recompense for its burdens; such were unworthy of their title 
to citizenship in the great republic. Still others, while disguising their di- 
rect opposition to the war, opposed all means proposed for its effective pros- 
ecution on the ground that they were unconstitutional. Their arguments 
in support of the unconstitutionality of measures thus adopted were gener- 
ally baseless, and in any case were not worthy of respect. 

The conflict between the two parties began early in this session of the 
Thirty-seventh Congress. On the first day of the session a resolution was 
offered by Cox, of Ohio, declaring that all arrests previously made by the 
United States authorities of citizens in states where there was no insurrec- 
tion, were unwarranted by the Constitution, and a usurpation of power. ‘This 
was laid upon the table, 80 to 40. A similar resolution offered the next 
day in the Senate met the same fate. A week later (December 8th), in the 
Senate, a resolution was offered by Saulsbury, of Delaware, calling upon the 
Secretary of War for information in regard to the arrest of two citizens of 
his state—Dr. John Laws and Whitely Meredith. In the debate which fol- 
lowed, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, opposed the resolution on the ground 
that the government had been too lenient in this matter. ‘“ Instead,” said 
he, “of the few hundred arrests we have had, we ought to have had several 
thousand.” John Sherman, of Ohio, a leading Republican, took a different 
view. He thought that arrests should not be made except upon a reason 
which could be definitely stated to Congress. Congress ought to demand 
this. “The power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus should only be ex: 
ercised with all the guards that can be thrown by wise legislation around it. 
Such a power, uncurbed, unregulated, and unchecked, would make this gov- 
ernment a despotism worse than England ever saw, worse than France was 
in the time when lettres de cachet were used for the arrest of citizens, and 
they were confined for 40 years.” Powell, of Kentucky, claimed that the 


| right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus did not involve the right to make 


644 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


a 


[May, 1863, 


| troops, led to the famous Order No. 88, issued by General Burnside from his 


headquarters at Cincinnati on the 13th of April. By this order, all persons 
- found within his lines affording aid or comfort to the enemy were to be tried 


OLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAN, 


arrests. The object of the writ was to relieve a man once arrested from il- 
legal imprisonment. Neither the President nor his ministers had a right to 
arrest any man who was not in the military service of the United States. | 
The claim made by Powell was not disputed by any senator. The right of 
the executive to make arrests in time of war, and when the public safety de- 
manded, was too well established to admit of debate. Davis, Powell’s col- 
league, claimed that the suspension of the writ was not within the scope of 
executive power. After a prolonged debate, Saulsbury’s resolution was laid 
upon the table, 29 to13. At the same time, a bill was passed in the House 
by a vote of 90 to 45, indemnifying the President and his subordinate of- 
ficers for his action in making arrests, and in the suspension of habeas corpus.’ 

This bill went to the Senate, where it was amended. In its final shape it 
authorized the President to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus 
in any case throughout the United States; it directed that the Secretary of 
War and the Secretary of State should furnish to the judges of the Circuit and 
District Courts of the United States the names of all state prisoners then con- 
fined, or who should thereafter be confined, with the date of each arrest, and 
that those prisoners against whom the grand jury should find no indictment 
during the session sitting when the list was furnished should be released upon 
taking the oath of allegiance, either with or without recognizance or bond, 
as the judges of the respective courts might determine; it provided that any 
order of the President should be a sufficient defense in any case of prosecu- 
tion for arrests made under such order, and that in any such prosecution the 
defendant might, by filing a petition, have it removed from the State Court 
to the Circuit Court of the United States. By a writ of error any case might 
even be transferred to the United States Supreme Court. 

Not long after the close of this session Mr. Vallandigham was arrested in 
Ohio. The busy and persistent efforts made by domestic enemies to thwart 
the plans of the national government, and to prevent the enlistment of 


? A fortnight after the passage of this bill, a resolution in the nature of a protest was submitted 
to the House, signed by 37 representatives, These protested for the following reasons : 

‘*J. Because it purports to deprive the citizen of all existing, peaceful, legal modes of redress 
for admitted wrongs, and thus constrains him tamely to submit to the injury inflicted, or to seek 
illegal and forcible remedies. 

“2. Because it purports to indemnify the President and all acting under his authority for acts 
admitted to be wrongful, at the expense of the citizen upon whom the wrongful acts have been 
perpetrated, in violation of the plainest principles of justice, and the most familiar precepts of con- 
stitutional law. 


| and bitterly reviled the administration of President Lincoln. 
| strictly speaking, an advocate for the rebellion; but, for the sake of peace, 
he was in favor of surrendering to the rebels all for which they were fight- 
'ing. He preferred the re-establishment of the Union to its dissolution, if 


“*3. Because it purports to confirm and make valid, by act of Congress, arrests and imprison- 
ments which were not only not warranted by the Constitution of the United States, but were in 
palpable violation of its express prohibitions. 

‘4. Because it purports to authorize the President, during this rebellion, at any time, as to any 
person, and every where throughout the limits of the United States, to suspend the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus, whereas, by the Constitution, the power to suspend the privilege of that writ 
is confided to the discretion of Congress alone, and is limited to the places threatened by the dan- 
gers of invasion or insurrection. 

“5, Because, for these and other reasons, it is unjust and unwise, an invasion of private rights, 
an encouragement to lawless violence, and a precedent full of hope to all who would usurp des- 
potic power and perpetuate it by the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of those who oppose them. 

“6, And, finally, because in both its sections it is ‘a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous’ viola- | 
tion of the Constitution, ‘according to the plain sense and intention of that instrument,’ and is 
therefore utterly null and void.” 

It was signed by the following members: Geo. H. Pendleton, W. A. Richardson, J. C. Robin- 
son, P. B. Fouke, Jas. R. Morris, A. L. Knapp, C. L. Vallandigham, C. A. White, Warren P. No- 
ble, W. Allen, William J. Allen, S. S. Cox,.E. H. Norton, Geo. K. Shiel, 8. J. Ancona, J. Lazear, | 
Nehemiah Perry, C. Vibbard, John Law, C. A. Wickliffe, Chas. J. Biddle, J. A. Cravens, Elijah 
Ward, Philip Johnson, John D. Stiles, D. W. Voorhees, G. W. Dunlap, Hendrick B. Wright, H. 


Grider, W. H. Wadsworth, A. Harding, Chas. B. Calvert, Jas. E. Kerrigan, Henry May, R. H. Nu- 
gent, Geo. H. Yeaman, B. F. Granger. : 


_as spies or traitors, and upon conviction to suffer death. 


Within the scope and meaning of this order were included “carriers of 


secret mails; writers of letters sent by secret mails; secret recruiting officers 
_ within the lines; persons who have entered into an agreement to pass our 


lines for the purpose of joining the enemy; persons found concealed within 
our lines belonging to the service of the enemy, and, in fact, all persons found 
improperly within our lines who could give private information to the ene- 
my ; all persons within our lines who harbor, protect, conceal, feed, clothe, or 
in any way aid the enemies of our country.” All those who declared their 


| sympathy with the enemy were to be arrested, either to be tried as spies or 
_ to be sent beyond the lines, 


This order had a very beneficial influence in 
Kentucky. In the states north of the Ohio it was construed by the disaf- 
fected as an extraordinary instance of military despotism. 

Foremost among those who bade defiance to this order was Clement L. 
Vallandigham, of Ohio, lately a member of the Thirty-seventh Congress, and 
the leader in his state of what was known as the “‘ Copperhead” wing of the 
Democratic party. He had been defeated as a candidate for the Thirty- 
eighth Congress by General Robert C. Schenck, but was the prospective 
Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio. He was opposed to the war, 
He was not, 


such a result could be reached by a compromise reinstating the slave oli- 
garchy with its former prestige and power; failing in that, he would have 
acquiesced in secession, yielding the Confederacy its independence without 
farther struggle. That there should have been a war for the Union at all 
he denied; that this war should continue he held to be a national misfor- 
tune and manifest injustice. His voice, from first to last, was against the 
war; and in his opposition he was the most unscrupulous of demagogues. 
His convictions were strong—and to these he had a right. But at this crit- 
ical period his open and violent opposition could not be without injury to 
the national cause, if maintained with impunity. No distinction could prac- 
tically be made between a traitor in arms against the government and Val- 
landigham hurling against it his violent philippics, whatever distinction in 
favor of the latter might have existed in theory. For the government to 
have winked at his opposition while it was on the battle-field crushing those 
with whom he sympathized, and for whom his energetic co-operation was 
worth more than an additional army corps, would have been to convict it- 
self of the most palpable folly and inconsistency. 

It was in this light that Burnside looked upon Vallandigham’s conduct, 
and accordingly, after an address made by the latter at Mount Vernon, about 
the 18th of May, he dispatched Captain Charles G. Hutton, his aid-de-camp, 
to Dayton, where Vallandigham resided, with orders for the arrest of the of- 
fender and his conveyance to Cincinnati for trial. The arrest took place on 
the night of May 4th, Hutton bringing his prisoner to Cincinnati without 
disturbance. The next day a charge was preferred against him for “ public- 
ly expressing, in violation of General Orders No. 38, from Headquarters De- 
partment of the Ohio, sympathy for those in arms against the government 
of the United States, and declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions with the 
object and purpose of weakening the power of the government in its efforts 
to suppress an unlawful rebellion.” ‘The specific charge was that he had 
declared the war to be “ wicked, cruel, and unnecessary,” “ for the purpose of 
crushing out liberty and erecting a despotism,” “for the freedom of the 
blacks and the enslavement of the whites;” had stated that “if the admin- 
istration had so wished, the war could have been honorably terminated 
months ago;” had characterized the order No. 88 as a “base usurpation of 
arbitrary authority ;” had invited resistance to this order by saying “ the 
sooner the people inform the minions of usurped power that they will not 
submit to such restrictions upon their liberties, the better ;” and had declared 
himself resolved at all times and upon all occasions “to do what he could to 
defeat the attempts now being made to build up a monarchy upon the ruins 
of our free government.” 

Vallandigham was tried by a military commission, of which General R. B. 
Potter was President, and which consisted of Colonel J. F. De Courcy, Lieu- 
tenant Colonel E. R. Goodrich, Major J. M. Brown, Major J. L. Van Buren, 
Major C. H. Fitch, Captain P. M. Lydig, with Captain J. M. Cutts, of the Hlev- 
enth United States Infantry, as judge advocate. The trial continued for 
two days. Vallandigham protested against the jurisdiction of the commis- 
sion, declaring that no such charge could apply to him, as he belonged to 
neither the naval or military service of the United States, and that he was 
subject to arrest only by due process of law.’ He demanded to be tried by 


' The President had issued the proclamation of martial law on the 24th of September, 1862. 
The following are the important clauses of the proclamation : 

1. ‘During the existing insurrection, and as a necessary means for suppressing the same, all 
rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States, and all persons discour- 
aging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording 
aid and comfort to the rebels, against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial 
law, and liable to trial by courts-martial or military commission. 

2. **That the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are 
now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military 
prison, or other place of confinement, by any military authority, or by the sentence of any court- 
martial or military commission.” 

This proclamation received the sanction both of Congress and of the judiciary. It violated 
neither the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution; and if the Constitution did not explicitly 
provide for martial law in case of war, it must be remembered that war proceeds not according to 
rules laid down by constitutions, but according to established usages. And under no government 
is any use more established than that of the proclamation and enforcement of martial law in time 
of rebellion. When the illustrious Lord Brougham addressed the House of Peers in support of a 
bill which empowered the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to apprehend all persons suspected of con- 


= 


— 


May, 1863. ] 


a civil court, and in accordance with the ordinary usages adopted in his state. 
Witnesses were examined on both sides. But the case was submitted with- 
out argument. ‘The validity of the prisoner's protest was not admitted, and 
Mr. Vallandigham was found guilty and sentenced to close confinement in 
some fortress of the United States, to be designated by General Burnside, 
there to be kept until the close of the war. Burnside, approving the finding 
of the court, ordered the prisoner to be confined in Fort Warren, in Boston 
Harbor. 

In the mean time, Vallandigham, through the Hon. George H. Pugh, had 
applied to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District 
of Ohio for a writ of habeas corpus. The case was argued before Judge H. 
H. Leavitt, who refused the writ. “It is clearly not a time,” said the judge, 
“when any one connected with the judicial department of the government 
should allow himself, except from the most stringent obligations of duty, to 
embarrass or thwart the executive in his efforts to deliver the country from 
the dangers which press so heavily upon it.” He argued that the legality 
of the arrest depended upon the necessity of making it, and that must be de- 
termined by the military commander. ‘Men should know,” he said, “and 
lay the truth to heart, that there is a course of conduct not involving overt 
treason, and not, therefore, subject to punishment as such, which nevertheless 
implies moral guilt and a gross offense against the country. Those who 
live under the protection and enjoy the blessings of our benignant govern- 
ment must learn that they can not stab its vitals with impunity. If they 
cherish hatred and hostility to it, and desire its subversion, let them with- 
draw from its jurisdiction, and seek the fellowship and protection of those 
with whom they are in sympathy. If they remain with us while they are 
not of us, they must be subject to such a course of dealing as the great law 
of self-preservation prescribes and will enforce. And let them not complain 
if the stringent doctrine of military necessity should find them to be the le- 
gitimate subjects of its action. I have no fear that the recognition of this 
doctrine will lead to an arbitrary invasion of the personal security or per- 
sonal liberty of the citizen. It is rare indeed that a charge of disloyalty will 
be made on insufficient grounds. But if there should be an occasional mis- 
take, such an occurrence is not to be put into competition with the preser- 
vation of the nation; and I confess I am but little moved by the eloquent 
appeals of those who, while they indignantly denounce violation of personal 
liberty, look with no horror upon a despotism as unmitigated as the world 
has ever witnessed.” 

Burnside only awaited the President’s confirmation of the sentence before 
carrying it out. But Mr. Lincoln decided to commute the punishment award- 
ed by the military commission, and ordered the prisoner to be sent, “under a 
secure guard, to the headquarters of General Rosecrans, to be put by him be- 
yond our military lines, and that, in case of his return within our lines, he be 
arrested and kept in close custody for the term specified in his sentence.” 
This order was executed. General Bragg transferred the involuntary exile 
to Richmond, where he was very coldly received. He left the Confederacy 
as speedily as possible, and found an asylum in Canada, where he remained 
during the following autumn and winter, In the mean time he was made 
the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio, and sustained at the polls 
the most overwhelming defeat recorded in the political annals of this coun- 
try. He returned home toward the close of the war, but it was not then 
considered worth while to molest him.’ 
spiracy against the British government, he said: ‘‘ A friend of liberty I have lived, and such will 
I die; nor care I how soon the latter event may happen if I can not be a friend of liberty without 
being a friend of traitors at the same time—a protector of criminals of the deepest dye—an ac- 
complice of foul rebellion and of its concomitant, civil war, with all its atrocities and all its fear- 
ful consequences.” 

The Constitution provides that ‘no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise 
infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in 
the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger.” 
But this provision only applies in time of peace. It has no bearing upon martial law. Says 
Chancellor Kent: ‘‘ Military law is a system of regulations for the government of the armies in 
the service of the United States, authorized by the act of Congress of April 10, 1806, known as the 
Articles of War; and naval law is a similar system for the government of the navy, under the act 
of Congress of April 23,1800. But martial law is quite a distinct thing, and is founded upon 
paramount necessity, and proclaimed by a military chief.” 

1 The arrest of Vallandigham created considerable excitement in the Democratic party, and a 
vain attempt was made at his canonization as a martyr to liberty. A mass meeting was held at 
Albany, May 16, and strong resolutions were adopted denouncing Burnside’s action. The follow- 
ing is a record of the meeting, as transmitted by Honorable Hrastus Corning, its chairman, to Pres- 
ident Lincoln, to which we append the President’s reply : 

““ Albany, May 19, 1863. 

“To his Excellency the President of the United States : 

“The undersigned, officers of a public meeting held at the city of Albany on the 16th day of 
May, instant, herewith transmit to your excellency a copy of the resolutions adopted at the said 
meeting, and respectfully request your earnest consideration of them, They deem it proper, on 
their personal responsibility, to state that the meeting was one of the most respectable as to num- 
bers and character, and one of the most earnest in the support of the Union, ever held in this city. 

‘Yours, with great regard, 
‘* Erastus Cornina, President. 
‘“« Err Perry, Vice-President. 
‘*Prrpr GANSEVOooRT, Vice-President. 
‘¢Pprer Monrteiru, Vice-President. 
‘*Samure. W. Gress, Vice-President. 
‘* Joun Nrpvack, Vice-President. 
*©H. W. McCiet3an, Vice-President. 
‘“‘TemurEL W. Ropcers, Vice-President. 


‘© Witi1aM Seymour, Vice-President. Joun R. NESSEL, Secretary. 
‘ JEREMIAH Osporn, Vice-President. C. W. WEEKS, Secretary. 


“ Resolutions adopted at the Meeting held in Albany, N. Y.,on the 16th day of May, 1863. 

“¢ Resolved, That the Democrats of New York point to their uniform course of action during the 
two years of civil war through which we have passed, to the alacrity which they have evinced in 
filling the ranks of the army, to their contributions and sacrifices, as the evidence of their patriot- 
ism and devotion to the cause of our imperiled country. Never, in the history of civil wars, has 
a government been sustained with such ample resources of means and men as the people have vol- 
untarily placed in the hands of this administration. 

“ Resolved, That as Democrats we are determined to maintain this patriotic attitude, and, de- 
spite adverse and disheartening circumstances, to devote all our energies to sustain the cause of 
the Union; to secure peace through victory, and to bring back the restoration of all the states un- 
der the safeguard of the Constitution. 

Resolved, That while we will not consent to be misapprehended upon these points, we are de- 
termined not to be misunderstood in regard to others not less essential. We demand that the 
administration shall be true to the Constitution; shall recognize and maintain the rights of the 


® Hansard’s Debates, 3d Series, vol. 100, p. 635. 


Wm. S. Papock, Vice-President. 
J.B. Sanpers, Vice-President. 
Epvwarp Mu cany, Vice-President. 
D. V. N. Rapcuirre, Vice-President. 
Witriam A. Rice, Secretary. 
Epwarp Nrewcoms, Secretary. 

R. W. Pecxuam, Jr., Secretary. 

M. A. Noxan, Secretary. 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1863. 


645 


Burnside did not content himself with banishing Vallandigham, but laid 
his hand upon such organs of the press as maintained the exile’s cause. 


states and the liberties of the citizen; shall every where, outside of the lines of necessary military 
occupation and the scenes of insurrection, exert all its powers to maintain the supremacy of the 
civil over military law. 

‘¢ Resolved, That, in view of these principles, we denounce the recent assumption of a military 
commander to seize and try a citizen of Ohio, Clement L. Vallandigham, for no other reason 
than words addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the course of the administration and in 
condemnation of the military orders of that general. 

“ Resolved, That this assumption of power by a military tribunal, if successfully asserted, not 
only abrogates the right of-the people to assemble and discuss the affairs of government, the lib- 
erty of speech and of the press, the right of trial by jury, the law of evidence, and the privilege of 
habeas corpus, but it strikes a fatal blow at the supremacy of law and the authority of the state 
and federal Constitutions. 

‘¢ Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States—the supreme law of the land—has de- 
fined the crime of treason against the United States to consist ‘only in levying war against them, 
or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort,’ and has provided that ‘no person shall 
be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on con- 
fession in open court.’ And it farther provides that ‘no person shall be held to answer for a cap- 
ital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in 
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war 
or public danger ;’ and farther, that ‘in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right 
of a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime was 
committed.’ 

‘¢ Resolved, That these safeguards of the rights of the citizen against the pretensions of arbitra- 
ry power were intended more especially for his protection in times of civil commotion. They 
were secured substantially to the English people after years of protracted civil war, and were 
adopted into our Constitution at the close of the Revolution. They have stood the test of seventy- 
six years of trial under our republican system, under circumstances which show that, while they 
constitute the foundation of all free government, they are the elements of the enduring stability 
of the republic. 

‘¢ Resolved, That, in adopting the language of Daniel Webster, we declare ‘it is the ancient and 
undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures and the merits of public men.’ 
It is a ‘homebred right,’ a fireside privilege. It had been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin 
in the nation. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air or walking on the earth. Be- 
longing to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty, and it is the last duty which 
those whose representatives we are shall find us to abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous 
and temperate in its use, except when the right itself is questioned, we shall place ourselves on the 
extreme boundary of our own right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move us from our 
ground. ‘This high constitutional privilege we shall defend and exercise in all places—in time 
of peace, in time of war, and at alltimes. Living, we shall assert it; and should we leave no oth- 
er inheritance to our children, by the blessing of God we will leave them the inheritance of free 
principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defense of them.’ 

‘ Resolved, That in the election of Governor Seymour, the people of this state, by an emphatic 
majority, declared their condemnation of the system of arbitrary arrests and their determination 
to stand by the Constitution. That the revival of this lawless system can have but one result—to 
divide and distract the North, and destroy its confidence in the purposes of the administration. 
That we deprecate it as an element of confusion at home, of weakness to our armies in the field, 
and as calculated to lower the estimate of American character, and magnify the apparent peril of 
our cause abroad. And that, regarding the blow struck at a citizen of Ohio as aimed at the 
rights of every citizen of the North, we denounce it as against the spirit of our laws and Consti- 
tution, and most earnestly call upon the President of the United States to reverse the action of the 
military tribunal which has passed ‘a cruel and unusual punishment’ upon the party arrested, 
oe in terms by the Constitution, and to restore him to the liberty of which he has been de- 

rived, 

‘¢ Resolved, That the president, vice-presidents, and secretary of this meeting be requested to 
transmit a copy of these resolutions to his excellency the President of the United States, with the 
assurance of this meeting of their hearty and earnest desire to support the government in every 
constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the existing rebellion.” 


President Lincoln’s Reply. 


‘+ Executive Mansion, Washington, June 12, 1863. . 
‘Hon. Erastus Corning, and others: 


‘¢GuntTLEMEN,—Your letter of May 19, inclosing the resolutions of a public meeting held at 
Albany, New York, on the 16th of the same month, was received several days ago. 

‘“‘ The resolutions, as I understand them, are resolvable into two propositions—first, the expres- 
sion of a purpose to sustain the cause of the Union, to secure peace through victory, and to sup- 
port the administration in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion; and, 
secondly, a declaration of censure upon the administration for supposed unconstitutional action, 
such as the making of military arrests. And, from the two propositions, a third is deduced, which 
is, that the gentlemen composing the meeting are resolved on doing their part to maintain our 
common government and country, despite the folly or wickedness, as they may conceive, of any 
administration. This position is eminently patriotic, and, as such, I thank the meeting and con- 
gratulate the nation for it. My own purpose is the same; so that the meeting and myself have 
a common object, and can have no difference, except in the choice of means or measures for effect- 
ing that object. 

‘«‘ And here I ought to close this paper, and would close it if there were no apprehension that 
more injurious consequences than any merely personal to myself might follow the censures system- 
atically cast upon me for doing what, in my view of duty, I could not forbear. The resolutions 
promise to support me in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion, and I 
have not knowingly employed, nor shall knowingly employ, any other. But the meeting, by their 
resolutions, assert and argue that certain military arrests, and proceedings following them, for which 
I am ultimately responsible, are unconstitutional. I think they are not. The resolutions quote 
from the Constitution the definition of treason, and also the limiting safeguards and guarantees 
therein provided for the citizen on trials of treason, and on his being held to answer for capital or 
otherwise infamous crimes, and, in criminal prosecutions, his right to a speedy and public trial by 
an impartial jury. They proceed to resolve ‘that these safeguards of the rights of the citizen 
against the pretensions of arbitrary power were intended more especially for his protection in times 
of civil commotion.’ And, apparently to demonstrate the proposition, the resolutions proceed : 
‘They were secured substantially to the English people after years of protracted civil war, and 
were adopted into our Constitution at the close of the Revolution.’ Would not the demonstration 
have been better if it could have been truly said that these safeguards had been adopted and ap- 
plied during the civil wars and during our Revolution, instead of after the one and at the close of 
the other? TI, too, am devotedly for them after civil war, and before civil war, and at all times 
‘except when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require’ their suspension. 
The resolutions proceed to tell us that these safeguards ‘ have stood the test of seventy-six years 
of trial under our republican system, under circumstances which show that, while they constitute 
the foundation of all free government, they are elements of the enduring stability of the republic.’ 
No one denies that they have so stood the test up to the beginning of the present rebellion, if we 
except a certain occurrence at New Orleans, nor does any one question that they will stand the 
same test much longer after the rebellion closes. But these provisions of the Constitution have 
no application to the case we have in hand, because the arrests complained of were not made for 
treason—that is, not for the treason defined in the Constitution, and upon conviction of which the 
punishment is death ; nor yet were they made to hold persons to answer for any capital or other- 
wise infamous crimes; nor were the proceedings following, in any constitutional or legal sense, 
‘criminal prosecutions.’ The arrests were made on totally different grounds, and the proceedings 
following accorded with the grounds of the arrests. Let us consider the real case with which we 
are dealing, and apply to it the parts of the Constitution plainly made for such cases. 

‘‘Prior to my installation here it had been inculcated that any state had a lawful right to se- 
cede from the national Union, and that it would be expedient to exercise the right whenever the 
devotees of the doctrine should fail to elect a President to their own liking. I was elected con- 
trary to their liking; and, accordingly, so far as it was legally possible, they had taken seven states 
out of the Union, had seized many of the United States forts, and had fired upon the United States 
flag, all before I was inaugurated, and, of course, before I had done any official act whatever. The 
rebellion thus began soon ran into the present civil war; and, in certain respects, it began on very 
unequal terms between the parties. The insurgents had been preparing for it more than thirty 
years, while the government had taken no steps to resist them. ‘Tle former had carefully consid- 
ered all the means which could be turned to their account. It undoubtedly was a well-pondered 
reliance with them that, in their own unrestricted efforts to destroy Union, Constitution, and law 
all together, the government would, in great degree, be restrained by the same Constitution and 
law from arresting their progress. Their sympathizers pervaded all departments of the govern- 
ment, and nearly all communities of the people. From this material, under cover of ‘liberty of 
speech,’ ‘liberty of the press,’ and ‘habeas corpus,’ they hoped to keep on foot among us a most ef- 
ficient corps of spies, informers, suppliers, and aiders and abettors of their cause in a thousand 
ways. They knew that in times such as we were now inaugurating, by the Constitution itself the 
‘habeas corpus’ might be suspended; but they also knew they had friends who would make a ques- 
tion as to who was to suspend it; meanwhile their spies and others might remain at large to help 
on their cause. Or if, as has happened, the executive should suspend the writ, without ruinous 


8A 


646 


The Chicago Zimes was suppressed, and a military guard placed over the of- 
fice; and the circulation of the New York World was prohibited within the 


waste of time, instances of arresting innocent persons might occur, as are always likely to oceur 
in such cases, and then a clamor could be raised in regard to this which might be, at least, of 
some service to the insurgent cause. It needed no very keen perception to discover this part of 
the enemy’s programme so soon as by open hostilities their machinery was fairly put in motion. 
Yet, thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals, I was slow to 
adopt the strong measures which, by degrees, I have been forced to regard as being within the ex- 
ceptions of the Constitution, and as indispensable to the public safety. Nothing is better known 
to history than that courts of justice are utterly incompetent to such cases. Civil courts are or- 
ganized chiefly for trials of individuals, or, at most, a few individuals acting in concert, and this 
in quiet times, and on charges of crimes well defined in the law. Even in times of peace bands 
of horse-thieves and robbers frequently grow too numerous and powerful for ordinary courts of 
justice. But what comparison, in numbers, have such bands ever borne to the insurgent sympa- 
thizers even in many of the loyal states? Again, a jury too frequently has at least one member 
more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor. And yet, again, he who dissuades one 
man from volunteering, or induces one soldier to desert, weakens the Union cause as much as he 
who kills a Union soldier in battle. Yet this dissuasion or inducement may be so conductéd as to 
be no defined crime of which any civil court would take cognizance. 

‘‘ Ours is a case of rebellion—so called by the resolutions before me—in fact, a clear, flagrant, 
and gigantic case of rebellion; and the provision of the Constitution that ‘the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the pub- 
lie safety may require it, is the provision which specially applies to our present case. ‘This provi- 
sion plainly attests the understanding of those who made the Constitution that ordinary courts 
of justice are inadequate to ‘cases of rebellion’—attests their purpose that, in such cases, men 
may be held in custody whom the courts, acting on ordinary rules, would discharge. Habeas cor- 
pus does not discharge men who are proved to be guilty of defined crime ;, and its suspension is 
allowed by the Constitution on purpose that men may be arrested and held who can not be proved 
to be guilty of defined crime, ‘when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may re- 
quire it.’ 

“This is precisely our present case—a ease of rebellion, wherein the public safety does require 
the suspension. Indeed, arrests by process of courts, and arrests in cases of rebellion, do not pro- 
ceed altogether upon the same basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary 
and continuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive upris- 
ings against the government, which, at most, will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In 
the latter case, arrests are made not so much for what has been done as for what probably would 
be done. ‘The latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former. In 
such cases the purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary crime. 
The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his government is discussed can not 
be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy; much more if he talks ambig- 
uously—talks for his country with ‘ buts,’ and ‘ifs,’ and ‘ands.’ Of how little value the consti- 
tutional provisions I have quoted will be rendered if arrests shall never be made until defined 
crimes shall have been committed may be illustrated by a few notable examples. General John 
C. Breckinridge, General Robert E. Lee, General Joseph Ee. Johnston, General John B. Magru- 
der, General William B. Preston, General Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Bu- 
chanan, now occupying the very highest places in the rebel war service, were all within the power 
of the government since the war began, and were nearly as well known to be traitors then as now. 
Unquestionably, if we had seized and held them, the insurgent cause would be much weaker. 
But no one of them had then committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them, if 
arrested, would have been discharged on habeas corpus, were the writ allowed to operate. In view 
of these and similar cases, I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for hay- 
ing made too few arrests rather than too many. 

‘* By the third resolution the meeting indicate their opinion that military arrests may be con- 
stitutional in localities where rebellion actually exists, but that such arrests are unconstitutional 
in localities where rebellion or insurrection does not actually exist. They insist that such arrests 
shall not be made ‘outside of the lines of necessary military occupation and the scenes of insur- 
rection.’ Inasmuch, however, as the Constitution itself makes no such distinction, I am unable to 
believe that there is any such constitutional distinction. I concede that the class of arrests com- 
plained of can be constitutional only when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may 
require them, and I insist that in such cases they are constitutional wherever the public safety 
does require them, as well in places to which they may prevent the rebellion extending as in 
those where it may be already prevailing; as well where they may restrain mischievous interfer- 
ence with the raising and supplying of armies to suppress the rebellion, as where the rebellion 
may actually be; as well where they may restrain the enticing men out of the army, as where 
they would prevent mutiny in the army; equally constitutional at all places where they will con- 
duce to the public safety, as against the dangers of rebellion or invasion. Take the peculiar case 
mentioned by the meeting. It is asserted, in substance, that Mr. Vallandigham was, by a military 
commander, seized and tried ‘for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting, in 
criticism of the course of the administration, and in condemnation of the military orders of the 
general.’ Now, if there be no mistake about this; if this assertion is the truth and the whole 
truth ; if there was no other reason for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest was wrong. But 
the arrest, as I understand, was made for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his 
hostility to the war on the part of the Union; and his arrest was made because he was laboring, 
with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the army, and to 
leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested be- 
cause he was damaging the political prospects of the administration or the personal interests of 
the commanding general, but becanse he was damaging the army, upon the existence and vigor 
of which the life of the nation depends. He was warring upon the military, and this gave the 
military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham was not damag- 
ing the military power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake of fact, which I would 
be glad to correct on reasonably satisfactory evidence. 

“TI understand the meeting, whose resolutions I am considering, to be in favor of suppressing 
the rebellion by military foree—by armies. Long experience has shown that armies can not be 
maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, 
and the law and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded sol- 
dier-boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert ? 
This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend into a pub- | 
lic meeting, and there working upon his feclings till he is persuaded to write the soldier-boy that 
he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptible government, too weak 
to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that, in such a case, to silence the agitator 
and save the boy is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy. 

“If I be wrong on this question of constitutional power, my error lies in believing that certain 
proceedings are constitutional when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety requires 
them, which would not be constitutional when, in absence of rebellion or invasion, the public safe- 
ty does not require them ; in other words, that the Constitution is not, in its application, in all re- | 
spects the same in cases of rebellion or invasion inyolvying the public safety, as it is in times of 
profound peace and public security. The Constitution itself makes the distinction; and I can no 
more be persuaded that the government can constitutionally take no strong measures in time of 
rebellion, because it can be shown that the same could not be lawfully taken in time of peace, 
than I can be persuaded that a particular drug is not good medicine for a sick man because it 
can be shown not to be good food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger appre- 
hended by the meeting, that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the re- 
bellion, lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, 
trial by jary, and habeas corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future which I trust lies before 
them, any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for 
emetics during temporary illness as to persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his 
healthful life. 

“In giving the resolutions that earnest consideration which you request of me, I can not over- | 
look the fact that the meeting speak as ‘Democrats.’ Nor can I, with full respect for their known | 
intelligence, and the fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared their resolutions, be | 


permitted to suppose that this occurred by accident, or in any way other than that they preferred 
to designate themselves ‘ Democrats’ rather than ‘ American citizens.’ In this time of national 
peril I would have preferred to meet you on a level one step higher than any party platform, be- 
cause I am sure that, from such more elevated position, we could do better battle for the country 
we all love than we possibly can from those lower ones where, from the force of habit, the preju- 
dices of the past, and selfish hopes of the future, we are sure to expend much of our ingenuity and 
strength in finding fault with, and aiming blows at, each other. But, since you have denied me 
this, I will yet be thankful, for the country’s sake, that not all Democrats have done so, He on 
whose discretionary judgment Mr. Vallandigham was arrested and tried is a Democrat, having no 
old party affinity with me; and the judge who rejected the constitutional view expressed in these 
resolutions, by refusing to discharge Mr. Vallandigham on habeas corpus, is a Democrat of better 
days than these, having received his judicial mantle at the hands of President Jackson. And still 
more, of all those Democrats who are nobly exposing their lives and shedding their blood on the 
battle-field, I have learned that many approve the course taken with Mr. Vallandigham, while I 
have not heard of a single one condemning it. I can not assert that there are none such. And | 
the name of President Jackson recalls an instance of pertinent history. After the battle of New 
Orleans, and while the fact that the treaty of peace had been concluded was well known in the 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| three or nine months, 
| teered had been killed or wounded in battle, had become the victims of dis- 


[May, 1863. 


lines of the department. These latter acts were soon afterward annulled by 
the President. 

The most important measure adopted in the last session of the Thirty-sev- 
enth Congress was the act of conscription. It was one of the latest acts 
passed by this Congress. Almost a year had passed since the Confederate 
government had resorted to conscription as a means of recruiting its armies. 
Hitherto no such measure had been adopted by the national government. 
But the time had now come when both necessity and justice demanded its 
adoption. 

The necessity of such a measure was obvious. Over a million of men 
had volunteered for periods varying from three months to three years.) Of 
these there remained in the service between 600,000 and 700,000. About 
160,000 of those who had disappeared from the field had been enlisted for 
Over one fourth, therefore, of those who had volun- 


ease, had been discharged for physical disability, or had deserted. The large 
number of men drawn from industrial pursuits had increased the demand for 
labor, and the price thereof. The depreciation of the national currency had 
still farther increased the price of labor. These circumstances, taken in con- 
nection with the diminution of martial enthusiasm, made it impossible any 
longer to depend upon volunteers. 

But, apart from this consideration, it was not fitting that the entire burden 
of the battle should be borne by those alone whose patriotism was sufficient 
for the sacrifice. Especially in a struggle which involved national honor, 
and even national existence, was it the duty of the government to insist upon 
its claim to the military service of every able-bodied citizen. By enroll: 
ing the entire militia of the states, which would thus become the grand re- 
serve of the army, and by drafting from the whole number as many men, 
and at such periods, as the exigencies of the service might demand, seemed 
both the most efficient and the most impartial method of obtaining recruits. 
There could be no question either as to the constitutional power of Congress 
to enroll the militia, or as to the power of the executive, with the consent of 
Congress, to make requisition by draft. The Constitution authorizes Con- 
gress— 

‘To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, 
suppress insurrections, and repel invasions ; 


city, but before official knowledge of it had arrived, General Jackson still maintained martial or 
military law. Now, that it could be said the war was over, the clamor against martial law, which 
had existed from the first, grew more furious. Among other things, a Mr. Louaillier published a 
denunciatory newspaper article. General Jackson arrested him. A lawyer by the name of Mo- 
rel procured the U. S. Judge Hall to order a writ of habeas corpus to relieve Mr. Louaillier. Gen- 
eral Jackson arrested both the lawyer and the judge. A Mr. Hollander ventured to say of some 
part of the matter that ‘it was a dirty trick.’ General Jackson arrested him. When the officer 
undertook to serve the writ of habeas corpus, General Jackson took it from him, and sent him away 
with a copy. Holding the judge in custody a few days, the general sent him beyond the limits 
of his encampment, and set him at liberty, with an order to remain till the ratification of peace 
should be regularly announced, or until the British should have left the southern coast. A day 
or two more elapsed, the ratification of the treaty of peace was regularly announced, and the 
judge and others were fully liberated. A few days more, and the judge called General Jackson into 
court and fined him $1000 for having arrested him and the others named. The General paid the 
fine, and there the matter rested for nearly thirty years, when Congress refunded principal and 
interest. The late Senator Douglas, then in the House of Representatives, took a leading part in 
the debates, in which the constitutional question was much discussed. I am not prepared to say 
whom the journals would show to have voted for the measure. 

“‘It may be remarked, First, that we had the same Constitution then as now; secondly, that 
we then had a case of invasion, and now we have a case of rebellion; and, thirdly, that the per- 
manent right of the people to public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the trial by 
jury, the law of evidence, and the habeas corpus, suffered no detriment whatever by that conduct 
of General Jackson, or its subsequent approval by the American Congress. 

‘* And yet let me say that, in my own discretion, I do not know whether I should have order- 
ed the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. While I can not shift the responsibility from myself, I hold 
that, as a general rule, the commander in the field is the better judge of the necessity in any par- 
ticular case. Of course, I must practice a general directory and revisory power in the matter. 

‘One of the resolutions expresses the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have 
the effect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the rebellion, and I am 
specifically called on to discharge Mr. Vallandigham, I regard this as, at least, a fair appeal to me 
on the expediency of exercising a constitutional power which I think exists. In response to such 
appeal, I have to say, it gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested— 
that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him—and that 
it will afford me great pleasure to discharge him so soon as I can, by any means, believe the pub- 
lic safety will not suffer by it. 

‘*T farther say, that as the war progresses, it appears to me opinion and action, which were in 
great confusion at first, take shape and fall into more regular channels, so that the necessity for 
strong dealing with them gradually decreases. Ihave every reason to desire that it should cease 
altogether, and far from the least is my regard for the opinion and wishes of those who, like the 
meeting at Albany, declare their purpose to sustain the government in every constitutional and 
lawful measure to suppress the rebellion. Still, I must continue to do so much as may seem to be 
required for the public safety. A. Lincotn.” 


‘ It is impossible to calculate exactly the number of volunteers in 1861 and 1862, but. the fol- 
lowing table gives an approximate estimate : 


SvaTEs, 3 Months. 9 Months. 3 Years. Total. 
Maine. cetsecoreocee ree 779 7,493 24,771 33,043 
New Hamipshirevesm-serecess 800 2,023 14,915 17,738 
“‘Vermotitzes: otuceneecre eee 782 4,777 13,457 19,006 
Massachusetts )..ce-crcecensrer ae 3,736 16,896 50,406 71,038 
Rhode Tsland sssssseescodte cess 3,147 2,069 9,410 14,626 
Connecticut peeraieeceeeete te 2,340 5,697 20,182 28,219 
New, York sscsseeeeeeee ences! 15, 922 176,783 192, 705 
IN6W JOESCy nrc, soneeoneerersesnee 3, 105 10, 714 16,395 80,214 
Pennsylvania acs-ccyeheecen cree: 20,979 15,100 164,257 194,558 
OBICEEE iv ses teeters 26,893 143, 228 170, 121 
Indiandisescsssceeccocenareceseee 4,698 93, 840 104,316 
KIlinoisteeescereacotee ctr eiree cee 4,901 130,539 185,440 
Michi ganitsecicrndstetestevcesssc: 780 44,890 45,670 
WiISCOTISING. (aces ceseve at ees 810 491 39,345 40,646 
MMINNESOLUG.. < sosee eas fesets cee: 930 1,200 10,136 12, 266 
DOW Bivnscctatsetevusessters sesadewnces 959 47,855 48,814 
MISSOUTAN ecg tatnoe ome creat 27,407 27,407 
Kentucky. ceccgtnt arses tech sence: 878 41,163 42,041 
Delaware) npesascor nes teasctetes ‘ 

Many land trencsescnccseces steers | e a 
VAN CIM Ia oc mecca saresctfeeancets > S 
EL CN HOSEOG oan semasis reviaa soar eos ( = 2 
Californinacsercctsasctcstrsccches J 
91,561 67, 335 1,227,758 


This estimate does not include 30,131 men enlisted in New York for two years, 2589 twelve- 
months’ men enlisted in Pennsylvania, nor 15,853 men raised for the defense of Maine, Pennsyl- 
yania, Missouri, and Kentucky. Including these, the grand total reaches 1,276,331. 


Fesrvary, 1863. ] 


«To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the 
United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the of- 
ficers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline 
prescribed by Congress.” 

With the exception of official appointments and the authority of train- 
ing the militia, the state governments, under the Constitution, have nothing 
whatsoever to do with the raising of armies for the United States service. 

On the 5th of February a bill for enrolling and drafting the militia was 
reported to the Senate by Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Military Affairs. The batteries of the opposition were immedi- 
ately opened against it. As there was no valid constitutional objection to 
the bill, it is fair to consider the attempt on the part of certain members in 
the two houses to defeat it as an indication of their opposition to the war it- 
self. Apart from this, they were also influenced by a political motive of the 
most contemptible sort. They knew that so long as the nation depended 
upon volunteers its armies would be filled from the ranks of those who 
heartily supported the administration, while those who were politically op- 
posed to the war would remain at home, and support by their votes the op- 
position party. If, however, the government called upon all its citizens 
alike, in the method proposed by this bill, then the soldiers would be drawn 
in just proportion from among the supporters and opponents of the admin- 
istration. The bill would also, if successful, defeat the purposes of the op- 
position leaders, who hoped to see the army dwindle away under the volun- 
teer system, which, they knew, must prove inadequate. It is easy to under- 
stand, therefore, how these men in Congress pronounced the bill one ‘of 
doubtful propriety and doubtful constitutionality,” “ despotic,” “conferring 
upon the President of the United States more power than belongs to any 
despot in Europe or any where else.” This bill passed the Senate, the yeas 
and nays not being called. The vote on Mr. Bayard’s motion, that the meas- 
ure be indefinitely postponed, shows the exact strength of the opposition. 
Eleven Democrats voted in favor of postponement; 85 voted against it, in- 
cluding every Republican present, with Messrs. McDougall, of California, and 
Harding and Nesmith, of Oregon. 

The bill came up for consideration in the House on the 23d of February. 
The same objections were urged which had been offered in the Senate. Mr. 
Thomas, of Maryland, who was strongly opposed to emancipation, to the use 
of negro soldiers, and to confiscation, but who yet had no sympathy with re- 
bellion, supported the measure as necessary.” Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, 


1 In the Senate Mr. Wilson strongly urged the passage of the bill. ‘‘ We are now,” he said, 
engaged in a gigantic struggle for the preservation of the life of the nation, menaced by the foul- 
est and most wicked rebellion recorded in the annals of mankind. The young men of the repub- 
lic for more than twenty months have been thronging to the field to uphold the cause of their per- 
iled country. They left their homes in the pride and bloom, and filled with the high hopes of 
young manhood. ‘Those noble regiments of volunteers that left their homes full of lusty life, and 
in all the pride and strength of assured manhood, are now thinned and wasted by the diseases of 
the camp and the storms of battle. 

“The old regiments hardly average now more than four hundred men in the field fit for the 
stern duties of war. Many who rallied at the call of their country, and who followed its flag with 
unswerving devotion, now sleep in bloody graves, or linger in hospitals, or, bending beneath disease 
and wounds, can no longer fill the ranks of our legions in camp or on the battle-field. If we 
mean to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws, if we mean to preserve the 
unity of the republic, if we mean that America shall live and have a position and name among the 
nations, we must fill the broken and thinned ranks of our wasted battalions. 

‘¢The issue is now clearly presented to the country for the acceptance or rejection of the Ameri- 
can people—an inglorious peace, with a dismembered Union and a broken nation on the one hand, 
or war, fought out until the rebellion is crushed beneath its iron heel. Patriotism, as well as free- 
dom, humanity, and religion, accepts the bloody issues of war, rather than peace purchased with 
the dismemberment of the republic and the death of the nation. 

‘< Tf we accept peace, disunion, death, then we may speedily summon home again our armies ; 
if we accept war until the flag of the republic waves over every foot of our united country, then 
we must see to it that the ranks of our armies, broken by toil, disease, and death, are filled again 
with the health and vigor of life. ‘To fill the thinned ranks of our battalions we must again call 
upon the people. The immense numbers already summoned to the field, the scarcity and high re- 
wards of labor, press upon all of us the conviction that the ranks of our wasted regiments can not 
be filled again by the old system of volunteering. If volunteers will not respond to the call of 
the country, then we must resort to the involuntary system.” 

2 «The policy,” said he, ‘‘inaugurated on the Ist of December, 1861, has been fruitless of good. 
It has changed the ostensible, if not the real issue of the war. That policy, and the want of per- 
sistent vigor in our military counsels, render any farther reliance upon voluntary enlistments futile. 
The nostrums have all failed. Confiscation, emancipation by Congress, emancipation by the 
proclamation of the President, compensated emancipation, arbitrary arrests, paper made legal ten- 
der, negro armies, will not do the mighty work. Nothing will save us now but victories in the field 
and on the sea, and then the proffer of the olive-branch, with the most liberal terms of reconcilia- 
tion and reunion. We can get armies in no other way but by measures substantially those in the 
bill before us, unless the administration will retrace its steps, and return to the way of the Consti- 
tution—for us the strait and narrow way which leads unto life. At any rate, the war on paper 
is at an end. The people have, for a time, been deluded by it. ‘That delusion exists no longer. 
If you are to suppress this rebellion, all instrumentalities will fail you but the power of your own 
right arm. Mr. Speaker, the measures and policy heretofore pursued have not been merely fruit- 
less of good, they have been fruitful of evil. They have made, or largely contributed to make, a 
united South; they have made for you a divided North ; they have alienated from the administra- 
tion the confidence and affection of large portions of the people; they have paralyzed your arm, 
and divided your counsels. Gentlemen flatter themselves this alienation and disaffection are the 
work of Democrats; that the people have been misled and deceived by their wiles. Sir, the people 
of this country read, and keep their eyes open, and comprehend, and the plain fact is, you can not 
unite them upon the policy you now pursue. They do not believe in destroying the Union and 
the Constitution in the hope of building up better by force of arms. You may unite them on the 
issue of maintaining the Union and the government at every price and cost, but upon no other. 

‘¢ Having distracted the public mind, having alienated to a great degree the affection and confi- 
dence of the country, what is left to you? To resort to those constitutional powers vested in you 
for the preservation of the government which you have in trust, and which you must use or be 
false to that trust. Gentlemen say the people will not bear this measure. I will not believe it. 
I believe the people of this country are ready to do and to endure every thing for the preservation 
of their unity, their national life, and, through that unity and that national life, all that makes life 
precious to men. They will submit to it. In view of the infinite interests at stake in this great 
controversy ; in the solemn conviction that there is to-day no hope of peace except in disintegra- 
tion; that as a nation we must conquer in arms or perish, they will meet and respond to this im- 
perative call of duty. Such is my hope and trust. 

‘But, Mr. Speaker, suppose they hesitate ; suppose they do not submit; you can but try; you 
have no other hope; the negro will not save you, paper money will not save you, your infractions 
of personal liberty will not save you. If persisted in in the peaceful and loyal states, they will 
ruin you. Go firmly to the people, and present to them the issue. They will understand the ter- 
rible exigency in which the country is placed, and they will be true to that country if you show 
clearly to their comprehension the length, and breadth, and height, and depth of that exigency. 
Mr. Speaker, the issue must be met at all hazards. If the people will not support you, if they will 
not do this highest act of duty, the days of this republic are numbered, and the end is nigh. Sat- 
isfy them that you mean to be true to the Constitution and the Union, and they will be true to you. 

“The issue, I repeat, must be met. You die without this measure; you can do no more with 
it, except you die, as cowards die, many times. I go, therefore, for appealing from these panaceas, 


POLITICAL DEVELOPENTS OF 1863. 


647 


while agreeing with Mr. Thomas as to the causes of the difficulty experi- 
enced by the government in sustaining its military strength by the volun- 
teer system, still opposed the measure.!_ The bill was finally passed, on the 
3d of March, by a vote of 115 to 49. 


and makeshifts, and paper bullets, to this highest, most solemn, and imperative duty of the citizen 
to proteet the life of the state, and I believe that appeal will be answered.” 

1 «The measure, it seems to me,” said he, “is but the natural result of the course of policy 
which this Congress has pursued from the commencement, or yery near the commencement of this 
war. 

‘¢ When this war first broke out, it was a national war, with a single national object ; and upon 
that one purpose and object all hearts were united. That object was the re-establishment of this 
great republic—our republic. Upon that great object, I repeat, we were all united. ‘There was no 
division; and in order to satisfy the country more effectually of the fact of our unity, but little 
more than eighteen months ago a resolution offered by me was passed, almost unanimously, declar- 
ing that this was our sole object. We then declared that this was our only object. We pledged 
ourselves that no interference should be made in any of the institutions of the states having a spe- 
cial reference to the institution of slavery. 

“ Mr, Speaker, had the pledges then solemnly made by this Congress been adhered to, how dif- 
ferent would be the condition of the country to-day! There was then but one sentiment pervad- 
ing the whole people of the country. The people then flocked to your standard by hundreds of 
thousands, filling the ranks of such-an army as the world never saw. There was then but one 
sentiment in the people of the country. No coercion was then talked of. What has produced 
the change that now presents itself? What, as my friend from Massachusetts says, has united the 
South in one solid iron phalanx? What has crushed out, and destroyed to a great extent, if not 
wholly, the confidence and enthusiasm that swelled up in the heart of the people of the nation? 
What has done all this? It is our departing from our faith. It is our departing from that object 
which we declared to be the only just and patriotic one. What else has done it? Have you not 
departed from the policy of that faith ? Have you not, in a manner considered perfidious, violated 
pledges which you gave the country more than eighteen months ago? Was there any discontent 
expressed at that time? Iheard of none. The hearts of the loyal people North and South were 
fired with a common purpose to preserve the integrity and honor of the republic. Every man felt 
himself under every honorable obligation to step forward, and abandon his private affairs, and look 
after the welfare of the Union. That was the undivided, pervading, patriotic sentiment of the 
whole body of the people. Nowhere in the North or Northwest was heard a murmur of discon- 
tent; and the same confidence and patriotic feeling was as strong among the Union men of the 
border states as it was any where in the North and West. It was every where the same. We 
were willing to suffer to the last extremity to preserve the government. That was the feeling of 
the people then ; we all know it. 

‘©What has brought this mighty change? What has done it, Mr. Speaker? Do not we all 
know ? Can there be any doubt on the subject ? It has been our infidelity to the pledges made 
to the people. It has been because of the reckless course of the dominant power. It is because 
of the impolicy of which Congress has been guilty. Is it not time to learn that the course we have 
pursued and are pursuing has produced a state of division and dissension even in the remaining 
states? Yes, sir, the policy that has been recently pursued has been the fruitful source of these 
disastrous dissensions. It has been our departure from our policy of not attacking the institution 
of slavery, and fighting only for the government, for the Union, and the Constitution. 

‘‘ What have we seen at this session? We have passed bills changing the rules and articles of 
war in order that slavery might be encroached upon. We deprive the loyal people of the South 
of all protection by the army for their property. You have passed a law taking the slaves from 
any of the citizens of the country. You have passed a Jaw for organizing an army of three hund- 
red thousand negroes. This, you know, is against the deep-rooted prejndices of at least one half 
our people. Such a bill would have been rejected with one common voice eighteen months ago. 
Even the mention of the subject created profound indignation. You have done this and more. 
You have passed laws, in the opinion of the people, which violate the Constitution. You have 
scorned the friends of the government. You have turned away from us the hearts of the people 
by these measures. We have sown deep the seeds of future disasters to the government. I im- 
plore the House to pause before it sanctions any more measures of that kind. 

‘¢Mr. Speaker, can we carry on the war more successfully by transcending the Constitution 
than we can by obeying it? I have always said that the Constitution was our bulwark ; that it 
was the best defense; that our strongest defense was to keep within the clearly-defined powers of 
that instrument. But what have we done? We have assumed powers not delegated by the Con- 
stitution. We have acted, not according to the provisions of the Constitution, but according to 
the sentiment which actuated us at the moment. We seem to have been controlled by the petty 
spirit of party rather than by the spirit of patriotism and a determination to obey the Constitution 
and the laws. You have lost the heart of the people, and you have lost it by the dogmas you 
have inaugurated and established rather than follow the Constitution. 

‘‘The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) said the other day that we have every man 
in the field that we can get voluntarily. Why is that? Because the object is clearly proclaimed 
of abolishing slavery throughout the United States. You have done this while you have had an 
accidental majority here. Hence it is that the people have changed. This is the only time when 
that party ever had a majority in the House—I mean a majority of Abolitionists. With this acci- 
dental power, what has it done? It has declared emancipation by law. It has declared by law 
for the raising of negro armies. It has declared emancipation and confiscation by law. By these 
means, I say, you have lost the hearts of the people. Why do not the people have the same enthu- 
siasm in the war that they had at first? Then they put a million of men into the field. The 
country is still in peril, in more peril than at first, and why is not an army of two million men 
now put into the field? It is only because of the bad policy by which you have established the 
dogmas of the Abolitionists, of emancipation of slavery throughout the country. It is that which 
has induced them to lose confidence in you. It is not for the country, it is not for the white man, 
it is for the negro this war is to be waged; and for that war Iam not. The logical conclusion 
from the impolitic course we have pursued is, that we have lost the hearts of the people. 

* You say that this bill is framed on the idea that the people will no longer volunteer—that the 
people will no longer stand a draft. Why not? Because the people will not do one thing or 
another; they will neither volunteer nor stand a draft, and you are obliged by law to coerce them. 
That is the condition in which we are placed, and this bill is nothing more than the logical con- 
clusion of what we have previously done. We have created a necessity for it. The people are no 
longer with us, and therefore we must force the people, by coercive and penal laws, by new juris- 
dictions, provost-marshals scattered through the land, and by a new sort of military judicature to 
which, the people have not been accustomed. And knowing that you have an unwilling people to 
deal with, you make that law as coercive as possible, and accompany it with every sort of inquisi- 
torial and compulsory power, judicial and executive, in order to insure obedience, willing or unwil- 
ling, to that law. Is not that our condition fairly considered ? 

‘There is but one sort of consistency which deserves the respect of honest men, and that is to 
let your acts be consistent with your convictions at the time you are called upon to vote. It is not 
what we did yesterday that we are to consider alone. We have lived through a time of trial and 
of trouble. Have we learned nothing? Up to this time I fear we have learned very little. Our 
lessons have been very severe, and the fear of more dangerous lessons hereafter ought to instruct 
us. The life of the country is attacked, and that life is upon your hands, and its preservation de- 
pends in a great measure upon your wisdom, upon your solemn deliberations, and your solemn 
consideration of all the mighty questions upon us. 

<‘Tf we want to get back the Union, how must we do it? We must change our policy. This 
will not answer your purpose. You must get back what you have lost. You have lost the heart 
of the people, and the confidence of the people. The people’s affections are turned away from us, 
and will they bear more exactions and burdens laid upon them? No, sir; you are mistaken in 
the remedy. Your only remedy is to regain the confidence and heart of the people, to substitute 
for the distrust which now exists confidence that your object is a national one, and not a mere 
public one ; not the abolition of slavery, but the salvation of the country. Get that back, and you 
do not want this bill; fail to get it back, and this bill will be just as inoperative as if there was not 
a word written upon it. ; 

“You say a draft will not do; that a draft will not be submitted to. I know nothing about 
that. Will, then, this more exacting provision be submitted to? In a country like ours, laws 
which do not carry along with them the assent of the people are but blank paper. Have you not 
cause to fear that unless you win back the hearts of the people, and their confidence, this bill will 
do no good? You are mistaking the disease altogether. The disease of the public heart is loss 
of confidence in us, members of Congress. It is the Abolition element here which has destroyed 
every thing; that has clouded the great ideas of nationality—the pride of the American heart. 

“That is the disease of the public heart, and you should endeavor to administer measures 
which will reclaim it, and that will heal discontent. And yet in the last moments of our existence 
you are endeavoring to consummate a policy which the people have condemned, and to put the 
people beyond the means of redress. The remedy, and the sole remedy, is by reversion, by retrac- 
ing our steps, and making this again a national war. Then you will not want this bill, nor will 
you want a draft, You will have volunteers enough. I do not speak rashly, because you had vol- 
unteers enough, and more than you knew what to do with, when you stood upon that ground. 
But you chose to change that ground. Political abolitionists thought the time had come for them 
to introduce the sword and the spear into the public arena, and to make use of this war to carry 
out the ends which they have long cherished—the abolition of slavery.” 


648 


OWEN LOVEJOY. 


This act, as passed by Congress, included, as a part of the national forces, 
all able-bodied male citizens of the United States between the ages of twen- 
ty-one and forty-five years, except such as should be rejected as physically 
or mentally unfit for the service. The militia thus enrolled were to be di- 
vided into two classes—the first to contain those under thirty-five and all 
unmarried persons under forty-five; the second, all others liable to military 
duty. The country was to be divided into districts, in each of which an en- 
rollment board was to be established. Those enrolled were subject to be 
called into service for two years from July 1st, 1868, and to continue in serv- 
ice for three years. Any person drafted might furnish an acceptable sub- 
stitute, or pay $300, and be discharged from farther liability under that draft. 
Those who, after being drafted, failed to report, were to be treated as desert- 
ers. No choice was given to those drafted as to the corps or regiment, or as 
to the branch of the service in which they should serve. 

In the House a bill had already been passed, 88 to 54, authorizing the 
President “ to enroll, arm, and equip, and receive into the land or naval serv- 
ice of the United States, such numbers of volunteers of African descent as he 
may deem useful to suppress the present rebellion, for such term as he may 
prescribe, not exceeding five years.” This bill was not passed by the Sen- 
ate, on the ground that the authority thereby granted had already been giv- 
en in the act of July 17, 1862. 

Karly in the session a discussion was opened in the House which brought 
out an expression of views as to the position of the insurgent states in their 
relation to the general government. On the 8th of January, the appropria- 
tion bill being under consideration, an amendment was offered to add to the 
clause for the compensation of thirty-three revenue commissioners and twelve 
clerks (with salaries amounting to $112,000) a proviso that their compensa- 
tion should be collected in the insurgent states. Thaddeus Stevens, of Penn- 
sylvania, insisted that the Constitution did not embrace a state in arms 
against the government. ‘The establishment of a blockade,” he said, ad- 
mitted the Southern States, the Confederates, to be a belligerent power. 
Foreign nations have all admitted them as a belligerent power. Whenever 
that came to be admitted by us and by foreign nations, it placed the rebel- 
lious states precisely in the position of an alien enemy with regard to duties 
and obligations.” He held, therefore, that all obligations or contracts previ- 
ously existing between these states and the general government were abro- 
gated, and that the former were to be treated simply in accordance with the 
laws of war. ‘“ With regard to all the Southern states in rebellion the Con- 
stitution has no binding influence and no application.” In his opinion these 
states were not members of the Union, nor under the laws of the govern- 
ment. He proposed to levy the tax and collect it as a war measure. 

In this expression of opinion Mr. Stevens was not sustained by his party. 
Abram Olin, of New York, held this doctrine in utter abhorrence—equally 
unsound and mischievous as that of the so-called right of secession. Mr. 
Thomas, of Massachusetts, favored the amendment, but would collect the 
tax under the provisions of the Constitution, “ because to-day, as always 
heretofore, the authority of the national government covers every inch of 
the territory of the national domain; because that law which we call the 


* The following persons were exempted: The Vice-President, the judges of United States courts, 
the heads of executive departments, and the governors of the several states; the only son, laible 
to military service, of a widow dependent upon his labor for support; the only son of aged or in- 
firm parent or parents dependent upon his labor for support; also, where there are two or more 
sons of aged or infirm parents subject to draft, the father, or, if he be dead, the mother, may elect 
which son should be exempt; also the father of motherless children under twelve years of age, 
dependent upon his labor for support ; also, where there were a father and sons in the same fam- 
ily and household, and two of them were in the military service as non-commissioned officers, mu- 


sicians, or privates, the residue of such family should be exempt; and all were exempt who had 
veen convicted of any felony. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| whether one half, one fourth, one tenth, or one hundredth. 


[FEBRUARY, 1863. 


Constitution is to-day the supreme law of the land.’ Mr. Lovejoy, of Illi- 
nois, emphatically repudiated Mr. Stevens’s theory.” 

On the 18th of February the bill to provide a national currency came up 
for consideration in the Senate. The President, in his message, had urged 
the passage of this bill. It passed the Senate by a majority of two votes— 
23 to 21—and the House by a vote of 78 to 64.° 


‘ Mr. Stevens did not claim to speak for his party. ‘‘I desire,” he said, ‘‘to say that I know 
perfectly well . . . . Ido not speak the sentiments of this side of the house as a party. I 
know more than that: that, for the last fifteen years, I have always been a step ahead of the party 
I have acted with in these matters ; but I have never been so far ahead, with the exception of the 
principles I now enunciate, but that the members of the party have overtaken me and gone ahead; 
and they, together with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Olin), will again overtake me, and 
go with me, before this infamous and bloody rebellion is ended. ‘They will find that they can not 
execute the Constitution in the seceding states; that it is a total nullity there, and that this war 
must be carried on upon principles wholly independent of it. They will come to the conclusion 
that the adoption of the measures I advocated at the outset of the war—the arming of the ne- 
groes, the slaves of the rebels—is the only way left on earth by which these rebels can be exterm- 
inated. They will find that they must treat those states now outside of the Union as con- 
quered provinces, and settle them with new men, and drive the present rebels as exiles from this 
country ; for I tell you they have the pluck and endurance for which I gave them credit a year and 
a half ago, in a speech which I made, but which was not relished on this side of the house, nor by 
the people in the free states. They have such determination, energy, and endurance, that noth- 
ing but actual extermination, or exile, or starvation will ever induce them to surrender to this gov- 
ernment. I do not now ask gentlemen to indorse my views, nor do I speak for any body but my- 
self; but, in order that I may have some credit for sagacity, I ask that gentlemen will write this 
down in their memories. It will not be two years before they will call it up, or before they will 
adopt my views, or adopt the other alternative of a disgraceful submission by this side of the 
country.” 

zie Tionudiate” said he, ‘‘the theory which, if I understand the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
is his theory, that, if I own a vessel, the mere fact that pirates come and take possession of it de- 
stroys the validity of my title to it. I may not be in possession; I may go and demand the pos- 
session to which { am legally and constitutionally entitled, and force may prevent my taking pos- 
session ; but that does not invalidate my rightful claim. 

“‘T hold that if one third of the citizens of Kentucky are loyal, the state belongs to that third ; 
that if one fourth of the citizens of Tennessee are loyal, the state belongs to that fourth ; and that 
just as soon as the government can enforce their rights, it is bound to enforce them; and the 
whole machinery of state government can be set going by those who remain, who are loyal, 
The right of the federal government 
never was invalidated, and never ceased for a moment.” 

* The provisions of the bill, the objections to it, and the arguments in its favor, will be best shown 
by_the following speeches of Senators Collamer, of Vermont, and Sherman, of Ohio: 

Mr. Collamer opposed the bill. ‘‘ What,” asked he, ‘are its great purposes and objects as stat- 
ed by those who framed, recommended, and support it? It is said to be to institute a great na- 
tional paper currency through the medium of banks, to be organized under this act, who are to 
take United States stocks and deposit them in the Treasury, and take ninety per cent. of them in 
notes to circulate as money, with which to do banking business, and that they shall have twenty- 
five per cent. more than this circulating part as a permanent capital to work upon. They are to 
pay two per cent. on their circulation to the United States government annually, or one per cent. 
every six months, and the United States are to pay them six per cent. per annum on the bonds in 
gold. The United States further agree that they will take all this money in circulation, receive 
it for and pay it out on all public dues, and declare it to be in the act a national currency. Be- 
sides that, the United States agree that they will guarantee to the bill-holders the payment of these 
bills at the Treasury. Ifthe banks do not redeem them in currency when asked for their redemp- 
tion, they may be protested and presented at the Treasury, and the Treasury is to pay them, and 
to pay them in full, whether the stocks left upon deposit are able to meet them or not. Besides 
this investment, the property put into these associations is itself to be clear of taxation. 

‘“ Now, Mr. President, it is to be further understood, and is an integral part of the very system, 
without which it is good for nothing, that the circulation of the existing banks of the country is to 
be withdrawn. Measures are to be taken with those banks that shall induce or compel them to 
take home their circulation and put it out no more, so that this shall be a national currency. Un- 
less this latter part of the scheme is secured, its great professed object of making a uniform na- 
tional currency throughout the United States is not and can not be effected. It therefore implies 
all this, and we must understand that if we enter upon this proposition and entertain this plan, 
we are to take measures in order to perfect it to do the other thing; that is, to destroy, put out of 
existence, the circulation of the present state banks. 

“The Supreme Court, in the case of McCullough vs. Maryland, decided that the United States 
had the right to make a United States Bank, with branches in different states, and they said the 
states could not tax that United States Bank. Why? Because the exercise of that power in the 
extreme would destroy it, and therefore you would make it out that the Congress had a power to 
establish a bank; but, after all, it was subject to the power of the states to put it down. In the 
case of Kentucky, the Supreme Court decided that the long-continued usage in this country in 
states to make banks was constitutional, and that a state had a right to make a bank of issue. 
There were other questions in that case which it is not necessary now to bring in here. It was 
decided that a state had a right, not to make a bank to issue the state paper, but a bank to issue 
paper currency. 

‘Now, sir, if a state has that right, it has that right certainly independent of the consent of 
Congress. Does it hold it at the will of Congress ? Certainly not. The United States, in mak- 
ing a United States Bank, held it independent of state action, and it was so decided. If the state 
has this right, and has it independent of the consent of Congress, it can not have that right if the 
United States can tax it out of existence. Hence I say the United States has no more power to 
tax a state institution out of existence than a state has to tax a United States institution out of 
existence. I should like to see that answered. I have sometimes proposed that question, but I 
have never received any answer to it. In most of the states, the State of New York, for instance, 
almost all their banks are founded upon their own state stocks. It is a part of their financial sys- 
tem to make their stocks valuable, and to enable them to make internal improvements, All these 
state banks are more or less connected with and ramified in with the business of their several states. 
Can they be taxed out of existence by the United States? Why, sir, you might just as well tell 
me that the United States, under the power of taxation, could go on and extinguish all the schools 
in New England by taxing its schools, its colleges, and its academies, and their books, and their 
buildings, and the salaries of the professors, and in that way destroy them under the very general 
principle of the power of universal taxation. I shall not dwell any longer upon that point. Ihave 
stated my view upon it. 

‘But, Mr. President, there is another principle involved in this measure, and I am looking at it 
now in its great national aspects, as a national principle, without regard to the time. I say it is 
to establish corporations in all the states and Territories, entirely independent of any power of vis- 
itation by those states or Territories. This, to say the least of it, is an extremely questionable 
power. What may be the number of these institutions? As the capital is to be $300,000, 000, 
that will make three thousand banks of $100,000 each; and the bill provides that they may be 
made $50,000 banks, which will make six thousand $50,000 banks. I believe we have now, in 
what are called the loyal states, between thirteen and fourteen hundred banks altogether ; and this 
bill proposes to make at least three thousand, or perhaps six thousand of these bank corporations, 
established all over the states. 

“That is not all. It is proposed that there shall be no other banks but these; the whole bank- 
ing capital is to be put into these banks, and the whole of that property is removed from all state 
taxation. I ask gentlemen to reflect on what will be the effect in their different states of closing 
up the present banks, and taking the capital belonging to the stockholders, putting it into the banks 
under this bill, and removing the whole of it from all the forms of state taxation—state, county, 
city, and town. Many of our states derive their school-fund from what they obtain from these 
state banks, I believe it is so in New Hampshire. They have their school-fund in that way. 

‘‘The next point to which I desire to call attention is the propriety of our undertaking as a 
nation to say that we will be responsible for the ultimate redemption of these bills by the securities 
that are deposited. I am aware that the honorable senator who is the parent of the bill here thinks 
he has got in it something very valuable, in the provision about the liability of individual stock- 
holders, and requiring twenty-five per cent. of the amount of their circulation to be kept on hand. 
All these things, to my mind, are hardly worth the paper on which they are written; they are 
good for nothing at all. How can you follow the responsibility of stockholders? ‘The very stocks 
are assignable ; they are personal property. They are bought and sold in the market every day 
for more or less, according to their worth. Although one of these banks may start with some 
very responsible men when it first sets up, the moment it becomes at all doubtful or troublesome 
it quickly passes off into the hands of men who have no responsibility. You can never pursue it 
in that way. As to the provision that they shall retain twenty-five per cent. on their circulation 
on hand, that is their own money; it is not United States money. The fact is just this: when- 
ever your bonds that you hold for your security to redeem these bills depreciate essentially, the 
bank will wind up, and they will do it without any sort of disparagement or any dishonesty. The 
stockholders will say at once to themselves, ‘We have noticed the fall of these stocks; we know 


Fesrvary, 1863. ] a 


The bill for the admission of West Virginia passed both houses during 
this session. It first came up before the House of Representatives on the 


that they are very much down; we will not redeem any more of these bills; we will leave them 
to be redeemed by the government; we gave them $100,000 and deposited it with them in bonds ; 
they only allowed us $90,000; that is all we have had of them; we leave these notes in their 
hands to redeem; we will let them redeem them; we gave them a great deal more than they ever 
gave us, and let them redeem them.’ When would that occur? Why, sir, in great national ca- 
lamities such as those under which we already suffer by the unfortunate proceedings of this war, 
we know that public stocks rise and fall with the prosperity or decline of the nation. 

‘* Again, I will take the very reverse of this state of things. Suppose we should close this un- 
fortunate controversy and return to peace. The moment you are at peace every man wants all 
the money he has got to go into business.. He has lent it to the United States, taken this, that, 
or the other sort of stock, in order to have it earn something while this public controversy and 
difficulty was going on. ‘The moment that is ended he wants his money to go into business again 
in our cities and towns—importing and the like. He immediately cashes these bonds, and a very 
large portion of these bonds will at once be thrown on the market at a discount the moment you 
are at peace. In either of these cases, whether from public calamity or from peace, there comes 
a deterioration upon the yalue of these bonds; these banks are wound up, the bills are protested 
and presented to the Treasury here in bundles for payment. What will you do? It is said in 
the bill that they are to be paid here. You may take the stocks the bank left as security and go 
and sell them in the market, and thus get money to pay them. If they have deteriorated so 
much that the banks do not want to pay their bills, it will be a pretty hard bargain for us to pay 
them with those bonds. We should have to sell at as much discount as they. Besides, we do 
not get rid of any thing in that way. We have to anticipate our bonds. They run twenty years. 
We have got to pay these notes when they are presented; and if we sell our bonds at a discount 
in the market to get some money to redeem them with, we have got to meet that bond in the end, 
have we not? We do not get rid of it at all; but we are compelled to get the money about twen- 
ty years before it is due. I do not see the policy, the expediency, or the profit of such a bargain. 

“The next aspect to which I will call attention is this: we once had, or twice had, a United 
States Bank. The history of the last one is within the recollection of most of those who hear me. 
That bank had a capital of $35,000,000. ‘The proposition now is to make United States banks 
with a capital of $300,000,000. ‘The United States took $7,000,000 of that stock. They paid 
nothing in, but put in their stock for it on time. ‘They had directors of their own appointed to 
keep watch of that bank. They had the right to borrow money at that bank. The bank was 
bound to loan it to them at a certain rate and limitation. They went on with that bank during 
the whole period of its existence. They took their dividends from year to year by extinguishing 
the payment of interest on their bonds; and at the close of the whole they received back their 
stock and ten per cent. upon it of accumulated profits that had not been divided. Every body con- 
cerned in it was paid, the stock was paid back; and the United States made that money. 

‘¢ Now, sir, why did that institution go down; or, rather, why was it not renewed, and enlarged, 
and adapted to the condition of the country? It was because it was said to be a dangerous polit- 
ical engine in the hands of whatever political party existed at the time; that it would be used as 
a great machine in the different states by the favor which the government would give it, or the 
control which they would exercise over it; and it was dangerous, as it was said then, and I think 
it was demonstrable. 

‘«Mr. President, look at the proposition now before us in this aspect. It provides that the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury shall nominate the Comptroller of the Currency. He can be appointed by 
the President only on the nomination of the Secretary of the Treasury; and he is given any num- 
ber (not limited at all) of clerks and agents.’ There are established, if you please, three thousand 
of these banks under this bill, of $100,000 each, scattered through all the country. They can be 
visited by agents appointed here under this bill, and inspected from time to time, and reported 
upon. ‘The Secretary is authorized to make such of them as he thinks proper depositories of the 
public reyenue, and he is to distribute this stock, one half of the $300,000,000 to the different 
states according to their representative population, and the other half according to the banking 
resources of the country; there is no limitation upon him whatever. If the old United States 
Bank. furnished well-grounded apprehensions of its dangerous political tendency as a political 
agency, permit me to ask gentlemen to reflect for a moment on what you have got here, with 
$300,000,000 of capital, with three thousand banks subject to inspection, and to be troubled just 
as much as the head of the Treasury Department pleases, if they do not support his views; or to 
receive favors by way of being made depositories for the public dues; and the Secretary having 
the power to appoint agents and clerks ad libitum. I do not wish to enlarge upon this point at 
all, but I say this: if a Secretary of the Treasury can be furnished with these powers and chooses 
to use them, he must be a very bungling politician if he can not make himself President any day. 

‘«Then, putting it in plain English, you propose to hire these people to go into these associations, 
take these bonds, and deposit them. ‘They are to pay two per cent. on their circulation, and you 
pay them six on their bonds. I will call it four per cent.; though it is more, as the gentleman 
knows, because the two per cent. they pay in currency, and the six per cent. we pay in gold. The 
amount of it is this: we say to them, ‘If you will do this to the amount of $300,000,000, and put 
out notes to the extent of ninety per cent. of the bonds, we will pay you $12,000,000 in gold every 
year for doing it.” You may talk about its being in the form of bonds, but that does not alter it 
at all, We/are to enter into that arrangement with them. If they take their money, buy these 
bonds, put them on deposit, issue paper to the extent of ninety per cent. of those bonds and circu- 
late it, and pay two per cent. on that circulation, we pay them six on the bonds; that is, we pay 
them four per cent. on the bonds, if they will do us this great service! ‘There is all there is about 
it. You may discuss it as you please, and use a great many financial expressions and schemes; 
but that is the English of it; that is the simple common sense of it. Instead of circulating that 
amount of our own currency upon our own responsibility and paying nothing, we are to hire them 
to circulate that amount of our currency, and pay them $12,000,000 a year in gold for doing it; 
and we are to be responsible after all. That is all there is of it. Yankee as 1am, Iam unable to 
perceive how it is possible that that can be a good trade for us, or how any shrewd man would ever 
think of entering into an agreement of that kind. 

‘Tt is said, however, that it is a fair tax in proportion to our other war taxes. Let us look at 
this fora moment. My neighbor here has $100,000 saved, we will say, and having retired from 
business, he lives by loaning out that money, and he realizes six per cent. a year on it. How much 
do we tax him? One hundred and eighty dollars, three per cent. on what he gets. I am going 
now upon the ground that he has got $6000 income in some other way. We tax him three per 
cent. on his gain; and that is $180, although he has used $100,000. Here are three other neigh- 
bors of mine—I will not include myself, because that would make the supposition too improbable 
—who have $100,000, and they bank with it according to the law of their state. What do they 
make? Perhaps they make eight per cent. If they do make $8000 on the $100,000, they have 
to pay a tax of three per cent. on that now, and it goes into the Treasury. But what is the prop- 
osition here? The government says to them, ‘You have got $100,000 invested in banking; you 
will therefore probably have about $150,000 of circulation; we will tax you on the $150,000 one 
per cent. every six months, or two per cent. a year.’ How much will that be? Three thousand 
dollars. ‘ For the use of your $100,000 in banking you shall pay $3000 a year.’ ‘The other man, 
for the use of his $100,000, pays but $180 a year. Do you call that fair and equal taxation? 
The one pays $180, while the other, on the same amount of capital, pays $3000. It is perfectly 
monstrous. 

‘But, in the next place, I think it a mere matter of figures, and capable of mathematical cer- 
tainty about this problem of whether banks will be set up in my part of the country under this bill, 
even if the existing banks are all destroyed. ‘To illustrate it, I will take the plain case of a 
$100,000 bank, because that is the ordinary size of a country bank in my part of the country, and 
it is, in round numbers, easy of calculation. You are to take $100,000, go and buy bonds with it, 
leave them there, and take out $90,000 of circulating notes. As to exchange, that is to be the 
same all over the country, and that is to be no item in the profit of a bank hereafter. 

‘*Now let us see how it will work. In the first place, I believe I am borne out by examination 
of experienced men in saying that you can not operate a country bank, or any bank of the amount 
of $100,000, with less than $2500 per year. Pay your cashier, open your office, warm it, light it, 
take care of it, pay your expresses, and do all your business, and it can not be done for less than 
$2500, and that is putting it very low. Now a $100,000 bank, under this bill, will, in the first 
place, get from the government of the United States $4000 a year interest, after paying the tax. 
We understand that. They lend the $90,000 which they receive, and they get six per cent. inter- 
est onthat. That interest would amount to $5400. There is all they can make without stealing. 
It is all that can be made. What does it cost? It costs $2500 to operate the bank, the ordinary 
expenses, and they lose the use of $22,500 for that year, because they are to keep on hand twenty- 
five per cent. on their circulation. They have kept that on hand, and of course the use of it is lost. 
That is over $1300. That expense and loss makes $3800. The interest from the government 
and the interest on the $90,000 amounts to $9400. Deducting the one from the other, it leaves 
$5600. Now what did it make that on? On the $100,000 put in, and the $22,500 which was 
kept on hand, The investment was $122,500, and the profit is $5600; that is, about four per 
cent. ‘That is all that can be made under it. They are to run the risk in their loans of all the 
loanings of $90,000, and getting it out and in, and can not make five per cent., if all works 
smoothly and there are no losses at all. I say that is not a matter of speculation; that is a mat- 
ter of certainty. ‘Those figures which I have given in this instance can not lie.” 

Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, followed in defense of the bill. ‘‘That bankers can make a reasonable 
profit under this bill Ihave no doubt. They have the benefit of four per cent. on the bonds de- 
posited by them. They have the benefit of interest on the notes given them for circulation. They 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1863. 


649 


9th of December, 1862. The senators elected by West Virginia had already 
been admitted into the Senate. The question as to the admission of West 
Virginia as a separate state was involved in great difficulty. While it was 
consistent to recognize the Legislature of this portion of Virginia as the 
Legislature of the state, to the exclusion of that assembled at Richmond, it 
was still a violation of the Constitution to admit West Virginia as a separate 
state. T'o do this was to take the ground which Mr.Stevens held—that the 
Constitution had no longer any application to the states engaged in rebel- 
lion. Probably not more than one third of the proposed new state were in 
favor of its separation from Virginia. But the bill passed the House 96 to 
55, and the Senate without debate. 

On the 9th of February, 1863, resolutions were adopted by the House ad- 
mitting to seats in that body Benjamin F. Flanders and Michael Hahn, elect- 
ed from the first and second Congressional districts of Louisiana. The adop- 
tion of these resolutions was a protest on the part of the House against the 
political theories of Thaddeus Stevens. 

Resolutions were adopted in both houses toward the close of the session 
repudiating foreign mediation in our civil war. These were passed in the 
Senate 31 to 5, and in the House 108 to 28.1. The occasion for this action 


have the benefit of exchange ; not the rates of exchange formerly paid, but that incidental exchange 
which every bank charges in drawing a draft, probably a quarter or a half of one per cent. They 
have the profits they can make from deposits. They have other profits from the ordinary incidents 
of banking. Ihave no doubt, from all these various profits, they will make what banks in ordina- 
ry times under specie payments could make, that is, seven or eight per cent. a year. 

‘‘ But, sir, the principal point made by the honorable senator, and one most likely to influence 
the judgment of senators, is this: he asks what benefit the United States derives from this ar- 
rangement, and he endeavors by argument to show that the United States derives no benefit. I 
would put to him this simple proposition: there are now $167,000,000 of local bank circulation 
in the country. Suppose we can induce through their interests—I do not propose to do it by any 
arbitrary mode—the retirement of $100,000,000 of this circulation, taking the smallest sum that 
will probably be used in the course of a year; suppose we can induce the banks to withdraw 
$100,000,000 of their circulation, is it no benefit to the United States? Now the United States 
gets no benefit whatever from their circulation. ‘The United States can not receive it in their or- 
dinary business transactions. It fills the channels of circulation to the exclusion of the green- 
backs. Suppose we can induce the banks to withdraw $100,000, 000 of their circulation, and in- 
vest that much money in our bonds, and receive United States circulation, does not the honorable 
senator see that we should derive a great advantage from it? That is the object of this bill. The 
object is, by appealing to the patriotism and the interest of the people and the banks, to induce the 
banks to withdraw their local circulation and convert it into a national circulation. If it fails, as 
a matter of course it does no harm. But suppose it succeeds, does not the United States derive a 
benefit from it? Certainly; because at once a demand is created for the purchase of $100,000,000 
of United States bonds. We are anxious to sell these bonds. ‘They are now below the par of gold. 
The creation of a demand for $100,000,000 will, as I showed yesterday, by the well-known and 
recognized laws of trade, probably create a demand for $500,000,000. ‘There is the benefit, there 
is the advantage we seek to derive. We shall make a market at once for the sale of $100,000,000 
worth of our bonds, and the additional market which is always created by making a demand for 
a particular commodity, which is equivalent at least to five times the amount of the real demand. 
The government of the United States is willing to borrow money from the honorable senator at 
six per cent. and pay the interest in gold coin. Any person who desires to loan money to the 
United States may receive six per cent. interest on it, and we are very glad to sell our bonds at 
that rate in this time of war; but to those who avail themselves of the privileges of this law we 
only pay four per cent., so that we save one third of the interest on the amount of our bonds used 
for banking; and more than that, we get a circulation which by the laws of the United States 
may be used in the collection of our dues; and in the ordinary operations of our government these 
banking agencies may be made useful and beneficial as depositories. ‘There is the answer. ‘The 
benefit derived to the government is by making a market for its bonds, by having fiscal agencies 
throughout the United States, so that it may the more readily collect its debts, and by saying one 
third of the interest on the payment of its bonds, and by securing to the people of the country a 
uniform national currency which can be passed from hand to hand in all parts of the country 
without loss by exchange, or deterioration, or alteration. 

‘¢ But the honorable senator says that the power granted by this bill would render the Secreta- 
ry of the Treasury a very dangerous person, or a very powerful person; probably that is the mean- 
ing. He says that this bill would create a dangerous political power. According to all experi- 
ence, if you invest in any particular person the power to appoint men to office, or the power to 
manage banks or control a scheme of this kind, it rather weakens him. Sir, it will be a danger- 
ous power in one sense; not to the American people, but it will be dangerous to the individual 
who exercises the power. Any man in this country who is clothed with the power of appointing 
men to office, or selecting certain persons to have certain privileges, loses more than he makes, by 
the well-known law that he disappoints more than he benefits. And if you confer upon the Sec- 
retary of War or the Secretary of the Treasury the power to appoint twenty clerks, as we did the 
other day, there are five hundred applicants at once; and you disappoint four hundred and eighty, 
and make them enemies, for the sake of gaining twenty friends. No, sir, the administration of 
patronage, the power to select depositories, all the power conferred by this bill, the power of visit- 
ation, all these are powers which tend rather to decrease the influence of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, because they are more likely to make him enemies than friends.” 

1 The following is the text of the resolutions as offered in the Senate, March 3d, by Mr. Sumner : 

Whereas, it appears from the diplomatic correspondence submitted to Congress that a propo- 
sition, friendly in form, looking to pacification through foreign mediation, has been made to the 
United States by the Emperor of the French, and promptly declined by the President ; and where- 
as the idea of mediation or intervention in some shape may be regarded by foreign governments as 
practicable, and such governments, through this misunderstanding, may be led to proceedings tend- 
ing to embarrass the friendly relations which now exist between them and the United States; and 
whereas, in order to remoye for the future all chance of misunderstanding on this subject, and to 
secure for the United States the full enjoyment of that freedom from foreign interference which is 
one of the highest rights of independent states, it seems fit that Congress should declare its convic- 
tions thereon: Therefore, 

‘* Resolved (the House of Representatives concurring), That while, in times past, the United 
States have sought and accepted the friendly mediation or arbitration of foreign powers for the pa- 
cific adjustment of international questions, where the United States were the party of the one part 
and some other sovereign power the party of the other part; and while they are not disposed to 
misconstrue the natural and humane desire of foreign powers to aid in arresting domestic troubles, 
which, widening in their influence, have afflicted other countries ; especially in view of the circum- 
stance, deeply regretted by the American people, that the blow aimed by the rebellion at the nation- 
al life has fallen heavily upon the laboring population of Europe; yet, notwithstanding these things, 
Congress can not hesitate to regard every proposition of foreign interference in the present contest 
as so far unreasonable and inadmissible, that its only explanation will be found in a misunderstand- 
ing of the true state of the question, and of the real character of the war in which the republic is 
engaged. 

* Resolved, That the United States are now grappling with an unprovoked and wicked rebellion, 
which is seeking the destruction of the republic that it may build a new power, whose corner-stone, 
according to the confession of its chiefs, shall be slavery ; that for the suppression of this rebellion, 
and thus to save the republic and prevent the establishment of such a power, the national govern- 
ment is now employing armies and fleets, in full faith that through these efforts all the purposes of 
conspirators and rebels will be crushed; that while engaged in this struggle, on which so much de- 
pends, any proposition from a foreign power, whatever form it may take, having for its object the 
arrest of these efforts, is, just in proportion to its influence, an encouragement to the rebellion and 
to its declared pretensions, and, on this account, is calculated to prolong and embitter the conflict, 
to cause increased expenditure of blood and treasure, and to postpone the much-desired day of peace : 
that, with these convictions, and not doubting that every such proposition, although made with good 
intent, is injurious to the national interests, Congress will be obliged to look upon any further at- 
tempt in the same direction as an unfriendly act, which it earnestly deprecates, to the end that noth- 
ing may occur abroad to strengthen the rebellion or to weaken those relations of good-will with for- 
eign powers which the United States are happy to cultivate. . ; ; 

“* Resolved, That the rebellion from its beginning, and far back even in the conspiracy which 
preceded its outbreak, was encouraged by the hope of support from foreign powers ; that its chiefs 
frequently boasted that the people of Europe were so far dependent upon regular supplies of the 
great Southern staple, that sooner or later their governments would be constrained to take side with 
the rebellion in some effective form, even to the extent of forcible intervention, if the milder form 
did not prevail; that the rebellion is now sustained by this hope, which every proposition of foreign 


8—-B 


650 


on the part of Congress was the offer of mediation made by the French gov- 
ernment early in the year. During the year 1862 the Emperor Napoleon 
had proposed to the Russian and British governments to join him in trying 
to bring about an armistice of six months between “the federal govern- 
ment and the Confederates of the South.” The proposition was in both cases 
declined. On the 9th of January, 1863, M. Drouyn de |’Huys, the French 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed M. Mercier, the French minister at 
Washington, on this subject. The government, he said, in proffering its 
good offices, had been guided by its friendship toward the United States. 
“We can not,” he added, “regard without profound regret this war, worse 
than civil, comparable to the most terrible distractions of the ancient repub- 
lics, and whose disasters multiply in proportion to the resources and valor 
which each of the belligerent parties develop.” It was urged, also, that re- 
course to the good offices of one or several neutral powers contained noth- 
ing incompatible with the pride of a great nation, and that mediation might 
be as useful in civil as in international wars. Plainly the French emperor 
ill understood the real temper of the government to which he made this of- 
fer. Undoubtedly he would have been joined by the British government 
in his offer had not the latter been recently (November, 1862) advised by 
Lord Lyons that such an offer at the present crisis would be injurious to the 
peace party in the North. Perhaps, also, Napoleon was deceived as to the 
real import of the autumn elections of 1862, mistaking them for an indica- 
tion of a popular desire for peace even at the price of disunion. 

Secretary Seward’s reply was at once courteous and firm. It was ac- 
knowledged that the people of France were “faultless sharers with the 
American nation” in the misfortunes of the war. The traditional friendship 
between France and the United States had not been forgotten. The land 
and naval forces of the United States had steadily advanced, until now the 
Confederates retained “ only the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Texas, with 
half of Virginia, half of North Carolina, two thirds of South Carolina, half of 
Mississippi, and one third respectively of Arkansas and Louisiana.” The 
determination to preserve the integrity of the country had not relaxed. 
“This government,” said the secretary, ‘if required, does not hesitate to sub- 
mit its achievements to the test of comparison; and it maintains that, in no 
part of the world, and in no times, ancient or modern, has a nation, when ren- 
dered all unready for combat by the enjoyment of eighty years of almost un- 
broken peace, so quickly awakened at the alarm of sedition, put forth ener- 
gies so vigorous, and achieved successes so signal and effective as those which 
have marked the progress of this contest on the part of the Union. M. 
Drouyn de l’Huys,I fear, has taken other light than the correspondence of 
this government for his guidance in ascertaining its temper and firmness. 
He has probably read of divisions of sentiment among those who hold them- 
selves forth as organs of public opinion here, and has given to them an un- 
due importance...... While there has been much difference of popular 
opinion and favor concerning the agents who shall carry on the war, the 
principles on which it shall be waged, and the means with which it shall be 
prosecuted, M. Drouyn de l’Huys has only to refer to the statute-book of 
Congress, and the executive ordinances, to learn that the national activity 
has hitherto been, and yet is, as efficient as that of any other nation—what- 
ever its form of government—ever was under circumstances of equally 
grave import to its peace, safety, and welfare. Not one voice has been 
raised any where, out of the immediate field of the insurrection, in favor of 
foreign intervention, mediation, or arbitration, or of compromise, with the re- 
linquishment of one acre of the national domain, or the surrender of even 
one constitutional franchise. At the same time, it is manifest to the world 
that our resources are yet abundant, and our credit adequate to the existing 
emergency.” ‘To surrender the subject to neutral arbitration amounted to 
nothing less than for the government, while engaged in the suppression of 


insurrection, to enter into diplomatic discussion with the insurgents. Hither’ 


the government or the insurgents must yield the whole question in dispute, 
which neither was prepared to do; therefore the end of arbitration would 
only be a recommittal of the question to the decision of battle. “It is a 
great mistake,” continued the secretary, “that Huropean statesmen make if 
they suppose this people are demoralized. Whatever, in the case of an in- 
surrection, the people of France, or of Great Britain, or of Switzerland, or the 
Netherlands would do to save their national existence, no matter how the 
strife might be regarded by or affect foreign nations, just so much, and cer- 
tainly no less, the people of the United States will do, if necessary, to save 
for the common benefit the region which is bounded by the Pacific and At- 
lantic coasts, and by the shores of the Gulfs of St. Lawrence and Mexico, to- 
gether with the free and common navigation of the Rio Grande, Missouri, 
Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, St. Lawrence, Hudson, Delaware, Potomac, and 
other national highways by which this Jand—which to them is at once the 


ee SS ee 
interference quickens anew, and that without this life-giving support it must soon yield to the just 
and paternal authority of the national government; that, considering these things, which are aggra- 
vated by the motive of the resistance thus encouraged, the United States regret that foreign pow- 
ers have not frankly told the chiefs of the rebellion that the work in which they are engaged is hate- 
ful, and that a new government, such as they seek to found, with slavery as its acknowledged cor- 
ner-stone, and with no other declared object of separate existence, is so far shocking to civilization 
and the moral sense of mankind, that it must not expect welcome or recognition in the common- 
wealth of nations. 

“* Resolved, That the United States, confident in the justice of their cause, which is the cause also 
of good government and of human rights every where among men; anxious for the speedy restora- 
tion of peace, which shall secure tranquillity at home, and remove all occasion of complaint abroad ; 
and awaiting with well-assured trust the final suppression of the rebellion, through which all these 
things, rescued from present danger, will be secured forever, and the republic, one and indivisible, 
triumphant over its enemies, will continue to stand an example to mankind, hereby announce, as 
their unalterable purpose, that the war will be vigorously prosecuted, according to the humane prin- 
ciples of Christian states, until the rebellion shall be overcome; and they reverently invoke upon 
their cause the blessing of Almighty God. 

“* Resolved, That the President be requested to transmit a copy of these resolutions, through the 
Secretary of State, to the ministers of the United States in foreign countries, that the declaration 
and eee set forth may be communicated by them to the governments to which they are 
accredited.’ 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[JULY, 1863. 


land of inheritance and a land of promise—is opened and watered. Even 
if the agents of the American people now exercising their power should, 
through fear or faction, fall below this height of the national virtue, they 
would be speedily, yet constitutionally replaced by others of sterner charac- 
ter and patriotism.” The time for peace would finally come, and then there 
would be conference, but it would be between states and in the congression- 
al forum, and not between the United States and foreign powers. 

The Thirty-seventh Congress was dissolved on the 4th of March, 1863, at 
a time of great national despondency. ‘This Congress had first been con- 
vened at the special call of the President, on the 4th of July, 1861, to meet 
the emergencies of a rebellion already inaugurated. It had witnessed the 
conclusion of the first period of the war—that in which the enthusiasm of 
the nation at first aroused had proved sufficient for its safety. It had also 
anticipated the second period—in which the government must put forth its 
utmost power, setting aside compromise, striking at the very heart of trea- 
son, compelling the services of every citizen, and at the same time sealing 
the mouths and binding the hands of such opponents as, in the midst of the 
loyal, sought to perfect the work begun by traitors. 

The spring and early summer of 1863 was the most doubtful period of 
the war. The Confederate armies were at their maximum of strength, At 
Vicksburg they held Grant at bay; in middle Tennessee they defied Rose- 
crans, and in Virginia they were preparing for an invasion of the Northern 
states. These were the days of sunshine in which the opposition leaders 
made hay which they never could garner. Vallandigham, indeed, rushed 
into the clutches of martial law, was arrested, sentenced, and banished, as 
has been already related; but the others thundered at their will against the 
administration. As the national anniversary approached, it seemed as if it 
were to be a repetition of its gloomy predecessor of 1862. The ‘‘ Copper- 
heads”—as the peace-at-any-price party in the North was styled —looked 
forward to the Fourth of July as the grand harvest-day of the rebellion, and, 
when it came, their leaders were prepared for its celebration. On that day 
Franklin Pierce, a former President of the United States, in an oration deliy- 
ered to the citizens of his own state, at Concord, New Hampshire, while he had 
not one word to say against the sectionalism which had raised its arm against 
the nation, denounced the war for the Union as sectional and parricidal. 
“Nor is that all,” said he; “for in those states which are exempt from the 
actual ravages of war, in which the roar of the cannon, and the rattle of the 
musketry, and the groans of the dying are heard but as a faint echo from 
other lands, even here in the loyal states the mailed hand of military usurpa- 
tion strikes down the liberties of the people, and its foot tramples on a dese- 
crated Constitution.” Not a word had he to say about the desecration of 
the Constitution by traitors. The chief grievance of which he complained 
was that it was ‘made criminal for that noble martyr of free speech, Mr. 
Vallandigham, to discuss public affairs in Ohio.” And for this speech 
Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, will go down to history hand in hand 
with Vallandigham, who could enlist a larger share of his sympathy than 
his own nation in peril. 

On the same day Governor Seymour addressed a large audience assem- 
bled at the Academy of Music in New York City. The prelusion of his 
elaborate oration was an amplification of the calamities of the nation. 
These calamities, he said, had been predicted years ago by Democrats as the 
consequence of the refusal of the people to be ruled by a Southern policy. 
But the fears of Democrats had been laughed at. When the war com- 
menced they had implored for compromise. Their prayers had been un- 
heeded. On this account the country had been brought “ to the very verge 
of destruction.” He therefore had come before them to repeat the warning 
and the prayer which had hitherto been scorned. There was not only a 
bloody civil war, but the hostile attitude of the two parties at the North 
threatened a second revolution. ‘ Remember,” he warned Republicans, 
“that the bloody, and treasonable, and revolutionary doctrine of public ne- 
cessity can be proclaimed by a mob as well as by a government.” 

But Governor Seymour and ex-President Pierce were moderate in ex- 
pression when compared to others throughout the North, who threatened 
to revolutionize the government if a Democratic success could be gained in 
no other way. Among the motives used to excite to violence, the principal 
was that furnished by the impending conscription. These harangues pro- 
duced their natural effect upon the ignorant and the evil-disposed. Un- 
doubtedly there would have been an immediate explosion of this inflamed 
sedition but for the fact that even while these demagogues were throwing 
their torches into the magazine, their malicious work was spoiled by the two 
greatest and most decisive national victories of the war. It is scarcely too 
much to declare that Gettysburg and Vicksburg prevented a Democratic 
revolution in the North. It is true they did not prevent an attempt at rev- 
olution, but they deprived the opposition of popular support. Our Sey- 
mours, Vallandighams, and Pierces suffered pangs as keen, on account of 
these great national victories, as did their confederates in the South. With 
lowering faces they witnessed the revival of martial enthusiasm, which, dur- 
ing months of disaster and discouragement, they had seen diminish and fail. 
They had been ready to ring its knell when it rose from the dead and over- 
came them with its fury. Henceforth they could number among their friends 
and supporters only the most ignorant and debased—the offscouring of our 
creat cities. But they did not therefore desist from their base efforts. 
Willingly they accepted the only alliance left them, and bravely defied the 
sure verdict of history. 

Thus it was that, during the month of July, New York city became the 
scene of the most disgraceful drama ever enacted in America. Three jour- 
nals which had surrendered themselves to the enemies of the government 
sounded the prelude and announced the argument. The draft which had 


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been ordered to begin in the city on ‘Saturday, July 11th, these journals pro- 
nounced the work of evil-minded men, intended to accomplish their own 
selfish ends. Those who had determined to strike at slavery, the chief 
support of the rebellion, were styled “ neither more nor less than murder- 
ers.” The administrators of the government were styled “ weak and reck- 
less men.” The draft was declared to be ‘‘a measure which could not have 
been ventured upon in England, even in those dark days when the press- 
gang filled the English ships-of-war with slaves, and dimmed the glory of 
England’s noblest naval heroes—a measure wholly repugnant to the habits 
and prejudices of our people.” It was asserted that the aim of the govern- 
ment, in conscription, was “to lessen the number of Democratic votes at the 
next election.” ‘The miscreants at the head of the government,” said the 
Daily News,‘ are bending all their powers, as was revealed in the late speech 
of Wendell Phillips at Framingham, to securing a perpetuation of their as- 
cendency for another four years; and their triple method of accomplishing 
this purpose is to kill off Democrats, stuff the ballot-boxes with bogus sol- 
diers’ votes, and deluge recusant districts with negro suffrage.” The opera- 
tion of the draft was declared to have been unfair. One out of about two 


and a half of our citizens was to be brought off into Lincoln’s charnel-house. 
Governor Seymour was quoted as having openly expressed “ his belief that 
neither the President nor Congress, without the consent of the state author- 
ities, has any right to enforce such an act as is now being carried out under 
the auspices of the War Department.” Every possible argument was ad- 
duced to excite violence on the part of the people against the government. 

On Saturday, the 11th, after several postponements, Colonel Nugent, the 
provost-marshal of New York city, was directed to proceed with the draft, 
and the several deputies were instructed accordingly. In compliance with 
these instructions, Provost-marshal Jenkins, of the Ninth Congressional dis- 
trict, commenced operations at a building on the corner of Forty-sixth Street 
and Third Avenue. There was a large crowd assembled at the place of 
drawing, and it seemed to be in good humor, saluting well-known names 
with cheers. No disturbance was apprehended, and the draft was to be con- 
tinued on the following Monday. But in the vicinity there were residing a 
large number of foreigners of Irish birth, and some of these had been draft- 
ed on Saturday. Here the turbulent element, encouraged by the utterances 
of a disloyal press, began to exhibit itself. Secret meetings were held, and 


HARPER'S 


FIGHT WITH THE MILITARY. 


it was determined to resort to force. On Monday morning organized par- 
ties proceeded from place to place, compelling workmen to desist from their 
accustomed labors, and join the processions already wending their way to the 
corner of Third Avenue and Forty-sixth Street. 

Scareely had the drawing recommenced when it was interrupted by the 
turbulent crowd assembled outside. Paving-stones were hurled through 
the windows. The crowd was in an instant transformed into a mob. The 
doors were broken down, and the crowd rushed in, demolishing every thing 
connected with the office, and taking complete possession. Only the draft- 
ing-wheel escaped destruction. Provost-marshal Jenkins escaped, and the 
reporters; but one of the deputies, Lieutenant Vanderpoel, was badly beaten, 
and taken home for dead. Having possession of the office, the rioters, re- 
gardless of the women and children residing in the stories above, poured 
camphene over the floor and set the place ablaze. In two hours the entire 
block was a smoking ruin. Officers of the Fire Department, under Chief 
Engineer Decker, arrived, but the hydrants were in possession of the mob, 
and it was only after the most persistent persuasion on the part of Decker 
that the firemen were allowed to prevent the farther progress of the confla- 
gration. In the mean time, Police Superintendent Kennedy had been at- 
tacked by the mob and nearly killed. 

There were no troops in the city, the militia being absent on duty in 
Pennsylvania. A small force of the Invalid Corps appeared on the ground 
soon after the disturbance commenced, armed with muskets loaded with 
blank cartridges. Of course these were promptly overpowered by the mob, 
which had now swollen to thousands, A detachment of the police was in 
like manner beaten and forced to retreat. The mob was composed almost 
entirely of Irishmen. Now it is a curious circumstance that, while no class 
of our foreign population is more jealous of its own liberties than the Irish, 
there is also none which more strongly resents every liberty accorded to the 
negro race. The rioters took possession of hotels and restaurants whose 
servants were negroes, destroyed the furniture, maltreated the guests, and 


{ 


PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL 


i PRINTING HOUSE savee| [— 


WAR. 


[JULY, 1863, 


NEW YORK RIOTERS HANGING A NEGRO. 


sought the lives of the poor servants. These things were done deliberately, 
and not in the heat of passion. The writer of this chapter passed througk 
the mob on the afternoon of the 14th, as they were burning down the Col- 
ored Orphan Asylum at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street. 
He saw no tumult, no exhibition of rage, but only a cruel, fiendish, and de- 
liberate purpose to persecute to the death an innocent race, against whom 
they were only moved by a political prejudice. The asylum was burned to 
ashes, while the female friends of the rioters lugged off to their shanties the 
plundered furniture. At about the same hour the armory on Twenty-ninth 
Street and Second Avenue was burned. Another portion of the mob had 
made its way to the City Hall Park, and made an attack upon the Zribune 
office, but were severely handled and dispersed by the police, 

It is supposed that about a dozen negroes were, on Monday, brutally 
murdered by the rioters. A colored man residing in Carmine Street was 
seized by the mob, and, after his life had been nearly beaten out, his body 
was suspended from a tree, a fire was kindled under him, and, in the midst 
of excruciating torments, he expired. 

On Tuesday the spirit of the rioters was even more malignant. Gover- 
nor Seymour, who had been absent in New Jersey, arrived in the city, and 
issued proclamations commanding the rioters to disperse, and declaring the 
city and county of New York to be in a state of insurrection. In the after- 
noon he addressed the mob from the steps of the City Hall. After their 
courteous acknowledgment of his leadership, he could not well address them 
otherwise than as his “friends.” He assured them of his friendship, and in- 
formed them that he had sent his adjutant general to Washington “to con- 


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JuLy, 1863. ] POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1863. 653 


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————-— 


ANDREW G. CURTIN, 


fer with the authorities there, and to have this draft suspended and stopped.” 
He gave over to these friends of his the charge over the property and per- 
sons of all other citizens, and the good order of the city, and then advised 
them to retire peaceably. This step on the part of the governor had little 
effect. The riot continued for four days, and this day was the worst of them 
all. All stores were closed, and no business was transacted. A small mili- 
tary force had been marshaled, and, wherever it encountered the mob, the 
latter was dispersed. But the police were far more efficient than the mili- 
tary, and in every conflict subdued the rioters. But neither the police nor 
the small military force could be omnipresent, and the most cruel atrocities 
were inflicted upon negroes wherever they were found. It was on Tuesday 
that Colonel O’Brien was killed. Commissioned to disperse a mob in Third 
Avenue, he had successfully accomplished his duty with the troops in his 
command. He had sprained his ankle in the excitement, and, stepping into 
a drug-store, had become separated from his troops. Here he was surround- 
ed by the mob, and suffered a cruel death. 

On the 16th several militia regiments returned from Pennsylvania, and 
after that there was no farther trouble. It is estimated that during the ex- 
citement over 1000 of the rioters had been killed, while of those opposed to 
them less than 50 lives were lost. The property destroyed by the mob was 
estimated at $2,000,000. The municipal authorities had, in the mean time, 
passed a relief bill, to pay $300 commutation, or substitute money, to every 
drafted man unable to pay that sum for himself. 

Riots of a less serious nature occurred at the same time in Boston and 
other cities, but in all these foreigners were principally the disturbing ele- 
ment. 

Governor Seymour strongly urged upon the President to postpone the 
draft until its constitutionality was determined upon by the courts. The 
President replied that he did not object to abide the decision of the courts, 
but he could not consent to lose the time while it was being obtained. 

The subjects which had for the past few months agitated the loyal states— 
the emancipation proclamation, the enlistment of negro soldiers, arbitrary 
arrests, and the conscription—were submitted in the autumnal elections of 
1863 for the decision of the people. The result was a decisive success for 
the administration. In Vermont, on the 1st of September, J.G. Smith, the 
Republican candidate for governor, was elected by a majority of nearly 
18,000. In California, two days later, a Republican governor, F. F. Low, was 
elected by 20,000 majority. On the 14th of September Maine gave 18,000 
majority to Governor Cony, Republican. In October Pennsylvania re-elect- 
ed Governor Curtin by a majority of 15,000. His opponent was George W. 
Woodward, a peace man, whose election was regarded by General McClellan 
as “called for by the interests of the nation.” In the same election Chief 
Justice Lowrie, who had declared the enrollment act unconstitutional, was 
defeated by over 12,000 votes. In the State of Ohio the success of the ad- 
ministration was most strongly marked. In 1862 the Democratic Secretary 
of State had received a majority of 5000 votes. But now a governor was 
to be elected. and the opposing candidates were the exiled “martyr” Val- 
landigham and Brough. Vallandigham was defeated by over 100,000 
votes, of which 40,000 were polled by soldiers. The Legislature of this 


state, elected at the same time, stood 27 to 5 in the Senate, and 78 to 24 in | 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY 


OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ DECEMBER, 1863. 


U ly 
WLM 


JOHN BROUGH, 


the House. Iowa elected a Legislature ‘almost entirely Republican, and a 
Republican governor and judge. Similar results followed in Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, and Michigan. In New York the Republican majority amount- 
ed to 30,000, against a Democratic majority in 1862 of over 10,000. In 
Massachusetts the Republican majority was over 40,000. Even Maryland 
supported the administration by a majority of 20,000. When we compare 
these results with those of the preceding year, it is clear that the people of 
the loyal states had not yet deserted the administration, and that their de- 
termination to sustain the war had increased rather than diminished. 


CHAPTER XLV. 
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


The Spring Elections of 1864.—Meeting of the Thirty-eighth Congress, December 7, 1863.—Po- 
sition of Parties.—Colfax elected Speaker.—The President’s Message.—The Anmesty Procla- 
mation.—Arbitrary Arrests. —The Test-Oath reaffirmed.—Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law.— 
The Montana Bill and Negro Suffrage.—The Anti-Slavery Amendment; its Defeat in the 
House.—Revyerdy Johnson’s Argument in favor of the Amendment.—Negro Soldiers declared 
free.—Congress presents a Gold Medal to General Grant.—Views of the Thirty-eighth Con- 
gress in regard to Reconstruction.—The Theory of Lincoln’s Amnesty Proclamation.—Ste- 
vens’s Ideas as expressed in Debate on the Confiscation Act.—The Civil Code and the Laws 
of War.—Henry Winter Davis’s Bill for the Appointment of Provisional Governors over rebel 
States; passed by the House May 4, 1864, by the Senate July 2d.—Lincoln refuses to Sign the 
Bill; his Proclamation. —The Wade and Davis Manifesto. — Debate on the Expulsion of 
Alexander Long.—Financial Measures.—Resolutions on the Mexican Imbroglio.—The Presi- 
dential Campaign of 1864,—Radical Convention at Cleveland; Fremont and Cochrane nom- 
inated for President and Vice-President.—The Republican Convention at Baltimore; President 
Lincoln renominated, and Andrew Johnson nominated for Vice-President.—The military Situ- 
ation,— Peace Missions,— Meeting of the Democratic Convention at Chicago.— Character and 
Purpeses of the Convention; its Platform and Resolutions ; Nomination of McClellan and Pen- 
dleton.—McClellan’s Letter of Acceptance.—Victory at Atlanta,—Other Victories in the Shen- 
andoah Valley.—Brighter Prospects. —Democratic Defeat at the Polls,—The Vote for Presi- 
dent.—Lincoln and Johnson elected,—Ratification of the new Constitution in Maryland,—The 
Peace Commission at Hampton Roads. 


[‘ the spring elections of 1864 we can estimate the weight of General 
Grant’s success in the battles around Chattanooga, won in November, 
1863. In New Hampshire, Gilmore, the Republican candidate for govern- 
or, was elected by a majority of nearly 6000 votes over Harrington, In 
Connecticut, Buckingham (Republican) was elected over O. 8S. Seymour by 
a majority of 5658 votes. In Rhode Island, also, the Republican candidate 
for governor, J. Y. Smith, was elected over G. H. Browne by a majority of 
1538. 

The first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress assembled on the 7th of 
December, 1863.! The position of parties was not far different to that of the 


’ The following is a list of the members of the Thirty-eighth Congress, with their political desig. 
nation. ‘Those marked A. were adherents of the administration; its opponents are marked 0, 
An asterisk precedes those who were members of the Thirty-seventh Congress. 


SENATE. 

Cali fornid....c.r0++00 John Conness, A. Delaware......00+00 *James A. Bayard. O. 
*James A. McDougall, O. *Willard Saulsbury, O. 

Connecticut ......++ *James Dixon, A. Llinois.....00000000.. William A. Richardson, @ 


*Lafayette 5, Foster, A *Lyman Trumbull, A. 


DecemsBer, 1863. ] 


previous Congress. In the Senate there was a gain of two members for the 
administration. Of 40 senators, only 18 were in the ranks of the opposi- 
tion. In the House of Representatives, of 183 members, 101 were adher- 
ents of the administration. There were 115 new members in the House 
and 12 in the Senate. Thus there were in the Thirty-eighth Congress 


TRARGS csesnensseses Thomas A. Hendricks, O. | New Jersey....+++. *John C, Ten Eyck, A. 
*Henry S. Lane, A. William Wright, O. 
LOWD si nssencviess vers *James W. Grimes, A. New York .....+0+ *Ira Harris, A. 
*James Harlan, A. Edwin D. Morgan, A. 
EGRUES Havecstescots *Samuel C. Pomeroy, A. OMG Riser sbocseu nv *Benjamin F, Wade, A. 
*James H. Lane, A. *John Sherman, A. 
Kentucky ...cecceee *Garrett Davis, O. One ON i casetadensis *Benjamin F. Harding, O. 
*Lazarus W. Powell, O. *James W. Nesmith, O. 
MGIRG  coxsccscoss is *William P. Fessenden, A. | Pennsylvania...... *Edgar Cowan, A. 
“ *Lot M. Morrill, A. Charles R. Buckalew, O. 
Massachusetts...... *Charles Sumner, A. Rhode Island...... *Henry B. Anthony, A. 
*Henry Wilson, A. William Sprague, A. 
Maryland ....006. 04 *Thomas H. Hicks, A. Vermont sreseeseeees *Solomon Foot, A. 
Reverdy Johnson, O. *Jacob Collamer, A. 
Michigan.....+...++ *Zachariah Chandler, A. Virginia...c..02-0.00 *John S. Carlile, O. 
*Jacob M. Howard, A. Lemuel J. Bowden, A. 
Minnesota .......... *Morton S. Wilkinson, A. West Virginia.... P.G. Van Winkle, A. 
Alexander Ramsay, A. *Waitman T. Willey, A. 
Missours «0.0.0.2... *John B. Henderson, A. Wisconsin. .....0+ee *James R. Doolittle, A. 


B. Gratz Brown, A. 
New Hampshire... *Daniel Clark, A. 
*John P. Hale, A. : 
Lemuel J. Bowden, of Virginia, died January 2, 1864. His vacancy was not filled. J. A. 
Bayard, of Delaware, resigned January 29, 1864, and his place was filled by G. R. Riddle (A.). 


HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 


*Timothy O. Howe, A. 


California... Thomas B. Shannon, A. New Jersey ...0 Andrew J. Rogers, O. 
William Higby, A. *Nehemiah Perry, O. 
Cornelius Cole, A. New York .....000 Henry G. Stebbins, O. 
Connecticut .......++ Henry C. Deming, A. Martin Kalbfleisch, O. 
*James E. English, O. *Moses F. Odell, O. 
Augustus Brandegee, A. *Benjamin Wood, O. 
John H. Hubbard, A. Fernando Wood, O. 
Delaware........0++ Nathaniel B. Smithers, A. *Elijah Ward, O. 
TUNO1S..02.0202005 006 *Isaac N. Arnold, A. John W. Chanler, O. 


John F. Farnsworth, A. 
*Elihu B. Washburne, A. 
Charles M. Harris, O. 
*Owen Lovejoy, A. 
Jesse O. Norton, A. 
John R. Eden, O. 
John T. Stewart, O. 
Lewis W. Ross, O. 
*Anthony L. Knapp, O. 
*James C. Robinson, O. 
William R. Morrison, O. 
*William J. Allen, O. 
James C. Allen, O. 
. *John Law, O. 
*James A. Cravens, O. 
Henry W. Harrington, O. 
*William S. Holman, O. 
*George W. Julian, A. 
Ebenezer Dumont, A. 
*Daniel W. Vorhees, O. 
Godlove S. Orth, A. 
*Schuyler Colfax, A. 
Joseph K. Edgerton, O. 
James F. McDowell, O. 
LOWE Ratasrsraseane + . *James F. Wilson, A. 
Hiram Price, A. 
William B. Allison, A. 
J. B. Grinnell, A. 
John A. Kasson, A. 
A.W. Hubbard, A. 


James Brooks, O. 
Anson Herrick, O. 
William Radford, O. 
Charles H. Winfield, O. 
Homer A. Nelson, O. 
*John B. Steele, O. 
John V. L. Pruyn, O. 
John Q. Griswold, O. 
Orlando Kellogg, A. 
Calvin T. Hulburd, A. 
James W. Marvin, A. 
Samuel F, Miller, A. 
*Ambrose W. Clark, A. 
Francis Kernan, O. 
De Witt C. Littlejohn, A. 
Thomas T. Davis, A. 
*Theodore M. Pomeroy, A. 
Daniel Morris, A. 
Giles W. Hotchkiss, A, 
*Robt. B. Van Valkenburg, A. 
Freeman Clark, A. 
*Augustus Frank, A. 
John B. Gunson, O. 
*Reuben E. Fenton, A. 
ORO sicess aeaetsekes *George H. Pendleton, O. 
Alexander Long, O. 
Robert C. Schenck, A. 
J. F. McKinney, O. 
Frank C. Le Blond, O. 
*Chilton A. White, O. 


Indiana. v.ereee sores 


IGS Gece Boe A. Carter Wilder, A. *Samuel S. Cox, O. 
Kentucky .......00008 Lucien Anderson, A. William Johnson, O. 
*George H. Yeaman, O. *Warren P. Noble, O. 
*Henry Grider, O. *James M. Ashley, A. 
*Aaron Harding, O. Wells A. Hutchins, O. 
*Robert Mallory, O. William E. Finck, O. 
Green Clay Smith, A. John O'Neill, O. 
Brutus J. Clay, O. George Bliss, O. 
William H. Randall, A. *James R. Morris, O. 
*William H. Wadsworth, O. Joseph W. White, O. 
Maine...... eseccceeee Lorenzo D. M. Sweat, O. Ephraim E. Eckley, A. 
Sidney Perham, A. Rufus P. Spaulding, A. 
James G. Blaine, A. James A. Garfield, A. 
*John H. Rice, A. OPegOn....c0r.sseree John R. McBride, A. 
*Frederick A. Pike, A. Pennsylvania ...++ Samuel J. Randall, O. 
Maryland «0.000. ++ John A. J. Creswell, A. Charles O'Neill, A. 


*Edwin H. Webster, A. 
Henry Winter Davis, A. 
*Francis Thomas, A. 
Benjamin G. Harris, O. 
Massachusetts...... *Thomas D, Eliot, A. 
Oakes Ames, A. 
*Alexander H. Rice, A. 
*Samuel Hooper, A. 
*John B, Alley, A. 
*Daniel W. Gooch, A. 
George S. Boutwell, A. 
John D. Baldwin, A. 
William B. Washburn, A. 
*Henry L. Dawes, A. 
Michigan... seve *Fernando C. Beaman, A. 
Charles Upson, A. 
John W. Longyear, A. 
*Francis W. Kellogg, A. 
Augustus C. Baldwin, O. 
John F. Driggs, A. 


Leonard Myers, A. 
*William D. Kelley, A. 

M. Russell Thayer, A. 
*John D. Stiles, O. 

John M. Broomall, A. 
*Sydenham E. Ancona, O. 
*Thaddeus Stevens, A. 

Myer Strause, O. 

*Philip Johnson, O, 
Charles Dennison, O. 
Henry M. Tracy, A. 
William H. Miller, O. 

*Joseph Baily, O. 
Alexander H. Coffroth, O. 
Archibald Mc Allister, O. 

*James T. Hale, A. 
Glenni W. Scofield, A. 
Amos Myers, A. 

John L. Dawson, O. 
*James K. Moorhead, A. 


Minnesota, ....++.+++ *William Windom, A. Thomas Williams, A. 
Ignatius Donnelly, A. *Jesse Lazear, O. 
Missourt .....0.000e *Francis P. Blair, Jr., A. Rhode Island...... Thomas A. Jenckes, A. 


Henry T. Blow, A. 
John G, Scott, O. 
Joseph W. McClurg, A. 
Samuel H. Boyd, A. 
Austin A. King, O. 
Benjamin F. Loan, A. 
*William A. Hall, O. 
*James S. Rollins, O. 
Daniel Marcy, O. 
*Edward H. Rollins, A. 
James W. Patterson, A. 
New Jersey......... John F. Starr, A. 
George Middleton, O. 
*William G. Steele, O. 
On the 11th of June, 1864, Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, was unseated, and four days after- 
ward Samuel Knox was qualified in his place. On March 25th, 1864, Owen Lovejoy died, and 
Eben C. Ingersoll was qualified as his successor. 


Nathan F. Dixon, A. 
Fredk. E. Woodbridge, A. 
*Justin S. Morrill, A. 
*Portus Baxter, A. 
West Virginia.... *Jacob B. Blair, A. 
*William G. Brown, A. 
*Killian V. Whaley, A. 
James S. Brown, O. 
*Ithamar C. Sloan, A. 
Amasa Cobb, O. 
Charles A. Eldridge, O. 
Ezra Wheeler, O. 
*Walter D. McIndoe, A. 


3 
Vermont .occecsscere 


Wisconsin, ..s00+000 


New Hampshire... 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


655 


106, or nearly one half of the members which had composed the ‘Thirty- 
seventh. 

Colfax, of Indiana, and Cox, of Ohio, were the prominent candidates for 
speaker—the former representing the administration, and the latter the op- 
position. Colfax was elected on the first ballot, receiving 101 votes, every 
Republican member supporting him except Francis P. Blair, who was ab- 
sent, and one Democrat, Brutus J. Clay, of Kentucky. Cox received 42 
votes. ; 

The President’s Message was communicated to Congress on the second 
day of the session. After commenting upon the foreign relations of the 
government, which were undisturbed at this time, the President announced 
the successful conduct of the Treasury under the national banking law of 
the previous Congress. Every demand had been promptly met, and the 
people had cheerfully borne the burden of taxation. The receipts for the 
fiscal year had been $901,125,674 86; the expenditures $895,796,680 65. 
The naval force of the United States had been increased to 588 vessels, com- 
pleted or in process of construction, of which 75 were iron-clad steamers. 
Since the blockade had been instituted over 1000 vessels had been captured, 
and the prizes already sent in for adjudication amounted to more than 
$18,000,000. The number of seamen in the public service had since the 
spring of 1861 increased from 7500 men to about 34,000, notwithstanding 
the injurious effect of the high bounties paid to army recruits. 

The President contrasted the present condition of the country with that 
which had confronted the previous session. ‘ When Congress assembled a 
year ago,” said he, “the war had already lasted twenty months, and there 
had been many conflicts on both land and sea, with varying results. The 
rebellion had been pressed back into reduced limits; yet the tone of public 
feeling and opinion, at home and abroad, was not satisfactory. With other 
signs, the popular election, just then past, indicated uneasiness among our- 
selves, while, amid much that was cold and menacing, the kindest words 
coming from Europe were uttered in accents of pity that we were too blind 
to surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by a 
few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores, and we 
were threatened with such additions from the same quarter as would sweep 
our trade from the sea and raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from 
HKuropean governments any thing hopeful upon this subject. The prelimi- 
nary emancipation proclamation, issued in September, was running its assign- 
ed period to the beginning of the new year. A month later the final procla- 
mation came, including the announcement that colored men of suitable con- 
dition would be received into the war service. The policy of emancipation 
and of employing black soldiers gave to the future a new aspect, about 
which hope, and fear, and doubt contended in uncertain conflict. Accord- 
ing to our political system, as a matter of civil administration, the general 
government had no right to effect emancipation in any state, and for a long 
time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without re- 
sorting to it as a military measure. It was all the while deemed possible 
that the necessity for it might come, and that, if it should, the crisis of the 
contest would then be presented. It came, and, as we anticipated, it was fol- 
lowed by dark and doubtful days. 

“Kleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take another 
view. The rebel hordes are pressed still farther back, and, by the complete 
opening of the Mississippi, the country dominated by the rebellion is di- 
vided into distinct parts, with no practical communication between them. 
Tennessee and Arkansas have been substantially cleared of insurgent con- 
trol, and influential citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates of slay- 
ery at the beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation 
in their respective states. Of those states not included in the emancipation 
proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which three years ago 
would tolerate any restraint upon the extension of slavery into new terri- 
tories, only dispute now as to the best mode of removing it within their own 
limits. Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the rebellion, full one 
hundred thousand are in the United States military service, about one half 
of which number actually bear arms in the ranks, thus giving the double 
advantage of taking so much labor from the insurgent cause, and supplying 
the places which otherwise must be filled with so many white men. So far 
as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any. No ser- 
vile insurrection, or tendency to violence or cruelty, has marked the meas- 
ures of emancipation or arming the blacks. These measures have been 
much discussed in foreign countries, and contemporary with such discussion 
the tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At home the same 
measures have been fully discussed, supported, criticised, and denounced, 
and the annual elections following are highly encouraging to those whose 
official duty it is to bear the country through this great trial. Thus we 
have the new reckoning. The crisis which threatened to divide the friends 
of the Union is past.” 

In this changed condition of public affairs the President had seen fit to 
put forth an amnesty proclamation. The Constitution authorized the Pres- 
ident to grant or withhold pardon for offenses committed against the United 
States at his own absolute discretion, and this involved the power to grant 
pardon on terms. ‘The constitutional obligation to guarantee to every state 
in the Union a republican form of government was explicit and full. But 
why tender the benefits of this provision to governments only in such states 
as could show a loyal tenth of their population ready to take the oath of al- 
legiance to the government and of support to the enactments of Congress 
which had been occasioned by the war? “This section of the Constitution,” 
said the President, ‘contemplates a case wherein the element within a 
state favorable to republican government in the Union may be too feeble 
for an opposite and hostile element external to or even within a state, and 


656 


such are precisely the cases with which we are now dealing..... There 
must be a test by which to separate the opposing elements, so as to build 
only from the sound; and that test is a sufficiently liberal one which ac- 
cepts as sound whoever will make a sworn recantation of his former un 
soundness.” “I shall not attempt,” he added, “to retract or modify the 
emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is 
free by that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress. Tor these and 
other reasons, it is thought best that the support of these measures shall be 
included in the oath; and it is believed the executive may lawfully claim it 
in return for pardon and restoration of forfeited rights, which he has clear 
constitutional power to withhold altogether, or to grant upon the terms which 
he shall deem wisest for the public interest.” 

The message thus concluded: 

“Tn the midst of other cares, however important, we must not lose sight 
of the fact that the war power is still our main reliance. To that power 
alone can we look, yet for a time, to give confidence to the people in the con- 
tested regions, that the insurgent power will not again overrun them. Un- 
til that confidence shall be established, little can be done any where for 
what is called reconstruction. Hence our chiefest care must still be direct- 
ed to the army and navy, who have thus far borne their harder part so no- 
bly and well. And it may be esteemed fortunate that, in giving the great- 
est efficiency to these indispensable arms, we do also honorably recognize 
the gallant men, from commander to sentinel, who compose them, and to 
whom, more than to others, the world must stand indebted for the home of 
freedom disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, and perpetuated.” 

It was a new Congress, and many of the contests already decided in favor 
of the administration had to be fought over again. The House had been in 
session scarcely a week when the subject of arbitrary arrests was introduced. 
By a vote of 90 to 67 the decision of the previous Congress was reaffirmed. 
This was purely a party vote, if we except the name of Brutus J. Clay, who, 
though nominally a Democrat, in all important matters supported the ad- 
ministration. On the 29th of February, Pendleton, of Ohio, offered a reso- 
lution denouncing the arrest of Vallandigham as an arbitrary act, and a vio- 
lation of the Constitution, which the House rejected by 77 votes against 47. 
Here also Clay was the only Democrat in favor of rejection. Other resolu- 
tions of a similar character in regard to the general subject of arrests were 
introduced during the session, but were invariably tabled. 

In the Senate, on the 17th of December, Sumner offered as a new rule 
for the Senate that the oath prescribed for senators by the act of July 2, 
1862, should be taken and subscribed by every senator in open Senate be- 
fore entering upon his duties. Thus the whole subject was again laid open 
to discussion, and the next day a substitute was moved by Saulsbury, of 
Delaware, instructing the Judiciary Committee to inquire whether members 
of Congress were included within the provisions of the act of July 2, 1862, 
and whether this act was constitutional. The substitute was rejected, and 
Sumner’s resolution was adopted. Bayard, of Delaware, who had been re- 
elected for the term ending March 8, 1869, was the only senator who had 
not taken the oath. On the 26th of January he subscribed to the oath, 
and then resigned his seat. His place was supplied by George R. Riddle, 
a supporter of the administration. 

It is curious and suggestive to trace the steady progress of negro emanci- 
pation in the congressional history of the war. Undoubtedly this progress 
was in a large degree due to a sense of moral justice on the part of the 
Northern people, which had been for many years repressed by the supposed 
necessity of sanctioning and actually upholding a system of gross injustice, 
in order to preserve the Constitution and the Union. But when it became 
evident that this system, thus nursed, was a serpent in the bosom of the peo- 
ple—a serpent whose fangs were now thrust into both the Union and the 
Constitution—this monstrous incubus was thrown off, and justice breathed 
unshackled. And it should also be remembered that in this case the dic- 
tates of freedom and justice were uttered in the very teeth of a prejudice 
against the negro race which was far stronger in the North than it was in 
the South. No greater tribute could be paid to the virtue of republican in- 
stitutions than this victory of the moral sense over prejudice. But in this 
case the suppression of the prejudice against the negro was made easy by 
the aid of a stronger prejudice against treason. Then, again, the military 
necessity of striking at slavery in order to weaken treason, and the political 
necessity of emancipation in order to prevent a future reign of discord, 
were overmastering motives, helping on the great revolution in behalf of 
an oppressed race—a moral revolution, in comparison with which the war 
itself, and its immense sacrifices of blood and treasure, would become almost 
insignificant, were they not inseparably linked therewith in the sequences 
of Providence. 

During this session a bill “to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and 
all acts and parts of acts for the rendition of fugitive slaves,” was passed. 
It was reported in the Senate by Sumner on the 19th of April. An amend- 
ment offered by Sherman, of Ohio, excepting the act of 1793, was adopted 
24 to17. Among those voting in the affirmative were Senators Collamer, 


’ 


1 “With a firm conviction,” said he, ‘‘that your decision inflicts a vital wound upon free rep- 
resentative government, I can not, by continuing to hold the seat I now occupy under it, give my 
personal assent and sanction to its propriety. ‘To do so, I must forfeit my own self-respect, and 
sacrifice my clear conviction of duty, for the sake merely of retaining a high trust and station with 
its emoluments. That will I never do; but, retiring into private life, shall await, I trust, with 
calmness and firmness, though certainly with despondency, the farther progress of a war which it 
is apparent to my vision will, in its continuance, subvert republican institutions, and sever this Fed- 
eral Union into many arbitrary governments. 

“* Among these, wars for dominion will arise and continue until, from exhaustion, the different 
divisions subside into separate nationalities, leaving not the vestige of a republic remaining. If 
the lessons of history be not deceptive and valueless, such will be the inevitable result of protracted 
war; for a single centralized government over so vast a territory, inhabited by so intelligent and 
energetic a people, could it be organized through military genius and power, and be successful for 

. the hour, would not outlive the generation in which it was established.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[Marcn, 1864. 


Cowan, Dixon, and Doolittle. Fessenden voted in the negative. This bill 
was not again acted upon. But on the 18th of June the House passed a 
bill reported from the Judiciary Committee by Morris, of New York, re- 
pealing the acts of 1793 and 1850 by a vote of 90 to 62, Griswold, of New 
York, being the only opposition member voting in the affirmative. On the 
22d of June the bill passed the Senate 27 to 12, and was approved by Pres- 
ident Lincoln on the 28th. 

On the 26th of February a bill was reported in the Senate proposing to 
repeal the law prohibiting negroes from being employed as carriers of the 
mail, with an amendment providing that in the courts of the United States 
there should be no exclusion of any witnesses on account of color. The 
amendment was not passed in this connection, but subsequently was attach- 
ed as a provision to the Civil Appropriation Bill—a favorite device of Sena- 
tor Sumner.!’ It was afterward approved in the House and became a law. 

On the 81st of March the House bill, in the usual form, providing a tem- 
porary government for Montana, was considered in the Senate, and an 
amendment was passed ignoring any distinction based on color in the organ- 
ization of the territorial government. ‘The House refused to concur. A 
conference committee was appointed, and the bill was finally passed without 
the amendment. As there was not a negro in the territory, the subject was 
of no practical importance, but in any case probably the amendment would 
not have been adopted; for, in a joint resolution amending the charter of 
the District of Columbia, which passed both houses a few weeks later, Sum- 
ner’s amendment providing that there should be no exclusion from the reg- 
ister on account of color was rejected. Congress at this time certainly was 
not in favor of negro suffrage even in the district over which it had legisla- 
tive control. In the bill, however, incorporating the Metropolitan Railroad 
Company of the District of Columbia, which passed both houses, provision 
was incorporated that there should be no regulation excluding any person 
from any car on account of color. On the 24th of June Sumner succeeded 
in attaching to the Civil Appropriation Bill a section prohibiting the coast- 
wise slave-trade, which passed both houses. 

About the end of March a joint resolution was offered in the Senate, pro- 
posing to the Legislatures of the several states the following article as an 
amendment to the Constitution : 

“ARTICLE XIII., Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ex- 
cept as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed, shall exist within the United States, or in any place subject to their 
jurisdiction. 

“* Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropri- 
ate legislation.” 

“When this amendment shall be consummated,” said Senator Wilson, 
“the shackles will fall from the limbs of the hapless bondsman, and the lash 
drop from the weary hand of the task-master. . . . . Then the slave-mart, 
pen, and auction block, with their clanking fetters for human limbs, will dis- 
appear from the land they have brutalized, and the school-house will rise to 
enlighten the darkened intellect of a race imbruted by long years of enforced 
ignorance. Then the sacred rights of human nature, the hallowed family 
relations of husband and wife, parent and child, will be protected by the 
guardian spirit of the law which makes sacred alike the proud homes and 
lowly cabins of freedom. Then the sacred earth, blighted by the sweat and 
tears of bondage, will bloom again under the quickening culture of reward- 
ed toil. Then the wronged victim of the slave system, the poor white man, 
and sand-hiller, the clay-eater of the wasted fields of California, impoverish- 
ed, debased, dishonored by the system that makes toil a badge of disgrace, 
and the instruction of the brain and soul of man a crime, will lift his abash- 
ed forehead to the skies, and begin to run the race of improvement, progress, 
and elevation. Then the nation, ‘regenerated, and disenthralled by the genius 
of universal emancipation,’ will run the career of development, power, and 
glory, animated and guided by the spirit of the Christian Democracy, that 
‘pulls not the highest down, but lifts the lowest up.’” The resolution was 
adopted by a vote of 88 to 6. In the House it failed of the necessary two 
thirds majority. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, on most subjects a mem- 
ber of the opposition, and himself a slaveholder, strongly advocated the 
passage of the amendment in the Senate. ‘There was a period,” said he, 
“in our own time when there was but one opinion upon the question of 
right, or almost but one opinion upon that question. The men who fought 
through the Revolution, those who survived its peril and shared in its glory, 
and who were called to the Convention by which the Constitution of the 
United States was drafted and recommended to the adoption of the Ameri- 
can people, almost without exception, thought that slavery was not only an 
evil to any people among whom it might exist, but that it was an evil of 
the highest character, which it was the duty of all Christian people, if possi- 
ble, to remove, because it was a sin as well as an evil. 

“T think the history of those times will bear me out in the statement, that 
if the men by whom that Constitution was framed, and the people by whom 
it was adopted, had anticipated the times in which we live, they would have — 
provided by constitutional enactment that that evil and that sin should at 
some comparatively remote day be removed. Without recurring to author- 
ity, the writings, public or private, of the men of that day, it is sufficient for 
my purpose to state what the facts will justify me in saying, that every man 
of them who largely shared in the dangers of the revolutionary struggle, and 
who largely participated in the deliberations of the Convention by which 
the Constitution was adopted, earnestly desired, not only upon grounds of 
political economy, not only upon reasons material in their character, but 


* The entire amendment reads thus: 
Provided, That in the courts of the United States there shall be no exclusion of any witness on 
account of color, nor in ciyil actions because he is a party to or interested in the issue tried. 


Marcn, 1864. ] 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


Zz 
Gijjp 


LE Lita 
hi tr 


OMUARLES SUMNER. 


upon grounds of morality and religion, that sooner or later the institution 
should terminate. 

“The present incumbent of the presidential chair was elected—elected by 
a sectional vote—and the moment the news reached Charleston, where some 
of the leading conspirators were, and here in this chamber, where others were 
to be found, it was hailed, not with regret, but with delight. Why? Be- 
cause, as they thought, it would enable them to drive the South to mad- 
ness by appealing to the danger in which such an event involved this 
institution, which the people were made to believe was so essential to 
their power and to their happiness, and that will be repeated over and over 
again just as long as the institution is suffered to remain. Terminate it, 
and the wit of man will, as I think, be unable to devise any other topic upon 
which we can be involved in a fratricidal strife. God and nature, judging 


by the history of the past, intend us to be one. Our unity is written In the 
mountains and rivers in which we all have an interest. The very differ- 
ence of climate render each important to the other and alike important. 
That mighty horde which from time to time have gone from the Atlantic, 
imbued with all the principles of human freedom which animated their fa- 
thers in running the perils of the mighty deep and seeking liberty here, are 
now there, and as they have said, and will continue to say until time shall be 
no more: ‘We mean that the government in the future shall be as in the 
past, one, an example of human freedom for the light and example of the 
world, and illustrating in the blessings and the happiness it confers the 
truth of the principles incorporated into the Declaration of Independence, 
that life and liberty are man’s inalienable right.’ ” 

This able senator, on a former occasion during this session, when the sec» 


8D 


658 


tion providing for the freedom of negro soldiers, their wives and their chil- 
dren, was under discussion, had very plainly demonstrated the wickedness of 
slavery. ‘I doubt very much,” he said, ‘if any member of the Senate is 
more anxious to have the country composed of free men and free women 
than Iam. I understand the bill to provide that upon the enlistment as 
a soldier of any man of African descent, his wife and children are at once 
to be free. No provision is made to compensate the owner of the wife and 
children if they happen to be slaves, and it of course only applies to such 
wives and children as are slaves—those who are to be set free, and not those 
who are now free. 

“The bill provides that a slave enlisted any where, no matter where he 
may be, whether he be within Maryland or out of Maryland, whether he be 
within any of the loyal states or out of the loyal states altogether, is at once 
to work the emancipation of his wife and his children. He may be in South 
Carolina; and many a slave in South Carolina, I am sorry to say it, can well 
claim to have a wife, and perhaps wives and children, within the limits of Ma- 
ryland. It is one of the vices, and the horrible vices of the institution—one 
that has shocked me from infancy to the present hour—the whole marital re- 
lation is disregarded. They are made to be, practically and by education, 
forgetful or ignorant of that relation. When I say they are educated, I 
mean to say they are kept in absolute ignorance, and out of that tmmorality 
of every description arises, and among the other immoralities is that the con- 
nubial relation does not exist. 

“The men who were here preaching their treason from these desks, tele- 
graphing from these desks—I saw it, though I was not a member, and my 
heart burned within me—for their minions, or the deluded masses at home, 
to seize upon the public property of the United States, its forts, its means, 
its treasure, its material of war, and who were seeking to seduce from 
their allegiance officers of the army and navy of the United States—they 
have done it; and they were told that such would be the result. They did 
not believe it. They believed that your representatives would not have the 
firmness to try the wager of battle. They believed—I have heard them say 
so—that a Southern regiment could march without resistance successfully 
from Washington to Boston, and challenge for themselves independence in 
Faneuil Hall. Sad delusion! Gross ignorance of the character of your 
people! You were free, and you knew its value. You are free, and you 
are brave because you are free; and as I have told them over and over 
again, let the day come when in their madness they should throw down the 
gage of battle to the free states of the Union, and the day of their domestic 
institution will have ended. ‘They have done it. I have said it was, as 
against them, retributive justice. Hoping and believing that their effort 
will be fruitless, that their treason will fail in its object, that the authority 
of the government will be sustained, and the Union be preserved, I thank 
God that as a compensation for the blood, the treasure, and the agony which 
have been brought into our households, and into yours, it has stricken now 
and forever this institution from its place among our states.” 

Though the section providing for the freedom of the families of negroes 
engaged in the military service was not passed, yet the soldiers themselves 
were by another act declared free, and provision was made for their receiv- 
ing the same payment as white soldiers.! 

In legislating upon slavery, Congress did not forget the army. One of 
the first acts of the session was a joint resolution directing that the thanks 
of Congress be presented to General Grant, and to the officers and soldiers 
under him, and requesting the President to cause a gold medal to be struck, 
with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be presented to General 
Grant. A copy of the joint resolutions engrossed on parchment was direct- 
ed to be transmitted with the medal, to be presented to the general in the 
name of the people of the United States. 

No act of Congress relating to the war-was of so much importance as that 
approved by the President on the 29th of February, reviving the grade of 
lieutenant general. The circumstances connected with General Grant’s nom- 
ination to and confirmation in this office have already been narrated in a 
previous chapter. 

Resolutions were offered in December by Johnson, of Pennsylvania, and 
by Eldridge, of Wisconsin, in opposition to the Conscription Act of the pre- 
vious Congress, but these were promptly laid on the table. Toward the 
close of the session the commutation clause was repealed, and no exemption 
was allowed except for alienage, previous service of two years, or physical 
disability. 

The President’s Amnesty Proclamation naturally introduced the subject 
of reconstruction early in the session. On the 15th of December, Henry 

1 The American Annual Cyclopedia for 1864 thus enumerates the several acts relating to slavery 
which were passed by the Thirty-seventh and during the first session of the Thirty-eighth Congress : 
‘¢ Slaves used for military purposes by the enemy were declared to be free; an additional article 
of war dismissed from service all officers who should surrender escaped fugitives coming within the 
lines of the armies; three thousand slaves in the District of Columbia were emancipated, and 
slaveholding forbidden; it was enacted that colored persons in the District should be tried for the 
same offenses, in the same manner, and be subject to the same punishment as white persons, and 
that such persons should not be excluded as witnesses on account of color; and that colored 
schools should be provided, and the same rate of appropriation made to them as to schools for white 
children; and that there should be no exclusion from any railway car in the District on account 
of color; slavery was forever prohibited in all territory of the United States; a joint resolution was 
passed pledging the faith of the nation to aid non-seceding states to emancipate their slaves; all 
slaves of persons aiding the enemy who should take refuge within the lines of the army were de- 
clared free; it was enacted that no slave should be surrendered to any claimant until such person 
had made oath that he had not given aid and comfort to the rebellion; the President was author- 
ized to receive into the military service persons of African descent, and such person, his mother, 
wife, and children, owing service to any person giving aid to the rebellion, were declared free; the 
mutual right of search was arranged within certain limits with Great Britain in order to suppress 
the slave-trade ; the independence of Hayti and Liberia were recognized, and diplomatic relations 
with them authorized; colored persons, free or slave, to be enrolled and drafted the same as whites, 
the former to have the same pay as the latter, and the slave to be free; all fugitive slave acts were 
repealed ; the coastwise slave-trade was declared illegal; colored persons enabled to testify in all 


the courts of the United States; colored persons were authorized to carry the mails of the United 
States. Other measures were introduced, but failed to pass.” 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


j 


[ DECEMBER, 1863. 


Winter Davis, of Maryland, moved the reference of that portion of the Pres- 
ident’s message which related to reconstruction to a select committee of 
nine, to be named by the speaker. He objected to the use of the term re- 
construction as vague and inaccurate, as there had been “no destruction of 
the Union, no breaking up of the government.” “The fact,” said he, ‘as 
well as the constitutional view of affairs in the states enveloped by rebel- 
lion, is that a force has overthrown, or the people, in a moment of madness, 
have abrogated the governments which existed in those states under the 
Constitution, and were recognized by the United States prior to the break- 
ing out of the rebellion. The government of the United States is engaged 
in two operations. One is the suppression of armed resistance to the su- 
preme authority of the United States, and which is endeavoring to suppress 
that opposition by arms. Another—a very delicate and perhaps as high a 
duty—is to see, when armed resistance shall be removed, that governments 
shall be restored in those states republican in their form.” 

Lovejoy, of Illinois, expressed very similar views of the subject. ‘I do 
not believe,” said he, “strictly speaking, that there are any rebel states. I 
know there are states which rebels have taken possession of and overthrown 
the legitimate governments for the time being; and I hold, with the gentle- 
man from Maryland, as I understood him, that those governments still re- 
main, and that as soon as we can get possession of them we will breathe into 
them the spirit of republican life—a free soul once again. Iam for the Con- 
stitution as it is and the Union as it was. Yes, I am for the Constitution as 
it is, and not as it has been falsely interpreted, and for the Union as it was 
before it was taken possession of by slaveholding tyrants.” 

The House adopted Davis’s proposition’ by a vote of 91 to 80. Thus it 
will be seen that even at this time there was a great difference of opinion in 
regard to the restoration of the insurrectionary states to their normal rela- 
tions in the Union. The dividing line was already being drawn between 
those who were willing to base restoration upon the returning allegiance to 
the Constitution of the people of the South, and upon their support of the 
action of the government in regard to slavery, and those who, insisting upon 
the right and expediency of treating the Southern people as a conquered 
nation of aliens, would impose additional conditions of a harsher and more 
humiliating character. ‘I'he majority of the members of Congress belonged 
at this time to the former class, and adopted the views of Henry Winter Da- 
vis and Lovejoy. The President’s Amnesty Proclamation was a practical 
expression of the same views. The proclamation consists of two parts— 
one declaring the executive pardon upon certain conditions and with cer- 
tain exceptions; the other declaring the willingness of the government to 
recognize state governments, republican in form, whenever re-established by 
loyal voters, not less than one tenth in number of the votes cast in the re- 
spective states at the presidential election of 1860. 

1. The subject of pardon was purely within executive control. The Con- 
stitution expressly declares that the President “shall have power to grant 
reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases 
of impeachment.” Of course, the power to grant pardon includes the pow- 
er to grant it upon conditions and with exceptions. The condition required 
by the President was the taking of the following oath: 

et , do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I 
will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States and the Union of the states thereunder; and that I will, in 
like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed dur- 
ing the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not 
repealed, modified, or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme 
Court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by, and faithfully support all 
proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion, having 
reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by 
decision of the Supreme Court. So help me God.” 

The following persons were excepted: ‘‘ All who are or shall have been 
civil or diplomatic officers of the so-called Confederate government; all who 
have left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; all 
who are, or shall have been, military or naval officers of said so-called Con- 
federate government above the rank of colonel in the army, or of lieutenant 
in the navy; all who left seats in the United States Congress to aid the re- 
bellion; all who resigned commissions in the army or navy of the United 
States, and afterward aided the rebellion; and all who have engaged in any 
way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, other- 
wise than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which persons may have been 
found in the United States service as soldiers, seamen, or in any other ca- 
pacity.” 

2. The second part of the proclamation also rested upon a constitutional 
basis. The Constitution provides that “the United States shall guarantee 
to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall pro- 
tect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature or 
the executive (when the Legislature can not be convened), against domestic 
violence.” It was only in cases like this—where loyal governments had 
been subverted—that such a guaranty could become necessary. It was a 
guaranty to loyal men as against rebels—a guaranty backed by the whole 
military power of the government. It was granted in good faith, and sus- 
tained by every pledge which it was in the power of the executive to give. 
So far as it went, it was authoritative, without the sanction of any legislative 
or judicial body. It was a proclamation by the executive declaring a mode 
by which loyal men in the disturbed states might restore the latter to their 

1 “That so much of the President’s message as relates to the duty of the United States to guar- 
antee a republican form of government to the states in which the governments recognized by the 
United States have been abrogated or overthrown, be referred to a select committee of nine, to be 


named by the speaker, which shall report the bills necessary and proper for carrying into execution 
the foregoing guarantee.” 


January, 1864. ] 


normal relations with the executive. The direct participation of these states 
in the Federal government by means of representation was left entirely to 
Congress. ‘Whether members sent to Congress from any state shall be ad- 
mitted to seats constitutionally, rests exclusively with the respective houses, 
and not, to any extent, with the executive.” We have said that the provis- 
ions of this proclamation were made for loyal men; yet the proclamation 
was by its very terms addressed to rebels, to induce them to return to their 
allegiance to the government, and time was given for its operation upon the 
minds of the people. The amnesty had no reference to the past, but only 
to prospective allegiance. Only those were excluded from participation in 
the work of restoration who refused to take this oath, and who were not 
qualified voters by the election laws of their respective states. This work 
might proceed in any of the eleven so-called Confederate States “ whenever” 
(not if now, or if immediately) one tenth of the voters in the state should have 
taken the amnesty oath in good faith. 

Thus the real burden of restoration, according to President Lincoln’s 
method, was thrown upon the people of the disturbed states. The only 
conditions imposed were the modification of the new governments to suit 
the altered situation of the negro, and that the governments should be re- 
publican in form. That otherwise than in regard to slavery Lincoln’s 
method did not contemplate any radical revolution in the revived state 
governments is evident from the fact that he saw no impropriety in main- 
taining “the name of the state, the boundary, the subdivisions, the Consti- 
tution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion.” Negro suf- 
frage was not even alluded to either as necessary or desirable. It was sim- 
ply declared that any provision which might be adopted in relation to the 
freed people, recognizing and declaring their permanent freedom, providing 
for their education, or meeting their present condition as a laboring, land- 
less, and homeless class, would “not be objected to by the executive.” 

It must be remembered that this plan, so liberal in its provisions, was of- 
fered while the war was yet in progress, though no longer doubtful as to its 
result. Perhaps there is no stronger evidence of the blindness and persist- 
ency of the rebellion, or of the want of foresight among its leaders, than the 
fact that this generous plan was not immediately and universally adopted. 
The nation would have been thus delivered not only from sixteen months 
of useless strife, but also from the dissensions which, after the close of the 
war, arose in regard to the methods of restoration. Whether, on the whole, 
so sudden a deliverance would have been better for the interests of freedom 
on this continent, there is room for doubt. If treason had thus suddenly and 
of its own motion been transformed into loyalty, in order to save itself from 
impending woes, it would not then have been utterly slain; if it had thus 
willingly put off its own armor, and resigned the conflict while yet in its 
full might of resistance, might it not then again have proudly stepped into 
the political arena, changed only in respect of prudence? The nation would 
have lost that complete sense of the victory of right over wrong which fol- 
lowed the forced surrender of the Confederate armies; and who can estimate 
the moral power lodged in that sublime exaltation which thrilled the whole 
loyal people in the spring of 1865? But in that way also lay fearful tempta- 
tion and possible madness, arising out of the very completeness of a victory 
by which the people of an entire section were laid prostrate at the feet of that 
of another, But even this test, if it could be borne, it were a pity to have 
lost—losing, as we should have done, at the same time, so much of moral 
force; escaping at once inestimable good and the possibility of inestimable 
harm. If the war had thus concluded, slavery would have been abolished 
indeed; but whatever of positive liberty the negro might gain he must owe 
to the magnanimity or the fears of his former masters, or else to his own 
utility as a political dummy. 

By the amnesty proclaination, property forfeited under the Confiscation 
Act of Congress, and not already sold, was restored to all persons taking the 
oath of allegiance. 

In Congress the general subject of reconstruction came up in the course 
of a discussion relating to the Confiscation Act of 1862, and its application to 
the perpetual forfeiture of property. During the debate in the House on 
the 22d of January, Thaddeus Stevens reiterated the views upon which he 
had so strongly insisted in the previous session. It had been argued by 
some members that the Constitution permitted no forfeiture of real estate 
beyond the natural life of the offender, and by others that no such meaning 
was intended by the framers, whose design was merely to prevent the act 
of forfeiture from original application after the offender’s decease. Stevens 
claimed that the Confiscation Act was not affected, either directly or indirect- 
ly, by the provisions of the Constitution; that its operation was not under 
the Constitution, but in accordance with the laws of war. The seizure of 
property operated not as against traitors, but as against alien enemies. “It 
is, however,” said he, “‘ essential to ascertain what relation the seceded states 
bear to the United States, that we may know how to deal with them in re- 
establishing the national government. There seems to be great confusion 
of ideas and diversity of opinion on that subject. Some think that those 
states are still in the Union, and entitled to the protection of the Constitu- 
tion and laws of the United States, and that, notwithstanding all they have 
done, they may at any time, without any legislation, come back, send sena- 
tors and representatives to Congress, and enjoy all the privileges and immuni- 
ties of loyal members of the United States; that whenever those ‘wayward 
sisters’ choose to abandon their frivolities and present themselves at the door 
of the Union and demand admission, we must receive them with open arms, 
and throw over them the protecting shield of the Union, of which it is said 
they had never ceased to be members. Others hold that, having committed 
treason, renounced their allegiance to the Union, discarded its Constitution 
and laws, organized a distinct and hostile government, and by force of arms 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


659 


having risen from the condition of insurgents to the position of an independ 
ent power de facto, and having been acknowledged as a belligerent both by 
foreign nations and our own government, the Constitution and laws of the 
Union are abrogated so far as they are concerned, and that, as between the 
two belligerents, they are under the laws of war and the laws of nations 
alone, and that whichever power conquers may treat the vanquished as con- 
quered provinces, and may impose upon them such conditions and laws as 
it may deem best. 

“Tt is obvious that this question is of vast importance. If the first posi- 
tion should be established, then the rebel states, after having been conquered 
and reduced to helplessness through the expenditure of many billions of 
money and the shedding of oceans of loyal blood, may lay down their arms, 
which they can no longer wield, claim to be legitimate members of the 
Union, send senators and representatives to Congress, retain all their lands 
and possessions, and leave the loyal states burdened with an immense debt, 
with no indemnity for their sufferings and damages, and with no security 
for the future. 

“Tf the latter proposition prevails, then Congress will readjust the govern- 
ment on the firm basis of individual and public justice; will protect the in- 
nocent and pardon the least guilty; will punish the leading traitors, seize 
their lands and estates, sell them in fee-simple, pay the proceeds into the na- 
tional treasury to discharge the expenses and damages of the war, and pro- 
vide a permanent fund for pensions to the widows and orphans, and the 
maimed and mangled survivors of this infamous war; and, above all, will 
forever exclude the infernal cause of this rebellion—human bondage—from 
the continent of North America.” 

Stevens then proceeded to argue—from the corporate capacity in which 
the war was waged by the Confederate States, and from the concession to 
them of belligerent rights, both by ourselves and foreign powers—that the 
operation of the war was exactly the same as if it were being waged between 
two hostile nations, and that all treaties or compacts previously existing be- 
tween the same were therefore annulled.!| The concession of belligerent 
rights to the seceding states, he claimed, was an admission that they were 
out of the Union. These states, as minor corporations, and also as confed- 
erated together in a major corporation, styled the ‘‘ Confederate States,” 
were waging war against the United States. It was idle to claim “that 
townships, and counties, and parishes within such states are at peace, while 
the states, by acknowledged majorities, have declared war ;” and still more 
idle was the claim that the loyal individuals, who were a small minority, in 
each of the belligerent states, constituted the state, and that hence the states 
were not at war. “This,” said he, ‘‘is ignoring the fundamental principle 
of democratic republics, which is, that majorities must rule; that the voice of 
the majority, however wicked and abandoned, is the law of the state. If 
the minority choose to stay within the misgoverned territory, they are its 
citizens, and subject to its conditions. The innocence of individuals forms 
no protection (except in a personal point of view) to those residing in a hos- 
tile territory. Even the innocence of women and children does not screen 
them from the fate of their nation.” There could be no neutrals in a hos- 
tile state. ‘From all this,” said he, ‘the legitimate conclusion is, that all 
the people and all the territory within the limits of the organized states 
which, by a legitimate majority of their citizens, renounced the Constitution, 
took their states out of the Union, and made war upon the government, are, 
so far as they are concerned, subject to the laws of the state, and, so far as 
the United States government is concerned, subject to the laws of war and 
of nations, both while the war continues and when it shall be ended. If the 
United States succeed, how may she treat the vanquished belligerent? 
Must she treat her precisely as if she had always been at peace? If so, 
then this war on the part of the United States has been not only a foolish, 
but a very wicked one. But there is no such absurd principle to restrain 
the hands of the injured victor. By the laws of war, the conqueror may 
seize and convert to his own use every thing that belongs to the enemy. 
This may be done when the war is raging, to weaken the enemy, and when 
it is ended the things seized may be retained to pay the expenses of the war 
and the damages caused by it. Towns, cities, and provinces may be held as 
a punishment for an unjust war, and as security against future aggressions. 
The property thus taken is not confiscated under the Constitution after con- 
viction for treason, but is held by virtue of the laws of war. No individual 
crime need be proved against the owners. The fact of being a belligerent 
enemy carries the forfeiture with it. To my mind there can be no doubt as 
to what we have a right to do if, as I will not permit myself to doubt, we 
should finally conquer the Confederate States. Whai it will be policy to do 
may be more difficult to determine. My mind is fixed. The rebels have 
waged the most unjust, cruel, and causeless war that was ever prosecuted by 
ruthless murderers and pirates. They have compelled the government in 
self-defense to expend billions of money. Every inch of the soil of the 
euilty portion of this usurping power should be held responsible to reim- 
burse all the costs of the war, to pay all the damages to private property of 
loyal men, and to create an ample fund to pay pensions to wounded soldiers 
and to the bereaved friends of the slain. Who will object to this? Who 


1 He quoted from Vattel, p. 424, 425: 

‘‘ When, in a republic, the nation is divided into two opposite factions, and both sides take up 
arms, this is called a civil war. The sovereign, indeed, never fails to bestow the appellation of 
rebels on all such of his subjects as openly resist him; but when the latter have acquired sufficient 
strength to give him effectual opposition, and oblige him to carry on the war against them accord- 
ing to the established rules, he must necessarily submit to the use of the term * civil war.’ 

‘‘On earth they have no common superior. They stand precisely in the same predicament as 
two nations who engage in a contest, and, being unable to come to an agreement, haye recourse to 
arms.” 

Also from the same, book iii., chap. x., sec. 125: 

“The conventions, the treaties made with a nation, are broken or annulled by a war arising 
between the contending parties,” : 


660 


will consent that his constituents and their posterity shall be burdened with 
an immense load caused by these bloody traitors? Their lands, if sold in 
fee, would produce enough for all these purposes, and leave a large surplus.” 

Broomall, of Pennsylvania, thought that the government should be con- 
fined absolutely neither to the position of those who would for all purposes 
treat those engaged in the rebellion as public enemies, nor to that of those 
who would for all purposes treat them as “our fellow-citizens, and entitled 
to the benefits of the Constitution and laws of the United States.” The 
rebels were wrong by their own voluntary act, and, while not entitled to any 
of the advantages of their position, were subject to all its disadvantages. 
They could not claim to be treated either as subjects or as public enemies, 
but the government might at its own election treat them in either capacity. 
Sometimes, as in the case of prisoners, the, more humane laws of war ought 
to step in in the place of civil law. But the power to enforce civil Jaw still 
remained. In regard to the property of rebels either code might be applied. 
This property might be confiscated absolutely under the laws of war, 2nd in 
this case the confiscation would not be penal in its nature, would have noth- 
ing to do with attainder for treason, and would therefore fall outside of the 
scope of constitutional provisions; or, under the civil code this property 
could be fined or forfeited as a penalty of treason, and in the latter case the 
effects of the attainder could not extend beyond the life of the offender. 

But both Stevens and Broomall were wrong in assuming that because the 
general laws of war are applicable to civil wars, therefore under and by vir- 
tue of those laws private property on land belonging to the enemy might 
be confiscated. By modern usage, the private property of a public enemy 
on land is exempt from capture except when taken as a penalty for military 
offenses, as a forced contribution for the support of invading armies, or to 
pay the expenses of maintaining order and affording protection to the con- 
quered. It was necessary, therefore, to resort to the civil code in order to 
reach the private property of rebels. The inhabitants of the states engaged 
in rebellion must, in this respect at least, be regarded as subjects, or escape 
the penalty of confiscation. 

The House was disposed, therefore, to consider the provision of the Con- 
stitution in regard to attainder for treason as applicable to the Confiscation 
Act. By a vote of 83 to 74, a joint resolution was passed amending the 
joint resolution explanatory of the Confiscation Act, and adopted at the 
President’s suggestion, so that no punishment or proceeding under the act 
might be construed to work the forfeiture of the offender's estate contrary 
to the Constitution. In the Senate, the clause of the joint resolution of 1862, 
limiting forfeiture to the life of the offender, was repealed, 23 to 15. Return- 
ing to the House, the subject was postponed to the next session, and the act 
of 1862 remained as it was. 

The President’s amnesty proclamation had only spoken for the executive. 
It was also deemed necessary that Congress should speak for itself in terms 
equally explicit, either ad>pting the President’s plan or proposing some oth- 
er. Accordingly, in the House, on the 15th of February, Henry Winter 
Davis, from the Select Committee, reported a bill to guarantee to certain 
states a republican form of government.!. The plan thus offered differed 
from that proposed by the President in several important particulars. It 
provided for the supervision, by a provisional governor, of the work of 
restoration. It postponed this work in any state until the rebellion in that 
state should have been suppressed, and until a majority had taken the 
oath of allegiance. No person was allowed to vote for, or act as a dele- 
gate in the Convention who had held any civil, military, state, or Confederate 
office under the rebel occupation, or who had voluntarily borne arms against 
the United States. Three distinct articles were dictated to the Convention 
for insertion in the state Constitution: the first disfranchising, in elections 
for governor and Legislature, all citizens who had held any military or civil 
office (except offices merely ministerial and military offices below that of 
colonel) under the usurpng power; the second abolished slavery, and guar- 


* The bill authorized the President to appoint in each of thc states declared in rebellion a provi- 
sional governor, with the pay and emoluments of a brigadier, to be charged with the civil admin- 
istration until a state government therein shall be recognized. As soon as the military resistance 
to the United States shall have been suppressed, and the people sufficiently returned to their obe- 
dience to the Constitution and the laws, the governor shall direct the Marshal of the United States 
to enroll all the white male citizens of the United States resident in the state, in their respective 
counties; and wherever a majority of them take the oath of allegiance, the loyal people of the 
state shall be entitled to elect delegates to a Convention to act upon the re-establishment of a state 
government—the proclamation to contain details prescribed. Qualified voters in the army may 
vote in their camps. No person who has held or exercised any civil, military, state, or Confederate 
office under the rebel occupation, and who has voluntarily borne arms against the United States, 
shall vote or be eligible as a delegate. The Convention is required to insert in the Constitution 
provisions— 

“1. No person who has held or exercised any civil or military oftice (except offices merely min- 
isterial and military offices below a colonel), state or Confederate, under the usurping power, shall 
vote for, or be a member of the Legislature or governor. 

“2. Involuntary servitude is forever prohibited, and the freedom of all persons guaranteed in 
said state. 

“*3. No debt, state or Confederate, created by or under the sanction of the usurping power, shall 
be recognized or paid by the state.” 

Upon the adoption of the Constitution by the Convention, and its ratification by the electors of 
the state, the provisional government shall so certify to the President, who, after obtaining the as- 
sent of Congress, shall, by proclamation, recognize the government as established, and none other, 
as the constitutional government of the state; and from the date of such recognition, and not be- 
fore, senators and representatives, and electors for President and Vice-President may be elected in 
such state. Until reorganization, the provisional governor shall enforce the laws of the Union and 
of the state before rebellion. 

The remaining sections are as follows: 

“Sec. 12. That all persons held to involuntary servitude or labor in the states aforesaid are 
hereby emancipated and discharged therefrom, and they and their posterity shall be forever free. 
And if any such person or their posterity shall be restrained of their liberty, under pretense of any 
claim to such service or labor, the courts of the United States shall on habeas corpus discharge them. 

‘Sec. 13, That if any person declared free by this act, or any law of the United States, or any 
proclamation of the President, be restrained of liberty, with intent to be held in or restored to in- 
voluntary labor, the person convicted before a court of competent jurisdiction of such act shall be 
panies by fine of not less than $1500, and be imprisoned not less than five nor more than twen- 

y years. 

** Sec. 14, That every person who shall hereafter hold or exercise any office, civil or military, ex- 
cept offices merely ministerial and military offices below the grade of colonel, in the rebel service, 
state or Confederate, is hereby declared not to be a citizen of the United States,” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JULY, 1864, 


anteed the freedom of all persons; and the third prohibited the recognition 
or payment of the Confederate debt. The assent of Congress was made a 
necessary condition precedent to the President's proclamation recognizing 
the government thus established. From the date of such recognition, and 
not before, could senators, representatives, and presidential electors be elect- 
ed in any of the states included within the provisions of the bill, The 
bill also emancipated all slaves in these states, and affixed a distinct pen- 
alty to any attempt to re-enslave those who had been thus declared free, It 
disfranchised all those whom it required the several state Conventions to 
disfranchise. It agreed with the President’s proclamation in ignoring negro 
suffrage. 

This bill was passed hy the House on the 4th of May, 74 to 66. Every 
affirmative vote was Republican, and only six Republicans voted in opposi- 
tion. On the 27th, B. F. Wade, of Ohio, reported the bill in the Senate. In 
the course of the discussion which followed, Wade, in the most emphatic 
terms, repudiated as ‘‘ most hazardous” the theory that the states could lose 
their organization, their rights as states, or their corporate capacity by rebel- 
lion! The Senate passed the bill July 2d, yeas 18, and nays 14. Among 
those voting nay were Senators Doolittle, Lane (of Indiana), and Trumbull. 
The President refused to sign the bill, but on the 9th of July he issued a 
proclamation concerning it. It had, he said, been presented to him less than 
one hour previous to the close of the session, and he had not signed it. He 
declared that he was “ unprepared, by the formal approval of this bill, to be 
inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration;” to set aside the free 
state constitutions and governments already adopted and installed i) Arkan- 
sas and Louisiana, thus discouraging loyal citizens from farther effort; or 
to declare the constitutional competency of Congress to abolish slavery in 
the states. Yet he was “ fully satisfied with the system for restoration con- 
tained in the bill as one very proper for the loyal people of any state choos- 
ing to adopt it,” and was prepared to give executive aid and assistance in 
carrying out such a method, and he would appoint military governors for 
this purpose so soon as military resistance to the government should have 
been suppressed in any state, and the people thereof sufficiently returned to 
their obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States. This 
proclamation called forth a political manifesto from Davis and Wade, which 
was published in the New York 7ribune for August 5, 1864, censuring the 
President, and charging him with usurpation and unworthy motives.? 


? The following is an extract from Mr. Wade’s speech : 

‘*Tt has been contended in the House of Representatives, it has been contended upon this floor, 
that the states may lose their organization, may lose their rights as states, may lose their corporate 
capacity by rebellion. I utterly deny that doctrine. I hold that once a state of this Union, al- 
ways a state; that you can not by wrong and violence displace the rights of any body or disorgan- 
ize the state. It would be a most hazardous principle to assert that. No, sir; the framers of 
your Constitution intended no such thing. They did not leave this great question untouched ; and 
when we study that great instrument, I can hardly help but stop and contemplate the all-embracing 
wisdom that seemed to actuate them, for you can find hardly an exigency that may arise in the 
complicated affairs of government that they did not anticipate and provide for. They did foresee 
that in the progress of the government some of the states might go into rebellion ; that they might 
undertake themselves to absolve their connection with the general government and set up some 
hostile government of their own; and they expressly provided for just such a case; and how gen- 
tlemen with this principle of the Constitution staring them in the face can fancy that states can 
lose their rights because more or less of the people have gone off into rebellion, is marvelous to me. 
The principle of law every where is that no honest man shall lose a right by wrong or usurpation. 
The act of rebellion is void. It may have physical force for the moment to displace rights; but 
the law never yields to any such power as that. The law never any where acknowledges that right 
can be overthrown by wrongful action. They, then, who contend that the state governments are 
lost, obliterated, blotted out, are contending against the face and eyes of the Constitution. Has 
that said any such thing? No,sir. It has said that the Federal government shall guarantee to 
every state a republican form of government ; and if a portion of the people undertake to overthrow 
their government and set up another, it is the manifest duty of the general government immediate- 
ly to interfere, and, if necessary, to interpose the strong arm of its power to prevent such a state of 
things. Precisely that state of things is upon us, and this bill proceeds upon that idea, and dis- 
cards absolutely the notion that states may lose their rights, and that they may be abrogated and 
may be reduced to the condition of Territories. It denies any such thing as that. No sound prin- 
ciple can be adopted that warrants any such thing.” 


* Protest of Senator Wade and H. Winter Davis, M. C., to the supporters of the Government. 

‘‘We have read without surprise, but not without indignation, the proclamation of the President 
of the 8th of July, 1864. 

‘*The supporters of the administration are responsible to the country for its conduct; and it is 
their right and duty to check the encroachments of the executive on the authority of Congress, and 
to require it to confine itself to its proper sphere. 

“It is impossible to pass in silence this proclamation without neglecting that duty ; and, haying 
taken as much responsibility as any others in supporting the administration, we are not disposed to 
fail in the other duty of asserting the rights of Congress. 

““The President did not sign the bill ‘to guarantee to certain states whose government have 
been usurped, a republican form of government’—passed by the supporters of his administration in 
both houses of Congress after mature deliberation. 

‘* The bill did not, therefore, become a law, and it is, therefore, nothing, 

‘The proclamation is neither an approval nor a veto of the bill; it is, therefore, a document un- 
known to the laws and Constitution of the United States. 

‘*So far as it contains an apology for not signing the Dill, it is a political manifesto against the 
friends of the government. 

‘*So far as it proposes to execute the bill which is not a law, it is a grave executive usurpation. 

‘Tt is fitting that the facts necessary to enable the friends of the administration to appreciate 
the apology and the usurpation be spread before them. 

‘The proclamation says : 

‘«* And whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval 
less than one hour before the size die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him—’ 

“Tf that be accurate, still this bill was presented with other bills which were signed. 

‘‘ Within that hour the time for the sine die adjournment was three times postponed by the votes 
of both houses ; and the least intimation of a desire for more time by the President to consider this 
bill would have secured a farther postponement. 

““Yet the committee sent to ascertain if the President had any further communication for the 
House of Representatives reported that he had none; and the friends of the bill, who had anxiously 
waited on him to ascertain its fate, had already been informed that the President had resolved not 
to sign it. 

‘The time of presentation, therefore, had nothing to do with his failure to approve it. 

‘* The bill has been discussed and considered for more than a month in the House of Representa- 
tives, which it passed on the 4th of May. It was reported to the Senate on the 27th of May, with- 
out material amendment, and passed the Senate absolutely as it came from the House on the 2d 
of July. 

‘*Tgnorance of its contents is out of the question. 

‘Indeed, at his request, a draft of a bill substantially the same in material points, and identical 
in the points objected to by the proclamation, had been laid before him for his consideration in the 
winter of 1862-3. 

““'There is, therefore, no reason to suppose the provisions of the bill took the President by sur- 
prise. 

‘*On the contrary, we have reason to believe them to have been so well known that this method 
of preventing the bill from becoming a law without the constitutional responsibility of a veto had 
been resolved on long before the bill passed the Senate, 


TuLy, 1864. ] 


The Senate, a short time before its adjournment, declared by a vote 27 to 


o> >: = ent lee ee ee ee EEE 

‘We are informed by a gentleman entitled to entire cenfidence, that before the 22d of June, in 
New Orleans, it was stated by a member of General Banks's staff, in the presence of other gentle, 
men in official position, that Senator Doolittle had written a letter to the department that the House 
Reconstruction Bill would be staved off in the Senate to a period too late in the session to require 
the President to veto it in order to defeat it, and that Mr. Lincoln would retain the bill, if neces- 
sary, and thereby defeat it. 

“The experience of Senator Wade, in his various efforts to get the bill considered in the Senate, 
was quite in accordance with that plan; and the fate of the bill was accurately predicted by letters 
received from New Orleans before it had passed the Senate. 

“Had the proclamation stopped there, it would have been only one other defeat of the will of the 
people by the executive perversion of the Constitution, 

“But it goes farther. The President says: 

<<< And whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the states in re- 
bellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress 
upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their considera- 
tion—’ 

“By what authority of the Constitution? In what forms? The result to be declared by whom? 
With what effect when ascertained ? 

‘Ts it to be a law by the approval of the people, without the approval of Congress, at the will of 
the President ? 

“Will the President, on his opinion of the popular approval, execute it as a law? 

‘Or is this merely a device to avoid the serious responsibility of defeating a law on which so 
many loyal hearts reposed for security ? . 

‘“But the reasons now assigned for not approving the bill are full of ominous significance. 

‘«'The President proceeds : 

‘« ‘Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do procéaim, declare, and 
make known that, while I am (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propounded a 
plan for restoration) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any 
single plan of restoration—’ 

‘That is to say, the President is resolved that people shall not by law take any securities from 
the rebel states against a renewal of the rebellion, before restoring their power to govern us. 

‘His wisdom and prudence are to be our sufficient guarantees! He farther says : 

‘* And while I am also unprepared to declare that the free state Constitutions and governments 
already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, 
thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to farther effort—’ 

‘That is to say, the President persists in recognizing those shadows of governments in Arkansas 
and Louisiana which Congress formally declared should not be recognized—whose representatives 
and senators were repelled by formal votes of both houses of Congress—which it was declared form- 
ally should have no electoral vote for President and Vice-President. 

‘*They are mere creatures of his will. They are mere oligarchies, imposed on the people by 
military orders under the form of election, at which generals, provost-marshals, soldiers, and camp- 
followers were thé chief actors, assisted by a handful of resident citizens, and urged on to premature 
action by private letters from the President. 

“Tn neither Louisiana nor Arkansas, before Banks’s defeat, did the United States control half 
the territory or half the population. In Louisiana, General Banks's proclamation candidly de- 
clared, ‘The fundamental law of the state is martial law.’ 

“On that foundation of freedom he erected what the President calls ‘the free Constitution and 
government of Louisiana.’ 

‘But of this state, whose fundamental law was martial law, only sixteen parishes out of forty- 
eight parishes were held by the United States ; and in five of the sixteen we held only our camps. 

“<The eleven parishes we substantially held had 233,185 inhabitants ; the-residue of the state 
not held by us, 575,617. 

‘* At the farce called an election, the officers of General Banks returned that 11,346 ballots were 
cast; but whether any or by whom the people of the United States have no legal assurance ; but 
it is probable that 4000 were cast by soldiers or employés of the United States, military or munici- 
pal, but none according to any law, state or national, and 7000 ballots represent the State of Lou- 
isiana, 

‘Such is the free Constitution and government of Louisiana; and like it is that of Arkansas. 
Nothing but the failure of a military expedition deprived us of a like one in the swamps of Florida ; 
and before the presidential election like ones may be organized in every rebel state where the United 
States have a camp. 

“<The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of the 
rebel states at the dictation of his personal ambition. 

‘“Tf those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be supposed that his competitor, defeated 
by such means, will acquiesce ? 

‘If the rebel majority assert their supremacy in those states, and send votes which elect an 
enemy of the government, will we not repel his claims ? 

‘ And is not that civil war for the Presidency inaugurated by the votes of rebel states ? 

‘« Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, ‘the proper constitutional authority,’ form- 
ally declared that there are no state governments in the rebel states, and provided for their erection 
at a proper time; and both the Senate and the House of Representatives rejected the senators and 
representatives chosen under the authority of what the President calls the free Constitution and 
government of Arkansas. 

‘The President's proclamation ‘holds for naught’ this judgment, and discards the authority of 
the Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward the anarchy his proclamation of the 8th of De- 
cember inaugurated. 

‘<Tf electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those states, a sinister light will 
be cast on the motiyes which induced the President to ‘hold for naught’ the will of Congress rather 
than his government in Louisiana and Arkansas. 

“That judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of an authority ex- 
clusively vested in Congress by the Constitution, to determine what is the established government 
in a state, and in its own nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other depart- 
ments of the government. 

‘“‘ The Supreme Court has formally declared that, under the 4th section of the [Vth article of the 
Constitution, requiring the United States to guarantee to every state a republican form of govern- 
ment, ‘it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a state ;’ and 
‘when senators and representatives of a state are admitted into the councils of the Union, the au- 
thority of the government under which they are appointed, as well as its republican character, is 
recognized by the proper constitutional authority, and its decision is binding on every other depart- 
ment of the government, and could not be questioned in a judicial tribunal. It is true that the 
contest in this case did not last long enough to bring the matter to this issue; and as no senators 
or representatives were elected under the authority of the government of which Mr. Dorr was the 
pond, Congress was not called upon to decide the controversy. Yet the right to decide is placed 
there.’ 

‘‘fiven the President’s proclamation of the 8th of December formally declares that ‘whether 
members sent to Congress from any state shall be admitted to seats constitutionally rests exclu- 
sively with the respective houses, and not to any extent with the executive.’ 

‘“And that is not the less true because wholly inconsistent with the President’s assumption in 
that proclamation of a right to institute and recognize state governments in the rebel states, nor 
because the President is unable to perceive that his recognition is a nullity if it be not conclusive 
on Congress. ' 

‘‘ Under the Constitution, the right to senators and representatives is inseparable from a state 
government. 

‘*Tf there be a state government the right is absolute. 

‘“‘Tf there be no state government there can be no senators or representatives chosen. 

‘The two houses of Congress are expressly declared to be the sole judges of their own members. 

‘¢ When, therefore, senators and representatives are admitted, the state government under whose 
authority they were chosen is conclusively established ; when they are rejected, its existence is as 
conclusively rejected and denied; and to this judgment the President is bound to submit. 

“The President proceeds to express his unwillingness ‘ to declare a constitutional competency 
in Congress to abolish slavery in states’ as another reason for not signing the bill. 

‘* But the bill nowhere proposes to abolish slavery in states. 

‘The bill did provide that all s/aves in the rebel states should be manumitted. 

‘*But as the President had already signed three bills manumitting several classes of slaves in 
states, it is not conceived possible that he entertained any scruples touching that provision of the 
bill respecting which he is silent. 

‘He had already himself assumed a right by proclamation to free much the larger number of 
slaves in the rebel states, under the authority given him by Congress to use military power to sup- 
press the rebellion ; and it is quite inconceivable that the President should think Congress could 
yest in him a discretion it could not exercise itself. 

“Tt is the more unintelligible from the fact that, except in respect to a small part of Virginia 
and Louisiana, the bill covered only what the proclamation covered—added a Congressional title 
and judicial remedies by law to the disputed title under the proclamation, and perfected the work 
the President professed to be so anxious to accomplish. 

‘Slavery, as an institution, can be abolished only by a change of the Constitution of the United 
States, or of the law of the states; and this is the principle of the bill. 

‘*Tt required the new Constitution of the state to provide for that prohibition ; and the Presi- 


8K 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


661 


6 that W. M. Fishback and Elisha Baxter, claiming seats from Arkansas, 


dent, in the face of his own proclamation, does not venture to object to insisting on that condition. 
Nor will the country tolerate its abandonment—yet he defeated the only provision imposing it. 

‘But when he describes himself, in spite of this great blow at emancipation, as ‘ sincerely hop- 
ing and expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the nation may 
be adopted,’ we curiously inquire on what his expectation rests, after the vote of the House of Rep- 
resentatives at the recent session, and in the face of the political complexion of more than enough 
of the states to prevent the possibility of its adoption within any reasonable time; and why he did 
not indulge his sincere hopes with so large an instalment of the blessing as his approval of the bill 
would have secured ? 

“ After this assignment of his reasons for preventing the bill from becoming a law, the President 
proceeds to declare his purpose to execute it as a law by his plenary dictatorial power. 

‘‘He says: ‘ Nevertheless, I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the 
bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any state choosing to adopt it; and that I am, 
and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people as 
soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such state, 
and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and 
the laws of the United States—in which cases military governors will be appointed, with directions 
to proceed according to the bill.’ 

‘A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated. 

‘‘ Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it, and then, by proclamation, puts 
as much of it in force as he sees fit, and proposes to execute those parts by officers unknown to the 
laws of the United States, and not subject to the confirmation of the Senate. 

‘‘'The bill directed the appointment of provisional governors by and with the advice and consent 
of the Senate. 

‘The President, after defeating the law, proposes to appoint, without law and without the advice 
and consent of the Senate, military governors for the rebel states! 

‘He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana, and defeated the bill to pre- 
vent its limitation. 

‘‘ Henceforth we must regard the following precedent as the presidential law of the rebel states : 


: ; “¢xecutive Mansion, Washington, March 15, 1864. 
‘His Excellency Michael Hahn, Governor of Louisiana : 


‘© Until farther orders, you are hereby invested with the powers exercised hitherto by the mili- 
tary governors of Louisiana. Yours, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.’ 


‘¢'This Michael Hahn is no officer of the United States; the President, without law, without the 
advice and consent of the Senate, by a private note not even countersigned by the Secretary of 
State, makes him dictator of Louisiana ! 

‘‘'The bill provided for the civil administration of the laws of the state—but it should be in a fit 
temper to govern itself—repealing all laws recognizing slavery, and making all men equal before 
the law. 

‘These beneficent provisions the President has annulled. People will die, and marry, and 
transfer property, and buy and sell; and to these acts of civil life courts and officers of the law are 
necessary. Congress legislated for these necessary things, and the President deprives them of the 
protection of the law! 

‘‘'The President’s purpose to instruct his military governors ‘to proceed according to the bill’ 
—a makeshift to calm the disappointment its defeat has occasioned—is not merely a grave usurpa~ 
tion, but a transparent delusion. 

‘He can not ‘ proceed according to the bill’ after preventing it from becoming a law. 

‘¢ Whatever is done will be at his will and pleasure, by persons responsible to no law, and more 
interested to secure the interests and execute the will of the President than of the people ; and the 
will of Congress is to be ‘held for naught,’ ‘ unless the loyal people of the rebel states choose to 
adopt it.’ 

‘Tf they should graciously prefer the stringent bill to the easy proclamation, still the registration 
will be made under no legal sanction ; it will give no assurance that a majority of the people of the 
states have taken the oath; if administered, it will be without legal authority and void; no indict- 
ment will lie for false swearing at the election, or for admitting bad or rejecting good votes ; it will 
be the farce of Louisiana and Arkansas acted over again, under the forms of this bill, but not by 
authority of law. 

‘‘But when we come to the guaranties of future peace which Congress meant to enact, the forms, 
as well as the substance of the bill, must yield to the President’s will that none should be imposed. 

‘It was the solemn resolve of Congress to protect the loyal men of the nation against three 
great dangers: (1) the return to power of the guilty leaders of the rebellion; (2) the continuance 
of slavery, and (3) the burden of the rebel debt. 

‘Congress required assent to those provisions by the Convention of the state; and if refused, it 
was to be dissolved. 

‘‘The President ‘holds for naught’ that resolve of Congress, because he is unwilling ‘to be in- 
flexibly committed to any one plan of restoration,’ and the people of the United States are not to 
be allowed to protect themselves unless their enemies agree to it. 

“The order to proceed according to the bill is therefore merely at the will of the rebel states ; 
and they have the option to reject it, accept the proclamation of the 8th of December, and demand 
the President’s recognition ! 

‘‘Mark the contrast! The bill requires a majority, the proclamation is satisfied with one tenth, 
the bill requires one oath, the proclamation another ; the bill ascertains voters by registering, the 
proclamation by guess; the bill exacts adherence to existing territorial limits, the proclamation 
admits of others; the bill governs the rebel states by daw, equalizing all before it—the proclamation 
commits them to the lawless discretion of military governors and provost-marshals ; the bill forbids 
electors for President, the proclamation and defeat of the bill threaten us with civil war for the 
admission or exclusion of such votes; the bill exacted exclusion of dangerous enemies from power 
and the relief of the nation from the rebel debt, and the prohibition of slavery forever, so that the 
suppression of the rebellion will double our resources to bear or pay the national debt, free the 
masses from the old domination of the rebel leaders, and eradicate the cause of the war—the proc- 
lamation secures neither of these guaranties. 

‘Tt is silent respecting the rebel debt and the political exclusion of rebel leaders, leaving slay- 
ery exactly where it was by law at the outbreak of the rebellion, and adds no guaranty even of the 
freedom of the slaves he undertook to manumit. 

‘Tt is summed up in an illegal oath, without sanction, and therefore void. 

‘“'The oath is to support all proclamations of the President, during the rebellion, having refer- 
ence to slaves. 

‘* Any government is to be accepted at the hands of one tenth of the people not contravening 
that oath. 

“Now that oath neither secures the abolition of slavery, nor adds any security to the freedom of 
the slaves the President declared free. 

“Tt does not secure the abolition of slavery; for the proclamation of freedom merely professed 
to free certain slaves while it recognized the institution. 

‘‘ Byery Constitution of the rebel states at the outbreak of the rebellion may be adopted without 
the change of a letter; for none of them contravene that proclamation ; none of them establish 
slavery. 

“Tt adds no security to the freedom of the slaves, for their title is the proclamation of freedom. 

“Tf it be unconstitutional, an oath to support it is void. Whether constitutional or not, the oath 
is without authority of law, and therefore void. 

‘<Tf it be valid and observed, it exacts no enactment by the state, either in law or Constitution, 
to add a state guaranty to the proclamation title; and the right of a slave to freedom is an open 

uestion before the state courts on the relative authority of the state law and the proclamation. 

“Tf the oath binds the one tenth who take it, it is not exacted of the other nine tenths who suc- 
ceed to the control of the state government, so that it is annulled instantly by the act of recog- 
nition. 

‘* What the state courts would say of the proclamation, who can doubt? 

‘But the master would not go into court—he would seize his slaves. 

‘‘ What the Supreme Court would say, who can tell ? 

‘¢ When and how is the question to get there ? 

‘‘No habeas corpus lies for him in a United States court ; and the President defeated with this 
bill the extension of that writ to his case. 

‘Such are the fruits of this rash and fatal act of the President—a blow at the friends of his ad: 
ministration, at the rights of humanity, and at the principles of republican government. 

“The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his adminis: 
tration have so long practiced, in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the 
reckless ferocity of our political opponents. 

“But he must understand that our support is of a cause and not of a man ; that the authority 
of Congress is paramount and must be respected ; that the whole body of the Union men of Con 
gress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation ; and if he 
wishes our support, he must confine himself to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make 
the iaws—to suppress by arms armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress. 

‘Tf the supporters of the government fail to insist on this, they become responsible for the usur- 
pations which they fail to rebuke, and are justly liable to the indignation of the people whose rights 
and security, committed to their keeping, they sacrifice. 

“Let them consider the remedy of these usurpations, and, having found it, fearlessly execute it. 

‘¢B. F. Wane, Chairman Senate Committee. 
“H. Winter Davis, Chairman Com. House of Rep. on the Rebellious States.” 


662 


were not entitled to them. This was as emphatic a rejection of the Presi- 
dent’s plan of restoration as was possible. In the House, A. C. Rogers, 
J. M. Johnson, and T, M. Jacks, claiming seats from Arkansas, were not ad- 
mitted. In the same body the claims of A. P. Fields and Thomas Cotton, 
from Louisiana, were rejected by a vote of 100 to 71. 

During this session several resolutions were offered concerning the object 
and conduct of the war. A number of these reiterated the resolutions 
adopted by the Thirty-seventh Congress to the effect that the war was not 
waged for the purpose of conquest or subjugation, or of overthrowing or in- 
terfering with the rights or established institutions of the insurgent states, 
“but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to pre- 
serve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states 
unimpaired.” Such resolutions were invariably tabled, laid over, or refer- 
red to the Select Committee. never to be heard of again. 

On the 8th of April, the House sitting in Committee of the Whole on the 
State of the Union, Alexander Long, of Ohio, rose, and in a long speech 
prophesied the ultimate failure of the war, and declared himself in favor of 
the recognition of the Confederacy. General Garfield,his patriotic colleague, 
as soon as Long took his seat, rose and asked that a white flag might be placed 
between his colleague and himself. ‘I recollect,” said he, “that on one oc- 
casion, when two great armies stood face to face, that under a white flag just 
planted I approached a company of men dressed in the uniform of the reb- 
el Confederacy, and reached out my hand to one of the number, and told him 
I respected him as a brave man. Though he wore the emblems of disloyal- 
ty and treason, still underneath his vestments I beheld a brave and honest 
soul. I would reproduce that scene here this afternoon. I say were there 
such a flag of truce—but God forgive me if I should do it under other cir- 
cumstances!—I would reach out this right hand and ask that gentleman to 
take it, because I honor his bravery and honesty..... He has done a 
brave thing. It is braver than to face cannon and musketry.” Then, ina 
speech—the most thrilling of that session—General Garfield analyzed and 
developed the significance of Long’s proposition. ‘‘ Now,” said he, “ when 
hundreds of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God under the shad- 
ow of the flag, and when thousands more, maimed and shattered in the con- 
test, are sadly awaiting the deliverance of death; now, when three years of 
terrific warfare have raged over us, when our armies have pushed the rebel- 
lion back over mountains and rivers, and crowded it into narrow limits, un- 
til a wall of fire girds it; now, when the uplifted hand of a majestic people 
is about to let fall the lightning of its conquering power upon the rebellion; 
now, in the quiet of this hall, hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark 
treason, there rises a Benedict Arnold and proposes to surrender us all up, 
body and spirit, the nation and the flag, its genius and its honor, now and 
forever, to the accursed traitors to our country! And that proposition comes 
—God forgive and pity my beloved state!—it comes from a citizen of the 
honored and loyal commonwealth of Ohio. ...... 

“For the first time in the history of this contest, it is proposed in this 
hall to give up the struggle, to abandon the war, and let treason run riot 
trough theland] “* 9* 9%. * 

‘Suppose the policy of the gentleman were adopted to-day. Let the or- 
der go forth; sound the ‘recall’ on your bugles, and let it ring from Texas 
to the far Atlantic, and tell the armies to come back. Call the victorious 
legions back over the battle-fields of blood, forever now disgraced. Call 
them back over the territory they have conquered and redeemed. Call them 
back, and let the minions of secession chase them with derision and jeers as 
they come. And then tell them that that man across the aisle, from the free 
state of Ohio, gave birth to the monstrous proposition.” 

The next day Speaker Colfax took the floor, and offered a resolution for 
the expulsion of Long. He did this, he said, in the performance of a high 
public duty—a duty to his constituents and to the soldiers in the field. 
He believed in the freedom of speech, and had during this Congress heard 
nothing, save this single speech, which could have prompted him to offer 
such a resolution. The flag of the Confederacy had been boldly unfurled 
by a gentleman who had taken an oath at the opening of the session that 
up to that time he had not given aid, countenance, or encouragement to the 
enemies of the United States. If such an oath was necessary to member- 
ship, then he who could thus publicly give the encouragement which he had 
sworn not to have given in the past was an unworthy member, and ought 
not to remain. The soldiers who deserted did not more surely turn their 
backs upon the obligation they had assumed than had the member from 
Ohio. If the House allowed such sentiments to go unquestioned, they 
should stop shooting deserters. Could the United States go to war with a 
foreign nation recognizing the Confederacy, while from the halls of Congress 
an opinion was permitted to go forth in favor of such recognition, and unac- 
companied by the highest expression of Congressional censure ? 

Cox, of Ohio, while opposing the resolution, and pleading for the utmost 
freedom of discussion, emphatically disavowed for himself and his Democrat- 
ic colleagues the sentiments expressed by Long. On the other hand, Harris, 
of Maryland, as emphatically indorsed those sentiments, and in terms far 
more distinct than Long had adopted. “I am,” said he, “a peace man, a 
radical peace man, and I am for peace by the recognition of the Confederacy. 
I am for acquiescence in the doctrine of secession. I thought I was alone; 
but now, thank God! there is another soul saved. . . . . The South asked 
you to let them go in peace. But no, you said you would bring them into 
subjection. That is not done yet, and God Almighty grant that it may nev- 
er be. Ihope that you may never subjugate the South.” Washburne, of 
Illinois, called him to order, and then moved his expulsion. The vote upon 
this motion was 81 ayes to 58 nays, and thus lacked the necessary two thirds 
majority. But a motion of censure was voted 98 to 18. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY 


OF THE [APRIL, 1864, 


JIENRY WINTER DAVIS. 


Probably there was no man who more completely commanded the atten- 
tion of the House, whenever he spoke, than Henry Winter Davis. His elo- 
quence and impressiveness were only matched by his profound culture and 
his elegance of expression. On this occasion he addressed a silent and 
crowded house in support of the resolution for Long's expulsion. In the 
course of his speech, he said: 

“Mr. Speaker, if it be said that a time may come when the question of 
recognizing the Southern Confederacy will have to be answered, I admit it; 
and it is answering the strongest and the extreme case that gentlemen on 
the other side can present. I admit it. When a Democrat shall darken the 
White House and the land ; when a Democratic majority here shall proclaim 
that freedom of speech secures impunity to treason, and declare recognition 
better than extermination of traitors; when McClellan and Fitz John Por- 
ter shall have again brought the rebel armies within sight of Washington 
City, and the successor of James Buchanan shall withdraw our armies from 
the unconstitutional invasion of Virginia to the north of the Potomac; when 
exultant rebels shall sweep over the fortifications and their bomb-shells shall 
crash against the dome of the Capitol; when thousands throughout Penn- 
sylvania shall seek refuge on the shores of Lake Erie from the rebel inva- 
sion, cheered and welcomed by the opponents of extermination; when Val- 
landigham shall be Governor of Ohio, and Bright Governor of Indiana, and 
Woodward Governor of Pennsylvania, and Seymour Governor of Connecti- 
cut, and Wall be Governor of New Jersey, and the gentleman from New 
York city sit in Seymour's seat, and thus, possessed of power over the great 
centre of the country, they shall do what they attempted in vain before in 
the midst of rebel triumphs—to array the authorities of the states against 
those of the United States; to oppose the militia to the army of the United 
States; to invoke the habeas corpus to discharge confined traitors; to deny 
to the government the benefit of the laws of war, lest it exterminate its ene- 
mies; when the Democrats, as in the fall of 1862, shall again, with more 
permanent success, persuade the people of the country that the war should 
not be waged till the integrity of the territory of the Union is restored, cost 
what it might, but that such a war violates the spirit of free institutions, 
which those who advocate it wish to overthrow, and should stop, for the 
benefit of the Democratic party, somewhere this side of absolute triumph, 
lest there be no room for a compromise; when gentlemen of that party in 
New York shall again, as in November, 1862, hold illegal and criminal ne- 
gotiations with Lord Lyons, and avow their purposes to him, the representa- 
tive of a foreign and unfriendly power, and urge him to arrange the time 
of proffering mediation with a view to their possession of power and their 
preparation of the minds of the public to receive suggestions from abroad ; 
and when mediation shall appear by the event to be the first step toward 
foreign intervention, swiftly and surely followed by foreign armed enemies 
upon our shores to join the domestic enemies; when the war in the cars 
shall begin, which was menaced at the outbreak of the rebellion, and the 
friends of Seymour shall make the streets of New York run with blood on 
the eve of another Gettysburg less damaging to their hopes; when the peo- 
ple, exhausted by taxation, weary of sacrifices, drained of blood, betrayed by 
their rulers, deluded by demagogues into believing that peace is the way to 
union, and submission the path to victory, shall throw down their arms be- 


a 
¢ 


Aprit, 1864. ] 


fore the advancing foe; when vast chasms across every state shall make ap- 
parent to every eye, when too late to remedy it, that division from the South 
is inauguration of anarchy at the North, and that peace without union is 
the end of the republic—rTHEN the independence of the South will be an ac- 
complished fact, and gentlemen may, without treason to the dead republic, 
rise in this migratory house, wherever it may then be in America, and de- 
clare themselves for recognizing their masters at the South rather than ex- 
terminating them! Until that day, in the name of the American nation— 
in the name of every house in the land where there is one dead for the holy 
cause—in the name of those who stand before us in the ranks of battle—in 
the name of the liberty our ancestors have confided to us, I devote to eter- 
nal execration the name of him who shall propose to destroy this blessed 
land rather than its enemies.”? 

On the side of the opposition, Pendleton, of Ohio, one of the most popu- 
lar leaders of his party, closed the debate with an able argument in favor of 
free discussion. It was in reply to Davis’s speech of the night before. 
“The gentleman from Maryland,” said he, ‘told us last night, in terms of 
eloquence which I can not emulate, that when Lord Chatham, aged, feeble, 
wrapped in flannel and suffering from disease, came, resting upon the arm 
of his still greater son, to address for the last time the British House of Lords, 
and to die upon the floor, he came to speak against the dismemberment of 
the British empire. It is true; and what did he say? ‘I told you this war 
would be disastrous; I predicted its consequences; I told you you could not 
conquer America; I begged you to conciliate America; you would not heed 
my advice. You have exhausted the country; you have sacrificed its men ; 
you have wasted its treasures; you have driven these colonies to declare 
their independence; you have driven them into the arms of our ancient and 
hated enemy, and now, without striking a blow, without firing a shot, cow- 
ardly under difficulties as you were truculent in success, you propose to yield 
through fear to France what you have refused as justice to America.’ Did 
it not occur to the gentleman from Maryland that possibly at a future day, 
when the history of that civil strife shall have been reproduced in this land, 
another Chatham may come to this House, and hurl against those who are 
now in power these bitter denunciations because they have shown themselves 
unable to make an honorable peace even as they have been unable to make 
a victorious war? .... 

“Sir, if there be depths of public opinion where eternal stillness reigns, 
there gather, even as festering death lies in those ocean depths, the decaying 
forms of truth, and right, and freedom. Eternal motion is the condition of 
their purity. Did he think this resolution would for one instant retard its 
progress? Did he not know that the surging waves would wash away ev- 
ery trace of its existence? Did he suppose this puny effort would avail him? 
The rocks of the eternal hills alone can stay the waves of the ever-rolling 
sea. Nothing but the principles of truth and right can stay the onward pro- 
gress of public opinion in this our country as it swells, and sways, and sur- 
ges in this mad tempest of passion, and seeks to find a secure resting-place.” 

The resolution was finally changed to one of censure in place of expul- 
sion, and in that shape passed 80 to 70. If any evidence were needed of 
the jealous regard for freedom of debate in the American Congress, it is fur- 
nished by the fact that Harris and Long were only censured and not ex- 
pelled. 

During the session enabling acts were passed for the formation of state 
governments in Colorado, Nevada, and Nebraska. ‘The people of Colorado 
voted against a Convention, preferring to remain for the present under the 
territorial organization. The pay of soldiers was increased to $16 per month,” 
and a Bureau of Military Justice was established. The government was au- 
thorized to borrow $400,000,000 on coupon bonds running from 5 to 380 
years, at not less than 6 per cent. interest, payable in coin. These and the 
5.20 bonds might be disposed of in Europe at the discretion of the Secreta- 
ry of the Treasury. All United States bonds were declared exempt from 
taxation.? Provision was also made for the issue of $50,000,000 in fraction- 
al or postage currency. A separate bureau was established, to be charged 
with the execution of all laws respecting a national currency, secured by 
United States bonds. At the head of this bureau the President placed 


2 Mr. Davis thus illustrated the freedom of opinion and its limitations : 

‘‘ Surely, sir, opinion is the life of our nation. It is the measure of every right, the guarantee 
of every privilege, the protection of every blessing. It is opinion which creates our rulers. It is 
opinion that nerves or palsies their arms. It is opinion which casts down the proud and elevates 
the humble. Its fluctuations are the rise and fall of parties; its currents bear the nation on to 
prosperity or ruin. Its free play is the condition of its purity. It is like the ocean, whose tides 
rise and fall day by day at the fickle bidding of the moon; yet it is the great scientific level from 
which every height is measured—the horizon to which astronomers refer the motion of the stars. 
But, like the ocean, it has depths whose eternal stillness is the condition of its stability. Those 
depths of opinion are not free, and it is they that are touched by the words which have so moved 
the House. Men must not commit treason and say its guilt is a matter of opinion, and its punish- 
ment a violation of its freedom. Men can not swear to maintain the integrity of the nation, and 
avow their intention to destroy it, and cover that double crime by the freedom of speech. Tat is 
to break up the fountains of the great deep on which all government is borne, and to pour its flood 
in revolutionary ruin over the land. To punish that is not a violation of the freedom of opinion or 
its expression. It is to protect its normal ebb and flow, its free and healthy fluctuations, that we 
desire to relieve it from the opprobrium of being confounded with the declarations of treasonable 
purposes here, in the high and solemn assemblage of the Union.” ? Chapter exlyv. 

2 Chapter clxxii. This act also provided that in lieu of so much of this loan, the secretary 
might issue $200,000,000 of treasury notes redeemable within three years, bearing interest of sev- 
en and three tenths per cent., convertible into bonds. ‘The secretary might also cancel all treasury 
notes heretofore issued, and issue these in their stead. ‘These notes were not to be a legal tender. 
Bonds might be exchanged for seven and three tenths notes. The secretary might receive tem- 
porary loans, and issue certificates of deposit therefor, at six per cent., the certificates to be payable 
on ten days’ notice—such deposits not to exceed $150,000,000, 

* Chapter evi.—National Currency—establishes a separate bureau, to be charged with the execu- 
tion of this and all laws respecting a national currency, secured by United States bonds, and names 
the officers of said bureau, together with the securities conditioned by their assumption of office. 
Every certificate, assignment, and conveyance shall be as valid as when the comptroller’s seal is 
stamped on the paper. Associations for carrying on the business of banking may be formed by 
any number of persons not less than five, who shall enter into articles of association, signed by the 
members of the association, a copy of which shall be forwarded to the Comptroller of the Currency. 
The Aa oid capital for the organization of associations of this kind shall be not less than two 
hundred thousand dollars in a city exceeding fifty thousand inhabitants, and not less than one hund- 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


663 


Hugh McCullough, afterward Secretary of the Treasury. A special income 
tax was levied at the rate of five per cent. on all sums exceeding $600 clear 
income, to be collected under the rules of the Internal Revenue Depart- 
ment, 

At this time the relations between this government and that of France 
were exceedingly critical, and it required all the skill and prudence of Sec- 
retary Seward to avert war. 

Maximilian, the oldest brother of the reigning Emperor of Austria, had 
been proclaimed Emperor of Mexico, July 10th, 1863, by an assembly of 
“ Notables” summoned by a government established under the auspices of 
the French army. The choice of Maximilian was of course made by Louis 
Napoleon. But the French emperor had commanded that the question as 
between an empire and a republic should be submitted to the Mexican peo- 
ple. Accordingly, at the same time that the Mexican deputation was pro- 
ceeding to Europe with the vote of the Notables engrossed on parchment and 
inclosed in a golden sceptre, instructions were on their way from Paris to the 
French commander in Mexico to carry out the emperor’s instructions to 
the letter. Thus Maximilian’s acceptance was delayed. An election was 
held under the impressive authority of French bayonets, and on the 10th of 
April, 1864, the Mexican deputation was again at Miramar, and Maximilian 
was informed that the vote of the “Notables” had been ratified by an im- 
mense majority. Maximilian accepted the sceptre, which, at first the badge 
of empire, became in the end, to him, the wand of martyrdom. He visited 
the Pope, and, having received the blessing of the latter, embarked with his 
consort, the Empress Carlotta, for Mexico, where he arrived on the 28th of 
May, and entered upon his imperial career. 

The French occupation of Mexico, resulting in the subversion of its repub- 
lican government, was construed as an act of hostility both by the people and 
the government of the United States. The full expression of this feeling 
on the part of the executive was held in check by the civil war. No pledge 
was given to France that this question—now held in abeyance—would not 
arise for settlement, and in the mean while every honorable effort was made 
by the government to prevent a foreign war. That this was the wisest pol- 
icy is too evident to require argument. It was the policy adopted both by 
the President and the Senate. In the latter body, McDougall, of California, 
on January 11th, introduced a series of resolutions, declaring that the French 
attempt to subvert the Mexican republic was an act hostile to the United 
States, and that it was the duty of our government to require France to 
withdraw her armed forces from Mexico. These resolutions were referred 
to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and not heard of again. On the 
14th of June McDougall sought in vain to introduce a resolution, which 
was in form a general expression of the Monroe doctrine. 

The House took an entirely different view as to the question of an imme 
diate protest. On the 4th of April, Henry Winter Davis reported from the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs the following joint resolution, which passed 
without a single dissentient voice: “That the Congress of the United States 
are unwilling, by silence, to leave the nations of the world under the impres- 
sion that they are indifferent spectators of the deplorable events now trans- 
piring in the republic of Mexico, and they therefore think fit to declare that 
it does not accord with the policy of the United States to acknowledge a 
monarchical government erected on the ruins of any republican government 
in America, under the auspices of any European power.” The resolution 


red thousand dollars in a city whose population is less than fifty thousand; provided, however, 
that banks may be organized, with a capital of not less than fifty thousand dollars, in any place not 
exceeding six thousand inhabitants, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury. ~ Such as- 
sociation shall transact no business, except such as may be incidental to its own organization, until 
authorized by the Comptroller of the Currency. The number of directors must be not less than 
five, one of whom shall be president. The capital stock of any association shall be in shares of one 
hundred dollars each, deemed personal property, and transferable on the books of the association. 
The shareholders shall be held individually responsible, equally and ratably, and not one for anoth- 
er, for all contracts, debts, and engagements of their association, according to the par value of their 
amount of stock therein, in addition to the amount invested in such shares; except in the case of 
shareholders in present existing state banking institutions, of not less than five millions of dollars 
of capital, and a surplus of twenty per centum on hand, who shall be liable only to the amount in- 
vested in their shares. It shall be lawful for an association, formed under this act, to provide for 
an increase of its capital from time to time, subject to the limitations of this act; provided that 
the maximum of such increase shall be determined by the comptroller ; and that no increase of cap- 
ital shall be valid until the whole amount of such increase shall be paid in. And every association 
shall have power, by a vote of shareholders owning two thirds of its stock, to reduce the capital of 
such association to any amount not below the amount required by this act for its outstanding cir- 
culation. Every association, preliminary to commencing business, shall deliver to the Treasurer 
of the United States United States registered bonds to an amount equal to one third of the capita) 
stock ; the deposit to be increased as the capital is paid up or increased ; while an association, de- 
siring to diminish its capital or to close up its business, may take up its bonds, upon returning te 
the comptroller its circulating notes. The comptroller shall examine and determine if any associ- 
ation can commence business. All transfers of United States bonds shall be made to the Treasurer 
of the United States, in trust for the association, the comptroller to keep the transfer-book. As- 
sociations, after the transfer and delivery of bonds to the treasurer, may receive from the comp- 
troller circulating notes, in blank, equal in amount to ninety per centum of the current market val- 
ue of the United States bonds so transferred ; but at no time shall the total amount of such notes 
exceed the amount of its capital stock actually paid in. The entire amount of circulating notes 
to be issued under this act shall not exceed three hundred millions of dollars, Such notes shall 
be received at par in payment of all indebtedness to the United States except for duties on im- 
ports; and also for all indebtedness of the United States except interest on the public debt, and 
in redemption of the national currency. Associations shall, annually or oftener, examine its bonds 
deposited, and execute to the treasurer a certificate, setting forth the different kinds, and the 
amounts thereof; such examination to be made by a duly appointed officer or agent of the associ- 
ation, whose certificate shall be of full force and validity. The deposited Londs shall be held exclu- 
sively for the security of the association’s circulating notes, the association having the benefit of 
the interest on the bonds which it may have deposited so long as it may redeem its circulating 
notes. ‘The total liabilities to any association, of any person, company, corporation, or firm, shall 
at no time exceed one tenth part of the capital stock of such association actually paid in; provided 
that the discount of commercial paper actually owned by the person, company, etec., negotiating the 
same, shall not be considered as money borrowed. The established interest of the state or territo- 
ry wherein the banking association is located shall govern its charge of interest on loans, notes, 
bills, ete., and, when there is no established interest in such state or territory, the association may 
take interest not exceeding seven per centum. The penalty for taking greater interest than herein 
prescribed shall be a forfeiture of the entire interest which has been agreed to be paid; and the 
person or persons who may have paid a greater interest may recover back from the association re- 
ceiving the same twice the amount of the interest thus paid, provided that such action for recoy- 
ery is commenced within two years after the occurrence of the usurious transaction, The circula- 
ting notes of the different associations shall be redeemed in New York at par by associations se« 
lected for that purpose. 


664 


i 


) 


WILLIAM L, DAYTON, 


was introduced into the Senate and referred, but not again reported during 
the session. 

This torch, which the House had thrown into a magazine already almost 
on the point of explosion from other causes, was snatched away by the Sec- 
retary of State before it had done its destructive work. <A letter of instruc- 
tions was immediately forwarded to Mr. Dayton, our minister at the French 
court. A copy of the resolution was inclosed. It was admitted by the sec- 
retary that this resolution truly interpreted the unanimous sentiment of the 
people of the United States. But it had not passed the Senate, and, even if 
it had, the form of expression which the government might choose to adopt 
toward that of France on this subject depended, not upon Congress, but upon 
the executive. ‘While the President,” he added, “ receives the declaration 
of the House of Representatives with the profound respect to which it is en- 
titled as an exposition of its sentiments on a grave and important subject, 
he directs that you inform the government of France that he does not at 
present contemplate any departure from the policy which this government 
has hitherto pursued in regard to the war which exists between France and 
Mexico.” 

The passage of the resolution produced a great degree of excitement in 
France. When Mr. Dayton visited M. Drouyn de l’Huys on the 21st of 
April, the first words addressed to him by the latter were, ‘Do you bring 
us peace or bring us war?” Mr. Dayton had not then received his instruc- 
tions from the secretary. When these were made known to the French 
government the excitement subsided, and the Monier, the official organ of 
the emperor, announced that satisfactory explanations had been received 
from the United States government. 

On the 27th Mr. Davis made a long report, closing with a recommendation 
that a resolution be passed declaring the constitutional right of Congress to 
an authoritative voice in determining the foreign policy of the United 
States, and that a proposition in regard to such policy while pending and 
undetermined is not a fit topic of diplomatic explanation with any foreign 
power. ‘This report was ordered to be printed, but did not again come up 
for action during the session. 

The people of Kentucky—so strongly opposed to secession and to sym- 
pathizers with rebellion that they had (August 8, 1868) elected Bramlette, 
the Union candidate, over Wickliffe, the Democratic, by a majority of over 
50,000—were still so bitterly opposed to emancipation and to the enrollment 
of negroes for military service, that their governor was compelled, when 
these measures were adopted, to issue a proclamation, counseling them 
against unlawful resistance. But the President remained firm. He had 
130,000 soldiers to show as the result of a policy which had been tried for 
one year, and this, to him, was a sufficient argument why that policy should 
be maintained. The fact that the Union delegates from Kentucky would 
be sent to the Democratic Convention to be assembled at Chicago for the 
nomination of a presidential ticket was not deemed a compensatory argu- 
ment to the contrary. 

In the autumn of 1864 a presidential election was to be decided in the 
midst of war, as the one four years previous had been decided under its pro- 
jected shadow. Many of the more radical members of the Republican 
party were dissatisfied with Abraham Lincoln for various reasons, but 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[JUNE, 1864. 


chiefly because he was considered too slow to adopt their own revolutionary 
theories on the subject of emancipation and reconstruction. This faction of 
the party held its National Convention at Cleveland, Ohio, on the 81st of 
May, pursuant to a call addressed ‘‘ to the Radical Men of the Nation.” Of 
the 850 persons who answered this call, few, if any, were properly delegates 
representing constituencies. ‘These men, representing their own principles 
rather than the people, nominated General John C. Fremont for President, 
and for Vice-President General John Cochrane. The distinctive articles of 
the platform adopted by this Convention were those declaring that the Pres- 
ident ought to be elected for a single term and by a direct vote of the peo- 
ple; that the question of reconstruction belonged to Congress and not to the 
executive; and that justice required the confiscation of rebel property and 
its distribution among “the soldiers and actual settlers.” This policy of 
general confiscation was repudiated by General Fremont in his letter accept- 
ing the nomination. 

Just a week later—June 7th—the Republican Convention proper assem- 
bled at Baltimore, in response to a call issued by the Executive Committee, 
which had been created by the Chicago Convention of 1860. Senator Mor- 
gan, of New York, chairman of that committee, called the Convention to 
order, and proposed Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, as temporary 
president. Breckinridge and the ten other delegates from Kentucky did 
not claim to fairly represent that party in their state which would cast the 
majority of votes. Hon. William Dennison, of Ohio, was elected president 
in the permanent organization of the Convention.! The work of the Conven- 
tion was soon accomplished. The platform of resolutions, as reported by 
H. J. Raymond, of New York, and unanimously adopted, maintained the in- 
tegrity of the Union; the paramount authority of the Constitution and laws 
of the United States; the suppression of the rebellion and the punishment 
of rebels; the repudiation of compromise, and of any terms of peace except 
those based on the unconditional surrender of hostility on the part of the 
enemies arrayed against the government; the abolition of slavery by con- 
stitutional amendment; the policy and measures of the administration, espe- 
cially the Emancipation Proclamation and the employment of negro sol- 
diers; the recognition of the valor and patriotism of the soldiers and sailors, 
and provision—ample and permanent—for those disabled by wounds; 
prompt and full redress for the violation of the laws of war in the treatment 
by the enemy of our soldiers, without distinction of color; the encourage- 
ment of immigration; the inviolability of the public debt; and the Monroe 
doctrine.” 


' There were 520 delegates admitted, from the following States and Territories : 


From Maine, 14. 
New Hampshire, 10. 
Vermont, 10. 
Massachusetts, 24. 


From Maryland, 14. 
Louisiana, 14. 
Arkansas, 10, 
Missouri, 22. 


From Wisconsin, 16. 
Iowa, 16, 
Minnesota, 8. 
California, 10. 


Rhode Island, 8. Tennessee, 15. Oregon, 6. 
Connecticut, 12. Kentucky, 21. West Virginia, 10, 
New York, 66. Ohio, 42. Kansas, 6, 

New Jersey, 14. Indiana, 26. Nebraska, 6. 
Pennsylvania, 49, Illinois, 32. Colorado, 6. 
Delaware, 6. Michigan, 16. Nevada, 6. 


? The followiig is a copy of these resolutions : 

Resolved, That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to maintain against all their en- 
emies the integrity of the Union, and the paramount authority of the Constitution and laws of the 
United States; and that, laying aside all differences of political opinion, we pledge ourselves as 
Union men, animated by a common sentiment, and aiming at a common object, to do every thing 
in our power to aid the government in quelling by force of arms the rebellion now raging against 
its authority, and in bringing to the punishment due to their crimes the rebels and traitors arrayed 
against it. 

Vici That we approve the determination of the government of the United States not to 
compromise with rebels, nor to offer any terms of peace except such as may be based upon an ‘‘ un- 
conditional surrender” of their hostility and a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and 
laws of the United States, and that we call upon the government to maintain this position and to 
prosecute the war with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression of the rebellion, in 
full reliance upon the self-sacrifice, the patriotism, the heroic valor, and the undying deyotion of 
the American people to their country and its free institutions. 

Resolved, That, as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and 
as it must be always and every where hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and 
the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the republic; and 
that we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the government, in its own de- 
fense, has aimed a death-blow at this gigantic evil. We are in favor, furthermore, of such an 
amendment to the Constitutton, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall 
terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the 
United States. 

Resolved, That the thanks of the American people are due to the soldiers and sailors of the 
army and navy, who have periled their lives in defense of their country and in vindication of the 
honor of the flag; that the nation owes to them some permanent recognition of their patriotism and 
valor, and ample and permanent provision for those of their survivors who have received disabling 
and honorable wounds in the service of the country; and that the memories of those who have 
fallen in its defense shall be held in grateful and everlasting remembrance. 

Resolved, That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, the unselfish patriotism, and un- 
swerving fidelity to the Constitution and the principles of American liberty with which Abraham 
Lincoln has discharged, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, the great duties and respons- 
ibilities of the presidential office; that we approve and indorse, as demanded by the emergency 
and essential to the preservation of the nation, and as within the Constitution, the measures and 
acts which he has adopted to defend the nation against its open and secret foes; that we approve 
especially the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the employment as Union soldiers of men here- 
tofore held in slavery; and that we have full confidence in his determination to carry these and 
all other constitutional measures essential to the salvation of the country into full and complete 
effect. 

Resolved, That we deem it essential to the general welfare that harmony should prevail in the 
national councils, and we regard as worthy of public confidence and official trust those only who 
cordially indorse the principles proclaimed in these resolutions, and which should characterize the 
administration of the government. fe, , A ] 

Resolved, That the government owes to all men employed in its armies, without regard to dis- 
tinction of color, the full protection of the laws of war ; and that any violation of these laws or of 
the usages of civilized nations in the time of war by the rebels now in arms, should be made the 
subject of full and prompt redress. 

Resolved, That the foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth and 
development of resources and increase of power to this nation, the asylum of the oppressed of all 
nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy. d 

Resolved, That we are in favor of the speedy construction of a railroad to the Pacific. 

Resolved, That the national faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, must be kept 
inviolate ; and that for this purpose we recommend economy and rigid responsibility in the public 
expenditures, and a vigorous and just system of taxation; that it is the duty of every loyal state to 
sustain the credit and promote the use of the national currency. : 

Resolved, That we approve the position taken by the government that the people of the United 
States never regarded with indifference the attempt of any European power to overthrow by force, 
or to supplant by fraud, the institutions of any republican government on the Western continent, 
and that they view with extreme jealousy, as menacing to the peace and independence of this our 
country, the efforts of any such power to obtain new footholds for monarchical governments, sus~’ 
tained by a foreign military force, in near proximity to the United States. 


Avaust, 1864. ] 


The nomination of Mr. Lincoln for President was already a foregone con- 
clusion when the Convention met. On the first ballot he received the vote 
of every delegation except that from Missouri, which had been instructed to 
vote for General Grant. This delegation changing its vote, the nomination 
was made unanimous. 

For Vice-President there were three candidates—Andrew Johnson, Mili- 
tary Governor of Tennessee, Hannibal Hamlin, the then incumbent, and Dan- 
iel S. Dickinson. On the first ballot the vote stood, Johnson, 200; Dickin- 
son, 108; Hamlin, 150; scattering, 59. Several delegations changed their 
vote in favor of Johnson, who, on the second ballot, received 494 votes, and 
was then declared unanimously nominated. 

In his letter accepting the nomination, President Lincoln announced, to 
avoid misunderstanding, that the position of the government in relation to 
the action of France in Mexico, as assumed through the State Department, 
and indorsed by the Convention, would be maintained so long as it was per- 
tinent. and applicable. 

When the Republican Convention met it was confidently expected that 
the war would soon close by the downfall of Atlanta and Richmond. But 
in the interval that elapsed before the meeting of the Democratic Conven- 


By : —\ 
a 
ae Codes —= 


4 
T 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864 


665 


tion, which was postponed from July 4th to August 29th, the situation was 
materially changed. Grant, in his march from the Rapidan to the James, 
inflicted great losses upon the Confederate army, but he suffered far greater 
losses himself, and had not captured Richmond. The progress of the Atlanta 
campaign seemed slow to the people who, a few weeks before, were confident 
of speedy victory. Since the defeat of Bragg at Chattanooga, no important 
and decisive triumph had been won by the Union armies. Numerous fail- 
ures there had been, and, though none of them were of great magnitude or 
decisive in character, yet they added a sting to the disappointment of look- 
ing over a nine months’ calendar barren of any palpable success. There was 
no doubt as to final results—it was simply a period of gloomy disappoint- 
ment. There was no flinching either on the part of the army or the people. 
The army pushed grimly on, and met partial discomfiture with soldierly for- 
titude; the people afforded it a grim but determined support, though their 
efforts had been unrewarded by immediate success. 

If there was much in the military situation which gave encouragement to 
the opposition party, the financial aspect of the country afforded them a still 
more palpable fulerum upon which to swing their lever for the overthrow 
of the administration. The amount of the public debt was rapidly climbing 


SS 
>< 
a 


666 


up to two billions. In July, 1864, gold was quoted at 290, having reached 
that point from 195 since Grant and Sherman began their campaigns in 
May. 

Just at this crisis, Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, resigned, 
and there were not a few who attributed his resignation to the financial diffi- 
culties of the nation. It is probable, however, that he was influenced chiefly 
by political reasons, arising out of the relations which, during the presiden- 
tial canvass, had grown up between himself and Mr. Lincoln. That there 
was no hostility toward the secretary on the part of the President is evident 
from the fact that, upon the death of Roger B. Taney, October 12, 1864, he 
appointed Mr. Chase chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.? 


1 The public debt was thus estimated at the close of each fiscal year since 1860: 


1860—June 30th.......... $ 64,769,703 1863—June 30th....... $ 1,09T,274,360 
1861— Jee | AOI S 90,867,528 1864— ee a Aaae 1,740,036,689 
1862— RUA Seas todene 514,211,371 


2 Joun Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, was born in New York, December 12, 
1745. He graduated at King’s (now Columbia) College in 1764, and was admitted to the bar four 
years later. When the Revolutionary troubles came on he took a prominent part in the contest. 
He was the youngest member of the first Congress which convened in 1774. In 1777 he prepared 
the draft of the Constitution of the State of New York, and was appointed the first chief justice 
of the state. In 1779 he was sent on a mission to Spain. That government demanded as a con- 
dition of recognizing the independence of the United States that the possession of Florida and the 
exclusive right to navigate the Mississippi should be guaranteed to Spain. Jay refused to consent 
that the mouth of our great river should be shut up by a foreign power. In conjunction with 
Adams, Franklin, and Laurens, Mr. Jay negotiated the treaty by which Great Britain recognized 
the independence of the United States. In 1784 he returned to his country, and was appointed 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs. When the Union took the place of the old Confederation, Wash- 
ington requested him to select any office which he might prefer. He chose that of Chief Justice 
of the United States, to which he was appointed in 1789. In 1794 he was sent to Great Britain 
as envoy extraordinary to negotiate an important treaty. This treaty, which settled the questions 
in dispute between the two nations, was violently opposed by the Democratic party, especially at 
the South. He was absent a year, during which time he was elected Governor of New York. He 
then resigned the chief justiceship, was twice re-elected governor, and then, in 1801, at the age 
of fifty-six, resolved to retire from public life. President Adams, wishing to retain his services 
for the public, nominated him for his former place as chief justice, then vacant by the resignation 
of Oliver Ellsworth. Jay declined, on the ground that he had deliberately made up his mind to 
retire from public life, and duty to his country did not then require him to accept office. He re- 
tired to his farm in Bedford, New York, where he died May 17, 1829, in the eighty-fourth year of 
his age. Mr. Jay was one of the noblest and purest characters in our history. No man, except 
a few violent partisans in South Carolina, however much he might oppose his public policy, dared 
to asperse the perfect integrity of John Jay. 

Upon the resignation of Mr. Jay, Joun RurLepGE was nominated by the President as chief 
justice of the United States, but was not confirmed. 

The President then nominated as chief justice Judge Wi~L1am Cusuine, of Massachusetts ; 
the nomination was confirmed; but Mr. Cushing, after holding the commission a few days, re- 
signed on account of ill health. As he never acted in that capacity, his name does not properly 
belong to the list of chief justices. 

Otiver EvtswortH was then nominated and confirmed as chief justice. He was born at 
Windsor, Connecticut, April 29, 1745. His studies commenced at Yale, were completed at Prince- 
ton, where he graduated at the age of twenty-three. For a time he was a teacher, then com- 
menced the study of theology, but subsequently decided on the profession of law. He had then 
married, and his father gave him a farm of wild land and an axe. While slowly working his way 
at the bar he cleared his wild farm with his own hands. His early career gave no promise of fu- 
ture eminence; but the first upward steps once taken, his progress was sure. He was appointed 
state’s attorney, and yearly elected to the General Assembly. In 1777 he was chosen delegate to 
Congress, 1784 Judge of the Supertor Court of Connecticut, and in 1789 senator in Congress. In 
1796 he was appointed chief justice of the United States. His unquestioned probity and the 
soundness of his judicial decisions gained him the highest respect. In 1799 he was sent, against 
his wishes, as minister to France, though still retaining for two years his seat on the bench. His 
health failing, he resigned his office in 1801. He died November 26, 1807, at the age of sixty- 
two. 

JouN MarsHAtt, the most eminent of our chief justices, was born in Fauquier County, Vir 
ginia, September 24,1755. His father was a farmer in narrow circumstances, but of decided abil- 
ity. By his own unaided exertions he subsequently became a fair classical scholar, and was inti- 
mately acquainted with English literature. He had just begun the study of law when the war of 
the Revolution broke out. In 1775 he was appointed lieutenant in a company of minute-men. 
He afterward became captain in a Virginia regiment of the Continental army, and was present at 
the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. He pursued his legal studies at inter- 
vals during the war, and at its close commenced practice. He soon rose to eminence at the bar 
and in politics. He was one of the small but distinguished body of men through whose influence 
Virginia was induced to accept the Federal Constitution. In 1794 Washington offered him the 
post of attorney general, and subsequently the mission to France. Both offers were declined. 
The French government having refused to receive Mr. Pinckney as minister, Mr. Adams, who was 
then President, appointed Mr. Marshall as one of three envoys to that country. Shortly after his 
return he yielded to the personal solicitations of Washington, and consented to become a candi- 
date for Congress. President Adams at the same time offered him a seat on the bench of the 
Supreme Court, which was declined. He was elected to Congress after a sharp contest, taking his 
seat in December, 1799, During the excited session which followed he was one of the ablest sup- 
porters of the administration of Mr. Adams. In May, 1800, he was nominated and confirmed as 
Secretary of War, but he declined to accept the appointment. Shortly after he accepted the post 
of Secretary of State. On the 31st of January, 1801, he was appointed chief justice of the United 
States, a position which he held for thirty-five years, until his death in July, 1835, at the age of 
eighty years. His unquestioned character, sound judgment, and felicitous diction, added to the 
long period during which he held his seat, and the magnitude of the questions which came before 
him for decision, entitle Mr. Marshall beyond all question to the first place in the noble list of our 
chief justices. Besides his judicial labors, he was the author of a History of the American Colo- 
nies and of a Life of Washington. 

Rocrer Brooke Taney was born in Calvert County, Maryland, March 17, 1777. In 1831 
President Jackson appointed him attorney general of the United States. ‘Two years later, Mr. 
Duane, then Secretary of the Treasury, refused to remove the government deposits from the United 
States Bank; he was remoyed, and Mr. ‘Taney was appointed in his place. ‘The Senate refused to 
confirm the nomination ; but in the mean while Mr. ‘faney had obeyed the orders of the President 
and removed the deposits. Jackson then nominated him as associate justice of the Supreme 
Court, to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Judge Duval. The Senate refused to con- 
firm the nomination, Chief Justice Marshall died in 1835, and Jackson at once nominated Mr, 
Taney for the place. ‘The Democrats, having now a majority in the Senate, confirmed the nomina- 
tion, and Mr. Taney became chief justice—a position he retained until his death, October 12, 
1864, a period of twenty-seven years. Chief Justice Taney is best known by his famous ‘‘ decis- 
ion,” or rather ‘‘ opinion,” in the Dred Scott case, in which, going beyond the question before the 
court, he endeayored to settle the general question of the status of persons of African descent in 
the United States. Undeserved obloquy has been attached to him on account of a sentence in this 
opinion which apparently affirmed that blacks had no rights which whites were bound to respect. 
The context shows that this was the very reverse of the meaning intended to be conveyed by Judge 
Taney. He says that it is now difficult to realize the state of opinion on this subject held at the 
formation of our government. Blacks were then regarded as beings of an inferior order, ‘‘ and so 
fur inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” This outrageous 
sentiment is mentioned only to be impliedly condemned. ‘The ‘‘ opinion” of the chief justice, 
harsh enough as he gave it, being to the effect that no person whose ancestors were imported to 
this country and sold as slaves had any right to sue in a court of the United States, or could be- 
come citizens of the United States. It is due to the honor of our highest judicial tribunal to state 
that the opinion of the chief justice did not affirm, but did by plain implication condemn, the doc- 
trine that such persons ‘had no rights which whites were bound to respect.” Mr. Taney’s last 
notable public act was in May, 1861, when the case of John Merryman came before him. This 
man was arrested near Baltimore, on charge of being an officer in a company raised to aid the re- 
bellion. He was imprisoned by the military authorities in Fort M‘Henry. He prayed for a writ 
of habeas corpus, which was granted by Judge Taney. General Cadwalader, the commander, re- 
fused to obey, on the ground that the execution of the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended 

’ by the President in the State of Maryland. ‘he judge issued an order for the arrest of General 
Cadwalader. The marshal was not allowed to serve the writ. Judge Taney thereupon prepared 
an opinion, denying the right of the President to suspend the writ, and affirming that it was the 
duty of all military officers to obey it. He added that if the officer had been brought before him 
he should have punished him by fine and imprisonment; but as he had no force capable of carry- 
ing his order into effect, he should report the whole case to the President, and call upon him to en- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JULY, 1864. 


During the summer of 1864, two attempts were made by irresponsible par- 
ties, apparently having for their object the conclusion of the war through 
mutual accommodation, but in reality influenced solely by political motives. 
It is a curious fact that, at the same time, President Lincoln was sounded on 
the subject of peace by Confederate agents in Canada, for the express pur- 
pose of drawing out of him a distinct refusal to afford acecommodation—a re- 
fusal which might be used both to incite the South to renewed efforts to gain 
Confederate independence, and to strengthen the cause of the opposition in 
the North; and President Davis was sounded upon the same subject for the 
purpose of drawing out from him a like refusal, to be used for a similar pur- 
pose in behalf of the supporters of the administration. 

On the 5th of July, George N. Sanders, from the Clifton House, Niagara 
Falls, addressed a letter to Horace Greeley, stating that he himself, and Clem- 
ent C, Clay, of Alabama, and James P. Holcombe, of Virginia, were willing 
to go to Washington if full protection were accorded them. Nothing was 
said in the letter as to the object of the proposed visit to Washington. But 
from other sources Greeley understood that Clay and Holcombe had full 
powers from Richmond to treat on the subject of peace. He therefore for- 
warded the application to President Lincoln, urging a response, and suggest- 
ing terms of accommodation. The “plan of adjustment” suggested by him 
proposed the restoration of the Union; the abolition of slavery, the Union 
paying $400,000,000 in 5 per cent. bonds as compensation to the owners of 
slaves, whether loyal or rebel; the representation in Congress of the slave 
states on the basis of their total population; and a National Convention, to 
be convened as soon as possible, for the ratification of these terms. He 
added: “I do not say that a just peace is now attainable, though I believe 
it to be so. But I do say that a frank offer by you to the insurgents of 
terms which the impartial must say ought to be accepted, will, at the worst, 
prove an immense and sorely needed advantage to the national cause. It 
may save us from a Northern insurrection.” 

The President forthwith deputed Greeley to Niagara to communicate with 
the Confederate agents. Greeley went to Niagara, and on the 17th informed 
Messrs. Clay and Holcombe that, if they were duly accredited agents from 
Richmond, the President would grant them a safe-conduct to Washington. 
These gentlemen replied that they were not accredited agents, but thorough- 
ly understood the views of the Confederate government on the subject of 
peace. Upon learning this the President sent a message, addressed ‘to 
whom it may concern,” in the following terms: 

‘‘ Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity 
of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by 
and with an authority that can control the armies now at war with the 
United States, will be received and considered by the executive govern- 
ment of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other sub- 
stantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have 
safe-conduct both ways.” 

This, of course, was final, being all the Confederate gentlemen had waited 
for. They had now their text, and they issued their manifesto against the 
tyranny which could thus rudely spurn the offer of peace. But President 
Lincoln had simply been honest with them, and certainly had not been dis- 
courteous. Nor had he rejected their overtures. His design in addressing 
his mission “to all whom it may concern” is evident. ‘These gentlemen had 
admitted that they were not accredited agents of the Confederate govern- 
ment, but had expressed their confidence that they could obtain the requisite 
power. But they might be, and probably were, indulging false hopes as to 
the accommodation which the government would be willing to grant. It 
was only fair, therefore, that both they and the Confederate government— 
all whom it might concern—should be made to understand the ultimatum 
of the government which must be met before the door could be open to ne- 


force the process of the court. No farther action was had on the case. Mr. Taney died October 
12, 1864, at the age of eighty-seven, having filled the chief judicial chair of the nation for twenty- 
seven years. He owed his appointment to the purely partisan services which he rendered to Pres- 
ident Jackson. As a jurist he can not be ranked with the great men who had occupied his seat 
before him. His judicial integrity has never been impeached, even in the case of his unfortunate 
opinion in the Dred Scott case, or the later and equally unfortunate course in the Merryman case, 
by which he will be chiefly remembered in after years. 

SaLtmon PortLtanp CHAssg, now chief justice of the United States, was born in Cornish, New 
Hampshire, January 13,1808. His father having died, he was sent at the age of twelve to Ohio, 
and placed under the care of his uncle, Bishop Chase. After studying for a year at Cincinnati 
College, he entered Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, from which he graduated in 1829. He 
went to Washington, where he opened a school, at the same time studying law under the direction 
of William Wirt. Having been admitted to the bar, he went to Cincinnati, and entered upon the 
practice of his profession. ‘To this for some years he applied himself exclusively, taking no prom- 
inent part in politics, although he belonged to the Democratic party. In 1841 he first took a de- 
cided part in politics. He was then a member of the Convention of those opposed to the farther 
extension of slavery, and was the author of the address unanimously adopted by that body. He 
took a prominent part in all the subsequent movements having this end in view, and was president 
of the Free Soil Democratic Convention at Buffalo in 1848. The Democratic party in Ohio had 
at this time assumed the position of hostility to slavery in the Territories. Mr. Chase was chosen 
United States Senator in February, 1849, receiving the votes of all the Democratic members of the 
Legislature, together with those of others who were in favor of free soil. Though elected as a 
Democrat, he declared that if the party withdrew from its position in regard to slavery he should 
withdraw from it. This he did formally, in consequence of the action of the Democratic Conyen- 
tion held at Baltimore in 1852. When the Republican party was organized, Mr. Chase took the 
position of one of its acknowledged leaders. Soon after the close of his senatorial term in 1855 he 
was elected Governor of Ohio. He was re-elected, his second term closing in 1860. In the Re- 
publican Convention at Chicago in that year, he was, next after Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, the 
leading candidate for the presidency. He had in the mean time been again elected to the Senate 
of the United States, and had he taken his place would undoubtedly have been the leader in that 
body. But he resigned his seat in order to accept the position of Secretary of the Treasury—a po- 
sition for which he was especially pointed out by the success of his financial policy while Governor 
of Ohio. As the presidential canvass of 1864 approached, a strong effort was made to bring for- 
ward Mr. Chase as the Union candidate; but the current of popular feeling was so unmistakably 
in favor of the re-election of Mr. Lincoln that Mr. Chase refused to become a candidate, and gave 
his cordial support to Mr. Lincoln. Meanwhile, finding that Congress hesitated to carry out the 
financial system which he proposed, Mr. Chase had, on the 30th of June, 1864, resigned the post 
of Secretary of the Treasury. Almost the first important public act of Mr. Lincoln after his re- 
election has been to appoint Mr. Chase to the most important position within the executive nomi- 
nation. Mr. Chase enters upon the duties of his high office at the age of fifty-six, with a sound 
legal reputation, and with a physical vigor which gives reason to hope that he may be able to per- 
form its duties for a period as long as that of his predecessor. 


Avaust, 1864.] 


gotiation. This ultimatum was simply the integrity of the Union and the 
abandonment of slavery. 

Undoubtedly the people of the South longed for peace. ‘The whole peo- 
ple longed for peace, except a few to whom war was money. But peace was 
impossible until either the government or the rebels were defeated, except 
by the abandonment on one side or the other of the very object for which 
it was fighting. No proposition indicating the willingness of the Confeder- 
ate government to surrender its independence upon any conditions had ever 
been made. That no such disposition existed in the summer of 1864 is 
shown by the result of a visit made to Richmond by Colonel Jacques and 
J.R.Gilmore while Greeley was in communication with Clay and Holcombe 
at Niagara. These gentlemen went to Richmond with no credentials. They 
were not sent by the government. They did not expect to accomplish any 
thing in the way of peace. Yet in a certain sense they were commissioners, 
not of the government, but of a party, sent to receive a distinct expression 
of the unwillingness of Mr. Davis to negotiate for peace except on the basis 
of Confederate independence. This they obtained in the most explicit terms. 
Davis told them that the “war must go on till the last of this generation 
falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight our battle, un- 
less you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting 
for slavery ; we are fighting tor independence, and that or extermination we 
will have.” Certainly ‘his declaration did not improve the prospects of the 
opposition party in the North in the approaching elections. 

On the 29th of August the National Democratic Convention assembled at 
Chicago. The next day it was permanently organized, with Governor Sey- 
mour, of New York, as president. Upward of 250 delegates were present. 
Among these, and master spirits of the Convention, were Vallandigham—re- 
cently returned from exile—Price, and Long. A large portion of the au- 
dience consisted of the most disaffected men of the Northwestern states, 
among whom were mingled Confederate spies from Canada, who, with their 
friends, were at this very moment meditating a scheme for the liberation of 
the 8000 Confederate prisoners at Camp Dougias, near the city, the execu- 
tion of which scheme was to be followed by a general uprising of the dis- 
loyal in all the Northwestern states. This movement was only prevented 
by the preparations which had been made to thwart it through the vigilance 
of Colonel B. J. Sweet, the commander at Camp Douglas. 

Governor Seymour, upon assuming the chair, addressed the delegates and 
the audience. Seymour, while he was thoroughly identified with the peace 
party, was the most astute and prudent member of that party. Not turbu- 
lent himself, he rejoiced in the turbulence of others. His style of eloquence 
was modeled upon that which Mark Antony (as rendered by Shakspeare) 
adopted over the corpse of Cesar. His thunderbolts, like those of Wendell 
Phillips, always fell out of aclear sky. There was no measure of the oppo- 
sition, however extreme, which he did not heartily indorse; and yet the 
problem to be solved in this Convention, as it seemed to him, was to at the 
same time apparently ignore all such measures, and adopt such as would 
secure their execution. The task was not an easy one. There was a great 
diversity of opinion among the members of the Convention. Only the ut- 
most tact could prevent such a division as had occurred at the Charleston 
Convention four years ago. Seymour counseled them to select such men 
for their candidates as enjoyed the popular confidence. He reminded them 
of the Republican Convention held in that city in 1860, and that while the 
party which it represented had there declared that it would not interfere 
with the rights of states, the sentiment by which it was animated—its sec- 
tional prejudices and fanaticism—had overruled this declaration. Even 
now, under the shadow of impending ruin, this party would not let the 
shedding of blood cease even for a little, “to see if Christian charity or the 
wisdom of statesmanship” might not save the Union. But, even if it would, 
the administration could not save the country. It had, by its proclamations 
and vindictive legislation, placed obstacles in its own way which it could not 
overcome; its freedom of action was hampered by its own unconstitutional 
acts. Seymour then proceeded to pay a tribute to our soldiers, which falls 
upon our ears like mockery when we remember that he did all he could to 
weaken the armies in the field by his opposition to conscription. But his 
compliment to the soldiers was of a very doubtful sort when he intimated 
that they were more lenient toward traitors than was the administration. 

“But if the administration can not save the Union,” said he, “we can. . . 
There are no hinderances to our pathways to union and to peace.” He for- 
got under what administrations disunion had blossomed and matured to 
ripeness. And when he added, “we have no hates, no prejudices, no pas- 
sions,” did he remember the fiendish, negro-hunting mob, whom a little more 
than a year ago he had addressed in New York city as ‘‘my friends?” Yes, 
this astute statesman could look down into the face of Long, who had a few 
weeks before, in the halls of Congress, advocated the recognition of the Con- 
federacy, and into the faces of others who had applauded his words to the 
echo, and say, ‘the administration can not save the Union, but we can do it.” 
He had complained of the lack of wise statesmanship in the Republican 
party to secure the fruit of victories won in the field. Was wise statesman- 
ship in this trying hour of the nation’s life confined to such men as Price, 
Vallandigham, and the Seymours? With remarkable coolness he alluded 
to the military edict which three days before had gone forth, forbidding the 
transportation of arms or ammunition into Ohio, Indiana, Ilinois, and Mich- 
igan. Did he know of the existence of secret organizations in those states, 
the members of which were the sworn enemies of the national government, 
waiting only their opportunity to aid the Confederate armies by domestic 
insurrection in the North? Did he know that he was addressing men who 
directly controlled and sustained these organizations? So well did he under- 


stand the character of his audience, that he especially guarded those who | 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


667 


were not delegates against an unbecoming expression of their opinion by 
applause or condemnation. He had noticed with chagrin that the loudest 
cheers followed the expression of disloyal sentiments, and feared the result 
of the impression which would thus be made upon the people at large. In- 
deed, he had scarcely given this prudent bit of advice when he was inter- 
rupted by loud calls for Vallandigham, 

Seymour to a great degree succeeded in impressing his own temper upon 
the Convention, but he could not control the members in their conduct out- 
side of the wigwam. From the balconies of hotels and on street-corners 
sentiments were uttered which more fully represented the temper of the 
crowd which had naturally gathered about this Democratic Convention. 
Here C. Chauncey Burr, Vallandigham, and Henry C. Dean could speak out 
clearly their sympathy with rebels without disguise or circumlocution. 
Here they could charge Lincoln with spoon-stealing and negro-stealing ; 
could declare that the South, fighting for her honor, could not honorably lay 
down her arms, and that Lincoln’s army, already the slaughter-pen of two 
millions of men, could not again be filled either by enlistment or conscrip- 
tion; and could utter their prayers for the failure of the national arms. Here 
they could call Lincoln a usurper, traitor, tyrant, blood-thirsty old monster, 
or any other odious name which the Democratic vocabulary of that day 
readily furnished. And yet these men belonged to a party which, Seymour 
said, had “no hates, no prejudices, no passions.” War-Democrats received 
their share of this wholesale vituperation and execration. Between a War- 
Democrat and an Abolitionist, said Judge Miller, of Ohio, there is no real 
difference; ‘they are links of one sausage, made out of the same dog,” and 
the crowd yelled its applause. Judge Miller was a fair representative of 
that “insulted judiciary” which Seymour in his speech had declared “ would 
again administer the laws of the land” when the Democratic administration 
should have displaced that of Mr. Lincoln. 

The platform of resolutions was constructed by a committee, of which Val- 
landigham was a member. In the contest for the chairmanship of this com- 
mittee, Vallandigham received 8 votes and Guthrie 12. This man was the 
master-spirit of the Convention, so far as its objects were concerned, while 
Seymour furnished the model for its style of utterance. In the Committee 
on Resolutions, James Guthrie, of Kentucky, its chairman, acted the same 
part which Seymour played in the conduct of the entire Convention. Val- 
landigham was the irrepressible soul of the resolutions, and it was the busi- 
ness of Guthrie to hide this wretched soul within a becoming body, to disguise 
sympathy with treason by sandwiching it in between a declaration of fidelity 
to the Union and one of pity toward unnecessarily slaughtered soldiers.' 
The resolutions as adopted pretended to speak for a party, a large and the 
most respectable and patriotic portion of which repudiated them; they de- 
clared as a sentiment of the Convention “ unswerving fidelity to the Union 
under the Constitution.” But how many members of this Convention had 
publicly declared that under the Constitution the right of secession was jus- 
tifiable? They declared in behalf of the Convention and as the sense of the 
American people that the experiment of war, tried for four years, had proved 
a failure, and that ‘justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand 
that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to 
an ultimate Convention of the states, or other peaceable means, to the end 
that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis 
of the Federal Union of the states.”? It is in vain that one inquires after 
the reasons for this demand by either “justice,” ‘‘ humanity,” “liberty,” or 
the “ public welfare.” It was known—it had been the undeviating declara- 
tion of the Confederate government, one fiom which it had not swerved even 
in order to assist this peace party of the North—that no peace was practica- 
ble (except a conquered peace) on any other basis than that of Confederate 
independence. And this Convention knew that the peace for which they 
declared must result in the recognition of the Confederacy. How justice, 
or humanity, or liberty, or the public welfare were to be advanced by that 
inglorious consummation it is not easy to discover. Let us suppose for an 
instant that this peace party should succeed, and that the leaders who con- 
trolled its action should come into possession of the executive and legislative 


1 The following is the platform adopted by the Conyention : 

Resolved, That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with unswerving fidelity to the Union 
under the Constitution, as the only solid foundation of our strength, security, and happiness as a 
people, and as a framework of government equally conducive to the welfare and prosperity of all the 
states, both Northern and Southern. 

Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that, 
after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the 
pretense of a military necessity of a war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself 
has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the 
material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public 
welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ul- 
timate Convention of all the states, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest prac- 
ticable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the states. 

Resolved, That the direct interference of the military authority of the United States in the recent 
elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware, was a shameful violation of the Con- 
stitution, and the repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, 
and resisted with all the means and power under our control. 

Resolved, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and 
the rights of states unimpaired ; and they hereby declare that they consider the administrative usur- 
pation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution, the subversion of 
the civil by military law in states not in insurrection, the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonmeut, 
trial, and sentence of American citizens in states where civil law exists in full force, the suppression 
of freedom of speech and of the press, the denial of the right of asylum, the open and avowed disre- 
gard of state rights, the employment of unusual test-oaths, and the interference with and denial of 
the right of the people to bear arms, as calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and the 
perpetuation of a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed. 

Resolved, That the shameful disregard of the administration to its duty in respect to our fellow- 
citizens who now and long haye been prisoners of war in a suffering condition, deserves the severest 
reprobation, on the score alike of public interest and common humanity. 

Resolved, That the sympathy of the Democratic party 1s heartily and earnestly extended to the 
soldiery of our army, who are and have been in the field under the flag of our country ; and, in the 
event of our attaining power, they will receive all the care and protection, regard and kindness, that 
the brave soldiers of the republic have so nobly earned. 

2 This resolution, the second and most important one of the platform, was written by Vallandi- 
gham. So Vallandigham himself states in a letter written to the New York Daily News from 
Chicago, October 22d, 


668 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE 


CIVIL WAR. [SEPTEMBER, 1864. 


SOLDIERS VOTING FOR PRESIDENT, 


powers of the nation. Suppose an armistice declared under such auspices. 
The armies, with ultimate victory already in sight, rest upon their arms, while 
these men try their boasted “‘statesmanship” in the interests of peace. Sol- 
diers levied by conscription, and on their way to the field, are halted, released 
from obligation, and returned to their homes. Recruiting and conscription 
cease. Military ardor is already dead, or this peace party could not else 
have come into power. What would be the action of Davis and his associ- 
ates, and of the Southern people? They seceded under the auspices of Bu- 
chanan’s administration; but now an administration is in power which is 
pledged to desist from war in any event. The storming of cannon, the 
musketry attack, the strong hands of soldiers already about to clutch this 
demon of treason and strangle it to death, silently vanish from the scene, and 
are replaced by this nest of cooing doves, who from the national capital seek 
to woo traitors back to their spurned allegiance. Can there be any doubt 
as to the result of this innocent, amicable sport? Would the Confederacy 
dance to the piping of these men of peace? No, it would claim the right of 
secession, which these men would instantly yield; it would become a nation 
which these doters would forthwith recognize. The armies in the field 
would then slink back to their homes, cursing the people who had betrayed 
them. Grant, and Sherman, and Thomas, and Farragut, would hide their 
faces for shame, and quietly receive their reward—the brand of murder 
placed upon their foreheads by Peace Democrats and an unworthy people. 
The uncoffined, living corpse of Lincoln—more than murdered by these po- 
litical assassins—would proceed from Washington to Springfield amid the 
jeers of faithless multitudes. And this was to be the Democratic apotheosis 
of justice, humanity, and liberty! 

We do not wonder, after this declaration, that the Convention tendered 
its sympathy to the Union soldiers, who would need so much sympathy in 
the event of its political success. 

The members of the Convention, after the adoption of this platform, named 
various candidates for President, and spent the remainder of the day in dis- 
cussing their comparative merits. General McClellan was the only nominee 
who stood any fair chance of success, but there was certainly room for dis- 
cussion as to the propriety of asking a major general of the United States 
army to stand upon the platform adopted by the Convention. On the 81st 
the voting commenced, On the first ballot it stood: McClellan, 174; Thom- 
as H. Seymour, 88; Horatio Seymour, 12. This was revised so that McClel- 
lan stood 2024, and Thomas H.Seymour 284. On the motion of Vallandi- 
gham, the nomination of McClellan was made unanimous. No less than 
eight candidates were offered on the first ballot for Vice-President. James 
Guthrie received the largest number of votes—65; George H. Pendleton stood 
next, receiving 55; and the third on the list was Lazarus W. Powell, who re- 
ceived 36. But the New York delegation, commanding 83 votes, went over 
to Pendleton, who was finally declared the nominee of the Convention. 

McClellan’s letter accepting the nomination expressed sentiments at vari- 


ance with those of the Convention. ‘Ifa frank, earnest, and persistent ef- 
fort,” said he, “to obtain these objects [peace and union] should fail, the re- 
sponsibility for ulterior consequences will fall upon those who remain in 
arms against the Union. But the Union must be preserved at all hazards.” 
This idea—that of resuming the war in the event of the failure to obtain 
peace on the basis of the Union—came up before the Committee on Resolu- 
tions in the Convention, and was wnanimously rejected... “I could not,” 
adds McClellan, in allusion to one of the resolutions adopted at Chicago, 
‘look in the face of my gallant comrades of the army and navy, who have 
survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labors and the sac 
rifice of so many of our siain and wounded brethren had been in vain; that 
we had abandoned that Union for which we have so often periled our lives, 
A vast majority of our people, whether in the army and navy or at home, 
would, as I would, hail with unbounded joy the permanent restoration of 
peace on the basis of the Union under the Constitution, without the effusion 
of another drop of blood. But no peace can be permanent without the 
Union.” He differed with the Convention also in postponing the effort to 
procure peace by the exhaustion of “all the resources of statesmanship” un- 
til it should become clear or probable “that our present adversaries are 
ready for peace upon the basis of the Union.” <A similar proposition com- 
ing before the Convention Committee on Resolutions in exactly the same 
terms used in this letter, received only three votes out of twenty-four.? 

Pendleton very cautiously refused to commit himself except in so far as 
to state that he deprecated and would persistently oppose the establishment 
of another government over any portion of the territory within the limits 
of the Union. With one hand he clung to Vallandigham, and with the other 
to McClellan, while the latter shouldered Pendleton, Vallandigham, and the 
Chicago platform—protesting against the burden, but still bearing it—and 
with this incubus ran the race with Lincoln for the presidential chair. Even 
without these entanglements his prospects of success were doubtful, as his 
success involved the abandonment of the emancipation policy, which had al- 
ready grown as dear to the American people as to President Lincoln. 

Scarcely had the members of the Convention returned home, and begun 
to mingle with the people again, when they discovered too late that they had 
made a great mistake. As Gettysburg and Vicksburg had followed the ha- 
rangues of Seymour, Pierce, and others on the 4th of July, 1863, so now the 
people got up from reading the Chicago platform to celebrate the capture 
of Atlanta, which was the sternest rebuke and most striking refutation of 
that document. Men who were disposed to split hairs with the Chicago 
statesmen were knocked down by Sherman’s more palpable arguments. As 
Seward truly said at the time, “Sherman and Farragut had knocked the 
bottom out of the Chicago nominations.” 


 Vallandigham, in a public speech at Sidney, Ohio, September 24th, makes this statement in 
the most positive terms, and it has never been denied. 
* See Vallandigham’s speech alluded to in the previous note, 


Novemser, 1864. ] 


GEORGE H, PENDLETON, 


Fremont now withdrew from the contest, and while still pronouncing 
Lincoln’s administration “ politically, militarily, and financially a failure,” he 
abandoned the field, ‘‘not to aid the triumph of Lincoln,” but to do his part 
to prevent the election of McClellan. The latter would establish the Union 
with slavery, while the former was pledged to re-establish it without slavery, 
and thus the great issues of the day were fairly joined, and there ought to 
enter into the contest no disturbing element to diminish the full strength of 
the victory of emancipation. Sheridan’s victories over Early in the Valley 
of the Shenandoah, though not necessary to a Republican triumph, doubt- 
less increased the popular majority for Lincoln. 

The state elections in October and November, preceding that for presi- 
dential electors, betokened a certain victory for the administration. In Ver- 
mont the Republican candidate for governor was elected by a majority larger 
than that of 1863. In Maine there was a slight loss as compared with the 
election of 1863. In Indiana, O. P. Morton, the Republican candidate for 
governor, was elected by a majority of over 20,000. In Pennsylvania there 
was no general election for state officers, but the delegation from that state 
to Congress was changed from 12 against 12 to 15 against 9—a gain of three 
Republican Congressmen. In, New York, Reuben EK. Fenton was elected by 
8000 majority over Seymour. 

The presidential election, November 8th, resulted in an overwhelming vic- 
tory for the administration. McClellan received the electoral votes of three 
states—Delaware, New Jersey, and Kentucky—21 in all; the remainder— 
212—were cast for Lincoln and Johnson. Lincoln’s popular majority was 
411,428.! In the twelve states whose vote by soldiers was counted so as to 
be distinguished, the success of the administration was even more signal, 
its majority being over 3 to 1. Such was the decision of the soldiers on 
the questions of peace and emancipation.? 

An important issue in this election had been to secure a House of Repre- 
sentatives which would adopt the constitutional amendment abolishing slav- 
ery. The returns indicated that in the Thirty-ninth Congress the Republi- 


' The vote in the twenty-five loyal states stood as follows: 


Lixncotn. McCuiexran. Lrncorn. McCLeian. 
IOIBOS sratys a oanie s:e. Weise sto. 0: 72.278 47,736 ALATA clots siete ee sac 150,422 130,233 
New Hampshire .......... 36,595 33,034 ULIMOLB rere a teterere store, oe oretoe's 189,487 158,349 
REID oie seicidiaigidalt «630 2's 42,422 13,325 Missouri T2,991 31,026 
Massachusetts ............ 126,742 48,745 AORTA ED Oo So cise cicisra) ie oi 85,352 67,370 
Rhode Island ............. 14,343 8,718 OW Rialett eteiea cs is\eleata\biaresele/eia 87,331 49,260 
Vonpectlont S26 sedis i oes 44,693 42,288 PV ICOMELIL Te ccs eect sc vac 79,564 63,875 
New. d Orkijasat« pete, va crey 368,726 361,985 DAD OROGAN ics ais elelsisie-s siete 25,060 17,375 
New Jersey. Stee erie ein Gita 60,723 68,014 RUNS OMINTR ae catiaineherelclo ca oe 62,134 43,841 
Pennaylvania.. ..c.<ssc. ys 296,389 276,308 MPEOIRID Sriie sare Sei Gs: o's. 8i08 9,888 8,45T 
Deleware! sic 3 eo. Pome 8,115 8,767 Rannag te crise woh aes 14,228 3,871 
Maryland ...........+..+5 40,153 32,739 Wrest Virginia ose. cides 23,223 10,457 
Kentucky.............+.. onuT86 64,301 NGVRGR Sex AcleinsleB as dees 9,826 6,594 
Sc aioe ae bnahinan aay ted 265,154 205,568 SAGAL oe ie PEER oo 2,213,665 1,802,237 


* The army vote is shown in the following table. The soldiers of New York sent their ballots 
home to be deposited there, and so can not be distinguished. The vote of Minnesota soldiers, and 
a large portion of the Vermont soldiers’ yotes reached the canyassers too late to be counted : 


Lincoun. McCuentan. Lincoun, McCurvian, 


MAMIE LG acola's.0,<\5:«°9,010)'s1 9,038 4,174 741 Michigan ... 9,402 2,957 
New Hampshire ............ 2,066 690 Iowa .. 15,178 1,364 
SS ee ane 243 49 Wiscons 11,372 2.458 
Pennsylvania .............. 26,712 12,349 BNERS oi. Wists oeSA Es alol 8S 2,867 543 
cal at EN ates das, oh aida 6 aoa 321 Gplifornia cs. cosets acre 2,600 237 

MRED ei cteta ack 5:p¢s..p 0.0.46 1,194 2,823 y 710.754. 34.997 
al ale Ble 4146 O5T MLOGAL. i ciavialrasiseateinnre 119,754 = 34,291 

8G 


POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF 1864. 


669 


can majority would be so great that the members of that party, as compared 
with the Democrats, would number over 4 to 1. But it was not necessary 
to wait for another Congress. 

The Thirty-eighth Congress reassembled for its second session December 


5th, 1864.1 The important act of this short session was the passage by the 
House of the joint resolution to amend the Constitution so as to abolish 


slavery. ‘The President had in his message strongly urged this action. On 
the 31st of January the question was brought to a final issue. The form of 
the amendment remained the same as when it came from the Senate. The 
resolution passed by the requisite majority, receiving 119 ayes to 56 nays. 
In this connection it is proper to mention the death of Owen Lovejoy, of 
Illinois, which occurred on the 25th of March, 1864. This old advocate of 
emancipation did not live to see the anti-slavery amendment passed, but he 
died in the faith that both Congress and the President would maintain jus- 
tice. 

In Maryland, on the 24th of June, in Constitutional Convention, the aboli- 
tion of slavery in that state was declared as the twenty-third article of the 
Bill of Rights. In the following October this article was ratified by the 
people of the state. The vote stood 80,174 for, to 29,699 against the ratifi- 
cation. The majority was very small, and the measure would have failed 
but for the preponderance of the soldiers’ vote in its favor. The soldiers’ 
vote stood 2633 to 163. 

Karly in February, 1865, an attempt was made to open negotiations for 
peace. Alexander H. Stephens, the Confederate Vice-President, R. M. T. 
Hunter, and John A,Campbell, were permitted to pass through Grant’s lines 
to Hampton Roads, where they were met by President Lincoln and Secre- 
tary Seward. The conference was soon concluded, President Lincoln re- 
fusing to treat on the basis of Confederate independence. Upon the return 
of the Confederate commissioners a great meeting was held to revive the 
drooping spirits of the Confederacy, and it was unanimously resolved that 
the conditions of peace offered by President Lincoln were a gross and pre- 
meditated insult to the Southern people. Three days later a war meeting 
was held, R. M.'T. Hunter presiding, and it was there resolved that the Con- 
federates would never lay down their arms until they should have achieved 
their independence. 

The events—political and military—which from this point followed fast 
upon each other—the reinauguration of President Lincoln; the surrender of 
the Confederate armies; the attempt of a conspiracy to overthrow the gov- 
ernment by the assassination of its principal officers; the succession of Presi- 
dent Johnson; and the detailed history of reconstruction, belong properly to 
other chapters. 


* The following changes occurred from the last session: In the Senate, Wm. Pitt Fessenden, of 
Maine, resigned to become Secretary of the Treasury, was succeeded by Nathan A. Farwell. On 
the Ist of February, 1865, William W. Stewart and James W. Nye took their seats as senators 
from Neyvada—the former for the term expiring March 3, 1867, the latter for the term expiring 
March 8, 1869, On the 13th of February, Thomas H. Hicks, of Maryland. His successor, John 
A. Cresswell, was not qualified until March 10th, during the special executive session of the 
Senate. 


In the House, Dwight Townsend, of New York, succeeded Henry G. Stebbins, resigned. De- 
cember 21, Henry G. Worthington, of Nevada, was qualified. 
? 'The vote in detail was as follows: 
YEAS. 
PANG Vansustaceceesees WBS Dib: Coaleradsaemannesone FS Ly OG: secs eonsaesaeses Mo.| Rollins, E. H. ....N. H. 
PATNISOUnseetresesecrs Iowa.} Donnelly........... (Minne KOK .ceesesnesonceces Mo.| Rollins, J. 8. ........Mo. 
PAUNOSnstesee et aciees Mass) Driges:. i acesceases Mich. | Littlejohn.......... Ne-Yo) Schenck cc.ecrccdres Ohio. 
ANCELSON......0.0000- Key. Dumont. cecsssereerss End Gat tencnateecenesa.s Mo.|Schofield............+. Pa 
PATHOL (lesesemnas cess. TUS EIC Leys rec carte ceite ss 5 Ohio. | Longyear .......... Mich.|Shannon.............. Cal. 
PASHIGY 2.4 means rncs Ohio.| Elliot ...............Mass.| Marvin. .........++ NI. Y;|Sloaince ceeaesaetene Wis 
SBC i cmernanecrae ese os Pa.) English. s....+<0.5. Conn.| McAllister............ Pa. | SUED ee getesiereen er eee Ky 
3aldwin, A. C. ...Mich.| Farnsworth ........... IL | McBride.......«. Oregon.|Smithers............. Del. 
Baldwin, J. D. ...Mass.| Frank.............+5 INU We MLCOUITG cssatanerenned Mo.|Spaulding.......... Ohio. 
Basel assesses aos Vitel GADSOMs sescsens cst NG Veli MCIndGehccatsecess-t Wiis: | SLAIN: cocoa ere tecn a4 N. J. 
BeaM Ales scence sca Mich.| Garfield............. Obio. WMillor << 2c. .e<smners N.Y | Steele. ces eccesame=es N.Y; 
Blaine escreness secs IMGs Goochiteradeearsce Mass. | Moorhead............. Pa. | St@vens’..sncsasesenctes Pa 
IBlaligvsseeensecss ee W. Va.! Grinnell ............ Towai Morrill cass; aaces ssn Vit.) haven crarcocdesaete Pa 
Bla waretercetaceecsst Mo.) Griswold....2.-200.- ING Yo | WEOVTIS  cccaadencscr ce No Y..Phomsasee oe eee Md 
Boutwell........... Mass) Hale, cocsercr--ceesnes Ras MVers, AC essssbas gees Pa. LPaey caved oscsadecnen Pa. 
OV Gicenscnsereaeuenes Moh Herrick: 26... ..s0s% Ne Yel My Ors; lesen. cee <ts-e 18. | UU DSOD asia eslesonnee Mich 
Brandagee......... GConis| Higbysnccdssenon ies « CalipNelsonivec«cs-cecee: N.Y.| Van Valkenburg..N. Y. 
ISFOOMML werecser sees: PH. ELOOPCL assesses sees Mass: tN Ortoniin ncspsceckstoses Iil.| Washburne............ Il 
BTOWensemescsices Wi Wa) Elotchkicsuesett-e IN. Xe) OGGllen setae cae: N. Y.| Washburne........ Mass. 
Clarke, A. W. ....N. Y.| Hubbard, A. W...Iowa.| O'Neill, C. ........... Pa.) Webster's. c.ccsnucenes Md. 
Clarke, Freeman..N. Y./ Hubbard, J. H. ..Conn.| Orth ...........2.0008 Tnd.| Whaley: acs. W. Va 
iCODD emecoseeesersess Wis.! Hurlburd........... NG YoU Patterson vs~con.ea0 N. H.| Wheeler ..........0.. Wis 
Coffroth’.........-0re.. Pa ELMLCHININ ie semerdaeries O10, |[Perpaim)sacaricanaecses Me.) Wilder..........- Kansas. 
COlO i ccacseoeasascotes Cale IMPersOUl erence asses TS ELK Grea otepec heen des Me.| Williams.............- Pa. 
Colfax ING SCNCKES). co ccs noses res R. To) POMerOy.- 2s. secec. INS Yc WilSOn seneccenaeaans Iowa. 
Creswell....... EC OUUANS aesecteet cose Dds | PTICe enchoasastn cok Towa.| Windom........... Minn. 
Davis, “How. versie Mid ICASSON-e-eeenger Towa.| Radford............. N. Y.| Woodbridge.......... Vt. 
Dayisy Ln Ws sesese ANGHY ce IMG] CV ate cnesesscostecs Pa.|Rendalleiscencpea ens Ky.| Worthington ....... Nev. 
WD SWESistacenocecses Mass. Kellogg, F. W. ...Mich.| Rice, A. H. .......Mass.] Yeaman.........+0000 Ky 
Demin give ces cance Conn.) Kellogg, O......... IN Ye ACe Nee thi wescava. « Me. 
NAYS. 
Allen, ila. ack eecseee Til.| Eldridge............ Wiss aw wstisss aeaneeseecce Inds | Scote’. cass sseceusseers Mo. 
Allens Ws Es caiceser. EUS Enc, saeeaecee tev BIOS ORR Ese ateccresces Ohio.| Steele, W. G....... N.J. 
ARCORB MINE a esede ses Pas Grideria, ).aareansens Kivi OT AMOry ties. esshee con Ky. | Stiles.cty.cescesseseses Pa. 
Bling Goad tet Acer (hig: Nally fae adeeeauees Mo.| Miller, W. H. ....... Pa.) Strouse’ iiteeccassosaee Pa. 
BROOK Sia. ceeen ose N. eo ardin gt Seer. osrerene Ky.| Morris, J. Re .:.-:-Ohbio. | Stuart ....<.cscccscceses Ill. 
Brown, J.'S. .....+. Wis.| Harrington.......... Ind.| Morrison ............+. TL | Sweatt’: .osieccovescare Me. 
Chanletia,tessse~ Ne Ye Parriss ist Garacevnss Mids| Noblomreee..sheeeces Ohio.| Townsend.......... IND TS 
MAViy dedesitor snveae oe Ky. |larrias' Ga Mion s.cees0s Ill.| O'Neill, J. .........Ohio. | Wadsworth .......... Ky 
Come nas meee ee. QOhio:} Holman. .20se0.s0c Ind.| Pendleton.......... Ohio. Ward’ ?,a<.. teases Nee 
Cravenbite edccetscnass Ind.) Johnsons Ry .hweveress EB. | POLLY cecvovcecesecses N. J.| White, C. A. ...... Ohio. 
DAWSON. tte .she0 sett Pa.| Johnson, W. ...... ADT. ELOY sntsen se sees N. Y.| White, J. W....... Ohio. 
Dennison. ........++8+ Pa.| Kalbfleisch......... N. Y.| Randall, 'S. J. .......Pa.| Winfield ............ Byte 
Bidensrscents cies taeldsce Ts Rerrian. Ficdscse oss IN} Yai Robinson t5Acieekee es Tl.) Wood, Biv ecct.e.s. Nex 
Edgerton. ....0...+0+. Tn RDP Weaarsescxe cesses TU ROGGE ccues eesnenes cece LLL) WO0d! Hin cscveece Nays 
NOT VOTING. 
IGA ZORN ceacncaser sop oo Pa MACY cicsspestanseas N. H.| McKinney.......... Ohio. | Rogers.....+.. SodvenNaNs 
Le. Blond............ Ohio, | McDowell...... .soeeeLnd.| Middleton ........+. N. J.| Voorhees......... -.--Ind- 


670 


CHAPTER XLVI. 
AFTER ATLANTA. 


Sherman’s Position after the Capture of Atlanta.—What to do next ?—Hood’s Army in his Front, 
and the Railroad to Chattanooga untenable.—Hood gets out of Sherman’s Way.—President 
Dayis makes another Western Tour.—His Speech at Macon.—He discloses his Plans to the 
Enemy.—An Advance northward determined on.—Forrest’s prelusive Invasion of Tennessee. 
—Thomas is sent to Nashville-—Hood shifts to the West Point Road, and at length crosses the 
Chattahoochee.—Sherman follows to Kenesaw.—Slocum left at Atlanta.—The Battle of Alla- 
toona is fought, and the Confederates are repulsed.—Hood across the Coosa, followed by Sher- 
man through Allatoona Pass.—Resaca held, but Hood takes Dalton, and, avoiding a Battle, re- 
treats to Gadsden.—Is joined there by Beauregard.—The Confederate Plan of a Campaign 
against Nashville.—Sherman, tired of chasing Hood, prepares for his March to the Sea.—He 
sends the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps to Thomas.—His Theory of the grand March.—He 
puts his Plan into Operation. 

r : \HE period immediately following the campaign which had closed with 

the capture of Atlanta was full of contingencies and uncertainties. 

What shall I do next? was the question which occupied the minds both of 

Hood and Sherman. It was a brief period; for Hood could not wait long, 

and Sherman would not. The Federal commander, while he was compelling 

the exodus of citizens from Atlanta, reorganizing his army, protecting his 
rear, and making arrangements with General Hood for an exchange of pris- 
oners, and for the relief of some of the inconveniences suffered by Union 
prisoners in the South,’ was revolving great schemes in his mind. He must 
secure the position which he had already gained in the heart of the enemy’s 
country. But when secured, Atlanta was of no consequence to him except 
as a point from which to strike. Of one thing he was well satisfied. Hood 
would not divide his army ; it would remain, therefore, a compact organiza- 
tion, whether in his front or moved against his rear. Sherman’s desire was 
to march through Georgia to the Atlantic coast. While guarding the rail- 
road to Chattanooga, his eyes were fixed upon Savannah. But, so long as 
Hood’s army remained in his front, no such scheme could be ventured, at 
least not until the Savannah River was in the possession of the Federal 
navy.2. The Confederate cavalry swarmed about his army, and he could 
not advance far from Atlanta eastward or southward and protect the rail- 
road in his rear without detaching forces which were necessary to his ad- 
vance. If Canby should be heavily re-enforced and advance to Columbus, 
Georgia, and establish a new base for Sherman by way of the Alabama 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


& —_ wir” Te 


[SEPTEMBER, 1864. 


River, the difficulty would be obviated. Under all the circumstances, Sher 
man had little expectation that this would be accomplished. 

But General Hood speedily relieved Sherman of all his difficulties by re- 
moving the Confederate army out of his way. Hood was the most accom- 
modating general that we have ever heard or read of. No sooner was the 
truce which had been agreed upon concluded, than he proceeded to shift his 
entire army to Sherman’s rear.! If he had not already determined upon 
this movement he would yet have been forced to make it by the Confed- 
erate President, who proceeded from Richmond about three weeks after 
the fall of Atlanta to urge its execution. On his way to Hood’s army, 
Davis, on the 23d of September, reached Macon, and addressed the citizens 
of that town. Among the many impolitic acts of President Davis during 
his administration, this speech stands prominent. In the first place, it in- 
formed General Sherman of plans which, if adopted at all, should never 
have been discovered till the latest possible moment. And the abusive de- 
nunciation of Governor Brown, of Georgia, and of General Johnston, were so 
undignified, that the reported address was at once pronounced a forgery in 
the Richmond papers. Even the enemies of Davis refused to credit its au- 
thenticity. Governor Brown was denominated “a scoundrel” by Davis, and 
contempt was thrown upon Johnston’s retreat from Dalton to the Chattahoo- 
chee. His speech was not, on the whole, very encouraging. He reportea 
two thirds of the Contederate army as absent, most of them without leave. 
He said it was impossible to lend Georgia any aid from Virginia, where the 
disparity of forces was just as great as it was in Georgia. He disclosed to 
his hearers, to Georgia, to the world, the extremities to which the Confed- 
eracy had been reduced. THe told of mothers who had given their last son 
for the war, and informed Georgians that Macon, and of course the whole 
route eastward to the Atlantic, if threatened, must not call upon Hood's 
army for protection, but that their old.men. must stand in the breach, re- 
minding them that they had not many men left between the ages of 18 and 
45. But that which must have seemed most ominous to his audience was 
the declaration that he was going to the army to confer with General Hood 
and hig subordinates. In view of evident facts, and of the situation of the 
Confederacy which he had so fully disclosed, his predictions were Iudicrous. 
The burden of his prophecy was that Sherman must retreat, like Napoleon 
from the deserts of Russia, escaping only with a body-guard !? 


1 The relief which was proposed by General Sherman is indicated in the following letter from 
him to Ilood, September, 1864 : 

‘¢ My latest information from Andersonville is to the 12th, and from what I learn, our prisoners 
of war confined there, and being removed to Savannah, Charleston, and Millen, need many arti- 
cles which we possess in superfluity, and can easily supply with your consent and assistance, such 
as shirts and drawers, socks, shoes, soap, candles, combs, scissors, ete. : 

“¢Tf you will permit me to send a train of wagons, with a single officer to go along under a flag 
of truce, I will send to Lovejoy’s or Palmetto a train of wagons loaded exclusively with 10,000 or 
15,000 of each of these articles, and a due proportion of soap, candles, ete., under such restrictions 
as you may think prudent to name. I would like to have my officer go along to issue these things, 
but will have no hesitation in sending them if you will simply promise to have them conveyed to 
the places where our prisoners are, and have them fairly distributed.” 

Sherman expected a refusal. He writes to James G. Yeatman, President of the Western Sani- 
tary Commission (date same as above): ‘‘I doubt if he [Hood] will consent. These Confederates 
are as proud as the devil, and hate to confess poverty, but I know they are unable to supply socks, 
drawers, undershirts, scissors, combs, etc., which our men need more than any thing else to pre- 
serve cleanliness and health.” 

In the same letter he says: ‘‘ The condition of the prisoners at Andersonville has always been 
present to my mind, and, could I have released them, I would have felt more real satisfaction than 
to have won another battle.” General Hood acceded to Sherman’s request, and the articles were 
sent. 

2 We see clearly what Sherman’s designs were from his dispatches during the month of Septem- 
ber to Generals Halleck, Canby, and Grant. He writes to Halleck on the 4th (before he had in 
person entered Atlanta), evidently on the supposition that Hood would cover Macon: 

‘*For the future I propose that of the drafted men I receive my due share, say 50,000 men; 
that an equal or greater number go to General Canby, who should now proceed with all energy to 
get Montgomery and the reach of the Alabama River above Selma; that when I know he can 
move on Columbus, Georgia, I move on La Grange and West Point, keeping to the coast of the 
Chattahoochee ; that we form a junction, repair roads to Montgomery, and open up the Appalachi- 
cola and Chattahoochee Rivers to Columbus, and move from it as a base straight on Macon.” 

On the 10th he writes to Canby: 

** We must have the Alabama River now, and also the Appalachicola at the old arsenal, and up 
to Columbus. _ My line is so long now that it is impossible to protect it against cavalry raids; but 
if we can get Montgomery and Columbus, Georgia, as bases in connection with Atlanta, we have 
Georgia and Alabama at our feet.” 

The same day he writes to Grant: 

“*T do not think we can afford to operate farther, dependent on the railroad, it takes so many 
men to guard it, and even then it is nightly broken by the enemy’s cavalry that swarms about us. 
Macon is distant 103 miles, and Augusta 175 miles. If I could be sure of finding provisions and 
ammunition at Augusta or Columbus, Georgia, I can march to Milledgeville, and compel Hood to 
give up Augusta or Macon, and could then turn on the other. The country will afford forage and 
many supplies, but not enough in any one place to admit of delay. . . . If you can manage to take 
the Savannah River as high as Augusta, or the Chattahoochee as far up as Columbus, I can sweep 
the whole state of Georgia; otherwise I would risk the whole army by going too far from Atlanta.” 

The above was in reply to Grant’s suggestion that Canby should operate against Savannah and 
Sherman against Augusta. 

On the 12th he writes to Grant: 

**T don’t understand whether you propose to act against Savannah direct from Fort Pulaski, or 
by way of Florida, or from the direction of Mobile. If you take Savannah by a sudden coup de 
main, it. would be valuable.” 

On the 20th again: ‘‘It [Savannah] once in our possession, I would not hesitate to cross the 
State of Georgia with 60,000 men, hauling some stores, and depending on the country for the bal- 
ance. Where a million of people find subsistence my army won’t starve; but, as you know, in a 
country like Georgia, with few roads and innumerable streams, an inferior force could so delay an 
army and harass it that it would not be a formidable object ; but if the enemy knew that we had 
our boats on the Savannah, I could rapidly move to Milledgeville, where there is abundance of 
corn and meat, and I could so threaten Macon and Augusta that he would give up Macon for Au- 
gusta; then I would move to interpose between Augusta and Savannah, and force him to give me 
Augusta, with the only powder-mills and factories remaining in the South, or let us have the Sa- 
vannah River. Either horn of the dilemma would be worth a battle. I would prefer his holding 
Augusta, as the probabilities are, for then, with the Savannah River in our possession, the taking 
of Augusta would be a mere matter of time. This campaign would be made in the winter. But 
the more I study the game, the more am I conyinced that it would be wrong for me to penetrate 
much farther into Georgia without an objective beyond. It would not be productive of much 
good. Ican start east, and make a circuit south, and back, doing vast damage to the state, but 
resulting in no permanent good; but by merely threatening to do so I hold a rod over the Geor- 
gians, who are not oyer loyal to the South. I will therefore give my opinion that your army and 
Canby’s should be re-enforced to the maximum; that after you get Wilmington you strike for Sa- 
vannah and the river; that General Canby be instructed to hold the Mississippi River, and send 
a force to get Columbus, Georgia, either by way of the Alabama or Appalachicola ; and that I keep 
Hood employed, and put my army in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbus, and Charleston. 
. . » The possession of the Savannah River is more than fatal to the possibility of a Southern in- 
dependence. They may stand the fall of Richmond, but not of all Georgia. . . . Ifyou can whip 


Lee, and I can march to the Atlantic, I think Uncle Abe will give us twenty days’ leave of absence 
to see the young folks.” 


1 Hood's explanation of this moyement is a weak apology for his folly. He says: 

‘* A serious question was now presented tome. The enemy would not certainly long remain idle, 
He had it in his power to continue his march to the South, and force me to fall back upon Alabama 
for subsistence. I could not hope to hold my position. The country, being a plain, had no natural 
strength, nor was there any advantageous position upon which I could retire. Besides, the morale 
of the army, greatly improved during the operations around Atlanta, had again become impaired in 
consequence of the recurrence of retreat, and the army itself was decreasing in strength day by day. 
Something was absolutely demanded, and I rightly judged that any advance, at all promising suc- 
cess, would go far to restore its fighting spirit. Thus I determined, in consultation with the corps 
commanders, to turn the enemy’s right flank, and attempt to destroy his communications and force 
him to retire from Atlanta. The operations of the cavalry under Wheeler in Georgia, and under 
Forrest in Tennessee, proved to me conclusively, and beyond a doubt, that all the cavalry in the 
service could not permanently interrupt the railroad communications in the enemy’s rear sufli- 
ciently to cause him to abandon his position. To accomplish any thing, therefore, it became neces- 
sary for me to move with my entire force.” 

Instead of having any hope of forcing Hood to fall back upon Alabama for subsistence, Sherman 
was in doubt as to the possibility of his advance, so long as Hood was in his front, until he could 
dispense with dependence upon his present line of communications. As to the morale of Hood’s 
army, he was not likely to improve it by leaving Georgia open to Sherman’s destructive march. 

? The following is a copy of Davis’s Macon speech as reported in the Macon Telegraph : 

Lapies AND GENTLEMEN, Frienps AND FeLLow-CirizEns,—It would have gladdened my heart 
to have met you in prosperity instead of adversity. But friends are drawn together in adversity. 
The son of a Georgian, who fought through the first revolution, I would be untrue to myself if I 
should forget the state in her day of peril. What though misfortune has befallen our arms from 
Decatur to Jonesboro’, our cause is not lost. Sherman can not keep up his Jong line of communi- 
cation, and retreat sooner or later he must ; and when that day comes, the fate that befell the army 
of the French empire in its retreat from Moscow will be reacted. Our cavalry and our people will 
harass and destroy his army as did the Cossacks that of Napoleon; and the Yankee general, like 
him, will escape with only a body-guard. How can this be the most speedily effected? By the ab- 
sentees of Hood’s army returning to their posts; and will they not? Can they see the banished ex- 
iles; can they hear the wail of their suffering countrywomen and children and not come? By what 
influences they are made to stay away it is not necessary to speak. If there is one who will stay 
away at this hour, he is unworthy of the name of Georgian. To the women no appeal is necessary. 
They are like the Spartan mothers of old. I know of one who has lost all her sons except one of 
eight years. She wrote that she wanted me to reserve a place for him in the ranks. ‘The vener- 
able General Polk, to whom I read the letter, knew that woman well, and said it was characteris- 
tic of her; but I will not weary you by turning aside to relate the various incidents of giving up 
the last son to the cause of our country known to me. Wherever we go we find the hearts and 
hands of our noble women enlisted. They are seen wherever the eyé may fall or the step turn. 
They have one duty to perform—to buoy up the hearts of our people. I know the deep disgrace 
felt by Georgia at our army falling back from Dalton to the interior of the state. But I was not 
of those who considered Atlanta lost when our army crossed the Chattahoochee. I resolved that 
it should not be, and I then put a man in command who I knew would strike a manly blow for the 
city, and many a Yankee’s blood was made to nourish the soil before the prize was won. It does 
not become us to revert to disaster. Let the dead bury the dead. Let us, with one arm and one 
effort, endeavor to crush Sherman. I am going to the army to confer with our generals. The 
end must be the defeat of our enemy. It has been said that I abandoned Georgia to her fate. 
Shame upon such falsehood. Where could the author have been when Walker, when Polk, and 
when General Stephen D. Lee were sent to her assistance. Miserable man. The man who uttered 
this was a scoundrel. He was not a man to save our country. If I knew that a general did not 
possess the right qualities to command, would I not be wrong if he was not removed? Why, when 
our army was falling back from Northern Georgia, I even heard that I had sent Bragg with pon- 
toons to cross it to Cuba. But we must be charitable. The man who can speculate ought to be 
made to take up his musket. When the war is over, and our independence won—and we will es- 
tablish our independence—who will be our aristocracy? I hope the limping soldier. ‘To the young 
ladies I would say that, when choosing between an empty sleeve and the man who had remained at 
home and grown rich, always take the empty sleeve. Let the old men remain at home and make 
bread. But should they know of any young man keeping away from the service, who can not be 
made to go any other way, let them write to the executive. J read all letters sent me from the 
people, but have not the time to reply to them. You haye not many men between eighteen and 
forty-five left. ‘The boys—God bless the boys!—are, as rapidly as they become old enough, going to 
the field. The city of Macon is filled with stores, sick and wounded. It must not be abandoned 
when threatened ; but when the enemy comes, instead of calling upon Hood’s army for defense, the 
old men must fight, and when the enemy is driven beyond Chattanooga, they too can join in the 
general rejoicing. Your prisoners are kept as a sort of Yankee capital. I have heard that one of 
their generals said that their exchange would defeat Sherman. I have tried every means, conceded 
every thing to effect an exchange, but to no purpose. Butler, the Beast, with whom no commis- 
sioner of exchange would hold intercourse, had published in the newspapers that if we would con- 
sent to the exchange of negroes all difticulties might be removed. ‘This is reported as an effort of 
his to get himself whitewashed, by holding intercourse with gentlemen. If an exchange could be 
effected, I don’t know but I might be induced to recognize Butler. But in the future every effort 
will be given, as far as possible, to effect the end. We want our soldiers in the field, and we want 
the sick and wounded to return home. It is not proper for me to speak of the number of men in 
the field, but this I will say, that two thirds of our men are absent—some sick, some wounded, but 
most of them absent without leave. The man who repents and goes back to his commander vol- 


Sepremser, 1864. | 


A new problem was now presented to General Sherman. He was aston- 
ished at Hood’s withdrawal from the Macon Road. It was true the Confed- 
erate army was at West Point, in a position to move on his flank; but 
Davis’s Macon speech, which he had read in full in the Southern papers, left 
him no room for doubt that an attempt would be made by the enemy, mov- 
ing in full force to his rear, to compel him to release his hold upon Georgia. 
He could not decide at once as to his future movements. It was still a 
question with him whether, while protecting Tennessee against Hood’s in- 
vasion, he would have men enough left for the execution of his favorite 
project—the march eastward to Georgia. This question was soon settled by 
General Grant’s generous co-operation! and encouragement, and by the patri- 
otism of the loyal states. very day increased Sherman’s confidence. In 
the mean time he carefully watched the enemy’s movements. ‘Tennessee 
must be protected at all hazards. The devastation of Georgia and the cap- 
ture of Savannah would not compensate for the surrender of Nashville and 
Chattanooga to the Confederates, 

Hood had already sent Forrest with a cavalry force 7000 strong into Mid- 
dle Tennessee as a prelude to the march of his whole army. Forrest, on the 
20th of September, crossed the Tennessee near Waterloo, Alabama, and de- 
stroyed a portion of the railroad between Decatur and Athens. On the 23d 
he appeared before the latter place, and drove the garrison of 600 men into 
their fort. The commander of this post was Colonel Campbell, who, in a 
personal interview with Forrest on the 24th, was persuaded that it was use- 
less to resist the odds against him, and induced to surrender. In half an 
hour two regiments of Michigan and Ohio troops came to his assistance, and 
were driven back. Before Forrest reached Pulaski, General Rousseau had 
collected a force sufficient to defend that place, and the Confederate cavalry 
on the 29th swung around upon the Nashville and Chattanooga Road, and 
began to break it up between Tullahoma and Decherd. Rousseau had also 
moved promptly eastward, and at Tullahoma again barred the progress of 
Forrest northward. Steadman also, with 5000 men from Chattanooga, had 
crossed the Tennessee, and put his force in front of the enemy, compelling 
the latter to fall back through Fayetteville. The injuries done to the road 
were repaired in the course of a single day. Forrest now divided his force 
into two columns, commanded by Buford and himself, his own consisting of 
8000 men. Buford demanded the surrender of Huntsville on the 80th, and 
being refused, proceeded against Athens, which General R. 8. Granger had 
ordered to be reoccupied by the Seventy-third Indiana, and, attacking the 


untarily appeals strongly to executive clemency. But suppose he stays away until the war is over, 
and his comrades return home, and when every man’s history will be told, where will he shield him- 
self? It is upon these reflections that I rely to make men return to their duty; but, after confer- 
ring with our generals at headquarters, if there be any other remedy it shall be applied. I love my 
friends and I forgive my enemies. I have been asked to send re-enforcements from Virginia to 
Georgia. In Virginia the disparity in numbers is just as great as it is in Georgia. Then I have 
been asked why the army sent to the Shenandoah Valley was not sent here. It was because an 
army of the enemy had penetrated that valley to the very gates of Lynchburg, and General Early 
was sent to drive them back. This he not only successfully did, but, crossing the Potomac, came 
well-nigh capturing Washington itself, and forced Grant to send two corps of his army to protect 
it. This the enemy denominated a raid. If so, Sherman’s march into Georgia is a raid. What 
would prevent them now, if Early were withdrawn from taking Lynchburg, and putting a complete 
cordon of men around Richmond? I counseled with that great and grave soldier, General Lee, 
upon all these points. My mind roamed over the whole field. With this we can succeed. If 
one half the men now absent without leave will return to duty, we can defeat the enemy. With 
that hope I am going to the front. I may not realize this hope; but I know there are men there 
who have looked death in the face too often to despond now. Let no one despond, Let no one 
distrust ; and remember that if genius is the beau ideal, hope is the reality. 

Grant writes him September 27 : 

It is evident from the tone of the Richmond press, and all other sources, that the enemy intend 
making a desperate effort to drive you from where you are. I have directed all new troops from 
the West, and from the East too, if necessary, if none are ready in the West, to be sent to you.” 


AFTER ATLANTA. 


671 


garrison, was repulsed, without having effected any thing of any consequence. 
Forrest’s command recrossed the ‘Tennessee southward about the 8d of Octo- 
ber. 

Forrest retreated just in time; for before the end of September, New- 
ton’s (now Wagner's) division of Stanley’s corps had relieved Steadman’s 
command at Chattanooga; Morgan’s division of Jeff. C. Davis’s corps was on 
the way to Stevenson; and Rousseau was in pursuit of Forrest with 4000 
cavalry and mounted infantry, and was soon to be joined by General C. C. 
Washburne with 3000 cavalry and 1500 infantry from Memphis. On the 
29th, General Thomas had been sent to Nashville to take command of the 
forces covering Tennessee. Thomas reached Nashville on the 8d of Octo- 
ber, and had made such a disposition of his command that, but for the rise 
of the Elk River, Forrest would have had great difficulty in effecting his 
escape. Corse’s division had been dispatched to Rome, and all the new re- 
eruits and such detachments of troops as could be spared from the more 
northern posts of the West had been ordered to Nashville as reserves. 

In the mean time Hood was moving to accomplish his daring scheme of 
Northern invasion. Removing the rails from the Augusta and Macon Roads 
for forty miles out front Atlanta, he repaired the West Point Road, toward 
which he began to shift his army on the 18th of September. Here he re- 
mained in the vicinity of Palmetto, with his left touching the Chattahoochee, 
and, having accumulated provisions for his march, began to cross the river 
on the 29th. By the 8d of October his army reached the neighborhood of 
Lost Mountain, with his cavalry on his front and right. The next day he 


| dispatched Stewart’s corps with orders to strike the railroad at Ackworth 


and Big Shanty. The garrisons at both these stations, numbering about 400 


' men, were captured. Hood’s three corps d’armee were at this time com- 


manded by Stewart, Cheatham, and Lee. 

The entire Confederate army having crossed the Chattahoochee, Sherman, 
leaving Slocum’s corps to occupy Atlanta and guard the crossing of the 
Chattahoochee, moved the rest of his army—the Fourth, Fourteenth, Fif- 
teenth, Seventeenth, and Twenty-third Corps—northward, reaching Kenesaw 
on the 5th of October. The position of the Confederate army threatened 
Allatoona, where a million of rations were stored. This post was held by 
three regiments (890 men) under Colonel Tourtellotte, and was well protected 
by redoubts. General Sherman had anticipated an attack upon Allatoona, 
and had, by means of signals, ordered General Corse to re-enforce that post 
from Rome. The enemy had already got upon the railroad, as we have seen, 
by the 4th, destroying the railroad and cutting the telegraph; and on the 
night of that day, General Corse, with Rowett’s brigade and 165,000 rounds 
of ammunition, reached Allatoona just in time to meet the attack made on 
the morning of the 5th by French’s division of Stewart’s corps. Sherman 
reached the top of Kenesaw Mountain at 10 A.M., and from that point—a 
distance of 18 miles—he could see the smoke of the battle and hear faintly 
the sound of the artillery. He could not reach the scene of conflict in time, 
nor was it probable that he could afford any assistance from his main army ; 
but he sent General J. D. Cox, with the Twenty-third Corps, to attack the 
assailants in the rear, on the Dallas and Allatoona Road. Signals were ex- 
changed between Sherman and General Corse, and as soon as the Federal 
commander learned that the latter was at the point of danger, all his anxiety 
vanished. (orse’s arrival increased the number of the garrison to 1944 men. 
By 8 80 A.M. French had turned Allatoona, reaching the railroad north, and 
cutting off communication with Cartersville and Rome. At this time he 
sent a flag of truce summoning the garrison to surrender, “to avoid needless 
effusion of blood.” Corse promptly replied that he was prepared for “the 
needless effusion of blood,” whenever it would be agreeable to General 
French. The enemy then attacked with great fury, the first assault falling 
upon Colonel Rowett, who held the western spur of the ridge. This onset 
was successfully resisted, but the assault was repeated over and again, and 
as often repulsed. On the north side, a brigade of the enemy under General 
Sears made an attack in flank with better success. ‘The enemy’s line of 
battle,” reports General Corse, “swept us like so much chaff.” But Tour- 
tellotte from the eastern spur poured on Sears’s advancing troops a fire which 
caught them in flank and broke their ranks. The battle thus far Had been 
going on outside of the fort, into which, by the volume and impetuosity of 
the enemy’s assaults, the garrison was driven before noon. But, notwith 


LOVELL H, ROUSSEAU. 


672 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY 


OF THE CIVIL WAR. [OCTOBER, 1864. 


HOOD'S ATTACK 


standing the odds against them, they had inflicted sufficient injury upon 
French’s division to make it pause, and consider whether it was worth the 
while to attack the fort, held by men who, outside of its walls, had fought 
with such obstinacy. The delay gave Corse time to dispose his force in the 
trenches and behind the parapet. From noon till almost night the enemy 
closed around the fort, enfilading its trenches, and making death almost cer- 
tain to those who ventured to expose themselves. The unyielding temper 
of the garrison bafiled the enemy, who, learning that a hostile force was al- 
most upon his rear, gave up the contest. In this action General Corse was 
wounded in the face.1. The loss of the garrison was about 700 men—over 
one third of the entire command. Corse reports that he buried 231 of the 
enemy’s dead and captured 411 prisoners, one of whom, Brigadier General 
Young, estimated the Confederate loss at 2000. In no instance during the 
war was the value of the Signal Corps more fully illustrated than in the af- 
fair at Allatoona. The service which it rendered here, General Sherman 
afterward said, more than paid its entire expense from the time of its origi- 
aation. 

The army with which Hood had crossed the Chattahoochee, if we include 
Wheeler’s command which subsequently joined him, numbered about 36,000, 
of which one fourth was cavalry. After his failure at Allatoona, Hood 
moved northwestwardly across the Coosa. Sherman followed by the rail- 
road, marching through Allatoona Pass on the 8th, and reaching Kingston 
on the 10th. Here he found that, making a feint on Rome, the enemy had 
crossed the river about 11 miles below that place. The next day, therefore, 
he advanced to Rome, pushing forward Garrard’s cavalry and the Twenty- 
third Corps, with instructions to cross the Oostenaula and threaten Hood’s 
right flank, if the latter continued his movement northward. But the Con- 
federates, by reason of their superior cavalry force, moved more rapidly, and 
on the 12th Hood summoned the garrison of Resaca to surrender, threaten- 
ing to take no prisoners if the surrender was refused. Colonel Weaver, the 
commander at Resaca, saw no cause for alarm, and bluntly refused. He had 
been re-enforced by Sherman, and the enemy, deeming it prudent to avoid 
a battle, pushed on toward Dalton, destroying the railroad in his progress. 
Capturing the garrison at Dalton, he moved through Tunnel Hill to Villanow. 

Sherman reached Resaca on the 15th, and endeavored to force Hood to 
a battle by moving upon his flank and rear. Howard’s army was order- 
ed to Snake Creek Gap, where the enemy was found occupying the former 
Federal defenses. Here Howard tried to hold Hood until Stanley, with the 
Fourth Corps, could come up in his rear at Villanow. But the Confederate 
commander did not intend to fight Sherman’s army; he was well content 
with being chased. Covering his rear with Wheeler’s cavalry, he fell back 
to Gadsden, Alabama. Sherman followed as far as Gaylesville. Here there 
was a pause on the part of both armies. At Gadsden, General Beauregard, 
commanding the military division of the West, joined Hood. The latter had 
anticipated that Sherman would divide his forces, and give him a chance, 
but he had been disappointed. To venture a general engagement in the 
open field with an enemy whom he had been unable to oppose behind the 


‘ The day after the battle, Corse writes to Sherman: ‘‘I am short a cheek-bone and one ear, 
but am able to whip all hell yet.” 


ON ALLATOONA, 


fortifications of Atlanta was a step too reckless for even General Hood to 
take. To retreat utterly at this stage of affairs would be the ruin of his 
own not-too-well-established reputation, and would demoralize his army. It 
was therefore finally determined between him and General Beauregard that 
Sherman should be drawn north of the Tennessee. 

But Sherman had long been growing weary of chasing an army that 
would not, and could not be made to fight. He had now a splendid posi- 
tion for defense, covering Bridgeport, Rome, Chattanooga, and the railroad 
thence to Atlanta. It was necessary that he should hold this position for a 
time, until his plans were matured. The strategy to which Hood was about 
to tempt him was not the strategy suited to his nature. If Hood would 
only cross the Tennessee, he would soon gratify him by a division of the 
Federal army. The railroads were speedily repaired, and Atlanta was be- 
ing supplied with an abundance of provisions. Sherman was urging upon 
Grant his project of the march through Georgia to Savannah, and anxiously 
watching the accumulation of an army under Thomas sufficient to oppose 
Hood, leaving himself free to use his main army for offensive operations.? 


1 Sherman says in his report: ‘* Hood’s movements and strategy had demonstrated that he had 
an army capable of endangering at all times my communications, but unable to meet me in open 
fight. To follow him would simply amount to being decoyed away from Georgia, with little pros- 
pect of overtaking and overwhelming him. ‘To remain on the defensive would have been bad pol- 
icy for an army of so great value as I then commanded, and I was forced to adopt a course more 
fruitful in results than the naked one of following him to the southwest. I had previously submit- 
ted to the commander-in-chief a general plan, which amounted substantially to the destruction of 
Atlanta and the railroad back to Chattanooga, and sallying forth from Atlanta, through the heart 
of Georgia, to capture one or more of the great Atlantic sea-ports. This I renewed from Gayles- 
ville, modified somewhat by the change of events.” 

Sherman’s dispatches during this period contain a very complete history of the progress of his 
favorite scheme of the March to the Sea. They are so characteristic that we here give all of them 
which have a direct bearing upon the subject : 

September 29, 1864. To General Harreck: ‘‘I prefer for the future to make the moyement 
on Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah River.” } 

September 30. To General Cox: ‘‘I may haye to make some quick counter-moves east and 
southeast. Keep your folks ready to send baggage into Atlanta, and to start on short notice. . . 
. . . There are fine corn and potato fields about Covington and the Ocmulgee bottoms. ... . If 
we make a counter-move I will go out myself with a large force, and take such a route as will sup- 
ply us, and at the same time make Hood recall the whole or part of his army.” 

September 30. To General Tuomas: ‘‘If he [Hood] moves his whole force to Blue Mountain, 
you watch him from the direction of Stevenson, and I will do the same from Rome; and as soon 
as all things are ready, I will take advantage of his opening to me all of Georgia.” 

October 80. To General Grant: ‘‘ Hood is evidently on the west side of Chattanooga, below 
Sweetwater. If he tries to get on my road this side of the Etowah, I shall attack him ; but if he 
goes on to the Selma and Talladega Road, why would it not do for me to leave Tennessee to the 
forces which Thomas has, and the reserves soon to come to Nashville, and for me to destroy At- 
lanta, and then march across Georgia to Savannah or Charleston, breaking roads, and doing irre- 
parable damage? We can not remain on the defensive.” 

There is no immediate reply to this from Grant. 

October 1. 'To Generals Howarp and Cox: ‘It is well for you to bear in mind that if Hood 
swings over to the Alabama Road, and thence tries to get into Tennessee, I may throw back to 
Chattanooga all of General Thomas’s men as far down as Kingston, and draw forward all else, 
send back all cars and locomotives, destroy Atlanta, and make for Savannah or Charleston via Mil- 
ledgeville and Millen. If Hood aims at our road this side of Kingston, and in no manner threat- 
ens Tennessee, I will have to turn on him. Keep these things to yourselves. The march I pro- 
pose is less by 200 miles than I made last fall, and less than I accomplished in February, and we 
could make Georgia a break in the Confederacy by ruining both east and west roads, and not run- 
ning against a single fort until we get to the sea-shore, and in communication with our ships.” 

October 1. To General Tuomas: ‘‘ Use your own discretion as to the matters north of the Ten- 
nessee River. If I can induce Hood to swing across to Blue Mountain, I shall feel tempted to 
start for Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah or Charleston, absolutely destroying all Georgia, and 
taking either Savannah or Charleston. In that event, I will order back to Chattanooga every 
thing the other side of Kingston, and bring forward all else, destroy Atlanta and the bridge, and 
absolutely scour the Southern Confederacy. In that event, Hood would be puzzled, and would 
follow me; or, if he entered Tennessee, he could make no permanent stay. But if he attempts 
the road this side of Kingston or Rome, I will turn against him.” 


OcrosER, 1864. | 


Sherman had already submitted to Grant the general outlines of his scheme 
ofa march to the Atlantic. But at that time Hood was in his front, on the 


October 7. To General Corse: ‘‘ Keep me well advised, for I now think Hood will rather 
swing against Atlanta and the Chattahoochee Bridge than against Kingston and the Etowah 
Bridge; but he is eccentric, and I can not guess his movements as I could those of J ohnston, who 
was a sensible man, and only did sensible things. If Hood does not mind, I will catch him in a 
worse snap than he has been in yet.” ; 

October 9. To General Tuomas: ‘*I came up here to relieve our road. Twentieth Corps at 
Atlanta. Hood reached our road and broke it between Big Shanty and Ackworth, and attack- 
ed Allatoona, but was repulsed. . . . . I want to destroy all the road below Chattanooga, includ- 
ing Atlanta, and make for the sea-coast. We can not defend this long line of road. 

October 9. To General Grant: “It will be a physical impossibility to protect the road, now 
that Hood, Forrest, and Wheeler, and the whole batch of devils, are turned loose, without home or 
habitation. . .. . I propose that we break up the railroad from Chattanooga, and strike out with 
wagons for Milledgeville, Millen, and Savannah. Until we can repopulate Georgia it is useless to 
oceupy it, but the utter destruction of its roads, houses, and people will cripple their military re- 
sources. By attempting to hold the roads we will lose a thousand men monthly, and will gain no 
result. Ican make the march, and make Georgia howl. We have over 8000 cattle, and 3,000,000 
rations of bread, but no corn; but we can forage in the interior of the state.” 

October 10. To General Grant: ‘‘ Hood is now crossing the Coosa, twelve miles below Rome, 
bound West. Ifhe passes over to the Mobile and Ohio Road, had I not better execute the plan of 
my letter sent by Colonel Porter, and leave General Thomas, with the troops now in ‘Tennessee, to 
defend the state. He will have an ample force when the re-enforcements ordered reach Nashville.” 

‘The same day Thomas writes to Sherman: ‘‘I will not say positively that I can hold Hood with 
the present force I have and the re-enforcements expected, because I do not know how many re- 
enforcements are coming. I will do my best, however, and, as you direct, will concentrate the in- 
fantry force about Stevenson and Huntsville, leaving a portion of the cayalry to watch the river be- 
tween Decatur and Eastport.” 

October 11. To General Grant: ‘‘ Hood moved his army from Palmetto Station across by Dal- 
las and Cedartown, and is now on the Coosa River, south of Rome. He threw one corps on my 
road at Ackworth, and I was forced to follow. I hold Atlanta with the Twentieth Corps, and 
haye strong detachments along my line. These reduce my active force to a comparatively small 
army. We can not remain now on the defensive. With 25,000 men, and the bold cavalry 
he has, he [Hood] can constantly break my road. I would infinitely prefer to make a wreck 
of the road, and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta, including the latter city, send back 
all my wounded and worthless, and with my effective army move through Georgia, smashing 
things to the sea. Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but T believe he will be 
forced to folloyy me. Instead of being on the defensive, I would be on the offensive. Instead 
of guessing at ~yhat he means to do, he would have to guess at my plans. The difference in war 
is full 25 per cent. I can make Savannah, Charleston, or the mouth of the Chattahoochee (Ap- 
palachicola). Answer quick, as I know we will not have the telegraph long.” 

October 16. To General Scuorrenp: ‘‘I want the first positive fact that Hood contemplates 
an invasion of Tennessee. Invite him to do so, Send him a free pass in.” 

October 17. Slocum telegraphs to Sherman the statement made in a Montgomery paper that 
Beauregard is with Hood, and that the army is going to cross the Tennessee. ; 

October 17. Sherman is advised by Thomas to ‘‘adopt Grant’s idea of turning Wilson loose 
rather than undertake the plan of a march with the whole force through Georgia to the sea.” 
Again, the next day, Thomas writes: ‘‘I don’t want to be in command of the defense of Tennes- 
see, unless you and the authorities in Washington deem it absolutely necessary.” 

October 19. To General Hatreck: ‘‘ The enemy will not yenture into Tennessee except around 
by Decatur. I propose to send the Fourth Corps to General Thomas, and leave him with that 
corps, the garrisons, and new troops, to defend the line of the Tennessee, and with the rest to push 
into the heart of Georgia and come out at Savannah, destroying all the railroads of the state.” 

October 19. To General THomas: ‘‘ Make a report to me as soon as possible of what troops you 
now haye in Tennessee, what are expected, and how disposed. I propose, with the armies of 
the Tennessee and the Ohio, and two corps of yours, to sally forth, and make a hole in Georgia 
and Alabama that will be hard to mend. Hood has little or no baggage, and will escape me. He 
can not invade Tennessee except to the west of Huntsville. . . . . I will send back into Tennes- 
see the Fourth Corps, all dismounted cavalry, all sick and wounded, and all encumbrances what- 
ever, except what I can haul in our wagons, and will probably, about November, break up the rail- 
road and bridges, destroy Atlanta, and make a break for Mobile, Savannah, or Charleston. I 
want you to remain in Tennessee, and take command of all my division not actually present with 
me. Hood’s army may be set down at 40,000 of all arms fit for duty ; he may follow me or turn 
against you. Ifyou can defend the line of the Tennessee in my absence of three months is all I 
ask.” 

October 19. 'To Colonel Beckwitx (Act’g Q. M. at Atlanta): ‘‘ Hood will escape me. I want 
to prepare for my big raid. On the Ist of November I want nothing in Atlanta but what is neces- 
sary to war. Send all trash to the rear, and have on hand thirty days’ food and but little forage. 
[ propose to abandon Atlanta and the railroad bac!: to Chattanooga, and sally forth to ruin Geor- 
sia and bring up on the sea-shore.” 

October 19. To General Hatteck: ‘** We must not be on the defensive, and I now consider 
myself authorized to execute my plan, to destroy the railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta, includ- 
ing the latter city . . . . strike out into the heart of Georgia, and make for Charleston, Savan- 
nah, or the mouth of the Appalachicola. General Grant prefers the middle one, Savannah, and I 
understand you to prefer Selma and the Alabama. I must have alternatives, else, being confined 
to one route, the enemy might so oppose that delay and want would trouble me; but, having al- 
ternatives, I can take so eccentric a course that no general can guess at my objective. Therefore, 
when you hear I am off, have look-outs at Morris Island, South Carolina, Ossabaw Sound, Georgia, 
Pensacola, and Mobile Bays. I will turn vp somewhere, and believe I can take Macon, Mil- 
ledgeville, Augusta, and Savannah, Georgia, and wind up with closing the neck back of Charleston, 
so that they will starve out. This movement is not purely military or strategic, but it will illus- 
trate the vulnerability of the South. They don’t know what war means; but when the rich plant- 
ers of the Oconee and Savannah see their fences, and corn, and hogs, and sheep vanish before their 
eyes, they will have something more than a mean opinion of the ‘ Yanks.’ Even now our poor 
mules laugh at the fine corn-fields, and our soldiers riot on chestnuts, sweet potatoes, pigs, chick- 
ens, etc. The poor people come to me and beg us for their lives; but my customary answer is, 
‘ Your friends have broken our railroads which supplied us bountifully, and you can not suppose our 
soldiers will suffer when there is abundance within reach.’ 

‘*T¢ will take ten days to finish up our roads, during which I will eat out this flank, and along 
Jown the Coosa [Sherman, when writing this, was at Summerville, Georgia], and then will rapidly 
put into execution ‘the plan.’ In the mean time I ask that you will give General ‘Thomas all the 
troops you can spare of the new levies, that he may hold the line of the Tennessee during my ab- 
sence of, say, ninety days.” 

October 19. 'To General Witson: ‘‘ General Garrard has about 2500 cavalry, General Kilpat- 
rick 1500, General McCook 600; there may be about 1000 other cavalry with my army. These 
embrace all the cavalry ready for battle. [wish you would .. . . bring to me about 2500 new 
cavalry, and then go to work to make up three divisions, each of 2500, for the hardest fighting of 
the war. Iam going into the very bowels of the Confederacy, and propose to leave a trail that will 
be recognized fifty years hence.” 

October 20. To General Tuomas: ‘‘I think I have thought over the whole field of the future. 
and, being now authorized to act, I want all things bent to the following general plan of action for 
the next three months. 

‘* Out of the forces now here and at Atlanta I propose to organize an efficient army of 60,000 to 
65,000 men, with which I propose to destroy Macon, Augusta, and, it may be, Savannah and Charles- 
ton ; but I will also keep open the alternatives of the mouth of the Appalachicola and Mobile. By 
this I propose to demonstrate the vulnerability of the South, and make its inhabitants feel that war 
and individual ruin are synonymous terms. ‘To pursue Hood is folly, fov he can twist and turn like 
a fox, and wear out any army in pursuit; to continue to occupy long lines of railroads simply ex- 
poses our small detachments to be picked up in detail, and forces me to make countermarches to 
protect lines of communication. I know I am right in this, and shall proceed to its maturity. As 
to details, I propose to take General Howard and his army, General Schofield and his, and two 
corps of yours, viz., Generals Davyis’s and Slocum’s. I propose to remain along the Coosa watch- 
{ng Hood until all my preparations are made, viz., until I have prepared the railroad, sent back all 
surplus men and material, and stripped for the work. Then I will send General Stanley, with the 
Fourth Corps, across by Will’s Valley and Caperton’s to Stevenson, to report to you. If you send 
me 5000 or 6000 new conscripts, I may also send back one of General Slocum’s or Davis’s divisions, 
but I prefer to maintain organizations. I want you to retain command in Tennessee, and before 
starting I will give you delegated authority over Kentucky and Mississippi, Alabama, etc., whereby 
there will be unity of action behind me. I will want you to hold Chattanooga and Decatur in force ; 
and on the occasion of my departure, of which you will have ample notice, to watch Hood close. I 
think he will follow me, at least with his cavalry, in which event I want you to push south from 
Decatur and the head of the Tennessee for Columbus, Mississippi, and Selma—not absolutely to 
reach those points, but to divert or pursue, according to the state of facts. If, however, Hood turns 
on you, you must act defensively on the line of the Tennessee. I will ask, and you may also urge, 
that at the same time General Canby act vigorously up the Alabama River. 

“I do not fear that the Southern army will again make a lodgment on the Mississippi, for past 
events demonstrate how rapidly armies can be raised in the Northwest on that question, and how 
easily handled and supplied. The only hope of a Southern success is in the remote regions difficult 


AFTER ATLANTA. 


673 


Macon Road. He was not, under these circumstances, willing to make the 
venture unless he could be sure of some objective point, like Savannah, al- 


of access. We have now a good entering wedge, and should drive it home. It will take some 
time to complete these details, and I hope to hear from you in the mean time. We must preserve 
a Lei ete: of secrecy, and I may actually change the ultimate point of arrival, but not the main 
object. 

October 20. To General Stocum: ‘‘ Use all your energies to send to the rear every thing not 
needed for the grand march. JI will take your corps along. We will need 1,500,000 rations of 
bread, coffee, sugar, and salt, 500,000 rations of salt meat, and all else should be shipped away. 

. . « L want to be near Atlanta and ready by November Ist.” 

October 22. To General Grant: ‘‘I feel perfectly master of the situation here. I still hold 
Atlanta, and the road with all bridges and vital points well guarded, and I have in hand an army 
before which Hood has retreated precipitately down the Coosa. It is hard to divine his future 
plans; but by abandoning Georgia, and taking position with his rear to Selma, he threatens the 
road from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and may move up to Tennessee by Decatur. He can not cross 
the Tennessee except at Muscle Shoals, for all other points are patroled by our gun-boats. 

“*T am now perfecting arrangements to put into ‘Tennessee a force able to hold the line of the 
Tennessee while I break up the railroad in front of Dalton, including the city of Atlanta, and push 
into Georgia and break up all its railroads and dépots, capture its horses and negroes, make deso- 
lation every where, destroy the factories at Macon, Milledgeville, and Augusta, and bring up with 
60,000 men on the sea-shore about Savannah or Charleston. I think this far better than defend- 
ing a long line of railroad. I will leave General George H. Thomas to command all my military 
division behind me, and take with me only the best fighting material. Of course I will subsist on 
the bountiful corn-fields and potato-patches, as I am now doing, luxuriously.” 

October 23. To General SLocum: ‘‘Go on; pile up the forage, corn, and potatoes, and keep 
your artillery horses fat, send back all unserviceable artillery, and, at the last moment, we can 
count up our horses, and see what we can haul, and send back all else. One gun per thousand men 
will be plenty to take along. Hood is doubtless now at Blue Mountain, and Forrest over about 
Corinth and ‘Tuscumbia, hoping by threatening Tennessee to make me quit Georgia. We are 
piling up men in Tennessee enough to attend to them, and to leave me free to go ahead. ‘The 
railroad will be done in a day or two. We find abundance of corn and potatoes out here, and we 
enjoy them much; they cost nothing a bushel. If Georgia can afford to break our railroads, she 
can afford to feed us.” 

October 23. 'To General THomas: ‘‘ Hood is now at Blue Mountain, and Forrest evidently over 
about ‘Tuscumbia. No doubt they will endeavor conjointly to make me come out of Georgia, but 
I don’t want them to succeed. All Georgia is now open to me, and I do believe you are the man 
best qualified to manage the affairs of Tennessee and North Mississippi. 

“*T want approximate returns of all troops subject to your orders, and. as I wrote you, I can 
spare you the Fourth Corps and about 5000 men not fit for my purposes, but which will be well 
enough for garrison at Chattanooga, Murfreesborough, and Nashville. What you need is a few 
points fortified and stocked with provisions, and a movable column of 25,000 men that can strike 
in any direction.” 

October 24. To General Hatieck: ‘‘ Beauregard announces his theorem to be to drive Sher- 
man out of Atlanta, which he still holds defiantly, and dares him to the encounter, but is not will- 
ing to chase him all oyer creation.” 

October 26. 'To General THomas: ‘‘ A reconnoissance pushed down to Gadsden to-day reveals 
the fact that the rebel army is not there, and the chances are it has moved West. If it turns up at 
Guntersville I will be after it, but if it goes, as I believe, to Decatur and beyond, I must leave it 
to you at present, and push for the heart of Georgia.” 

October 28, ‘To General Tuomas: ‘‘T have already sent the Fourth Corps, which should reach 
Wauhatchee to-morrow; use it freely, and if I see that Hood crosses the Tennessee I will send 
Seacipen On these two corps you can ingraft all the new troops; with the balance I will go 
south. 

October 29. To General Tuomas: ‘‘Ingraft on Stanley and Schofield all the new troops. 
Give Schofield a division of new troops. Give General Tower all the men you can to finish the 
forts at Nashville, and urge on the navy to pile up gun-boats in the Tennessee.” 

October 29. To General Rosecrans: ‘‘I have pushed Beauregard to the west of Decatur, but 
I know he is pledged to invade Tennessee and Kentucky, having his base on the old Mobile and 
Ohio Road. I have put Thomas in Tennessee, and given him as many troops as he thinks neces- 
sary, but I don’t want to leave it to chance, and therefore would like to have Smith’s and Mower’s’ 
divisions up the ‘Tennessee River as soon as possible. . . . . I propose myself to push straight 
down into the heart of Georgia, smashing things generally.” 

November 1. 'To General Grant: ‘‘ As you foresaw, and as Jeff. Davis threatened, the enemy is 
now in the full tide of execution of his grand plan to destroy my communications and defeat this 
army. His infantry, about 30,000, with Wheeler and Roddy’s cavalry, from 7000 to 10,000, are 
now in the neighborhood of Tuscumbia and Florence, and the water being low, are able to cross 
at will. Forrest seems to be scattered from Eastport to Jackson, Paris, and the Lower Tennes- 
see, and General Thomas reports the capture by him of a gun-boat and five transports. General 
Thomas has near Athens and Pulaski Stanley’s corps, about 15,000 strong, and Schofield’s corps, 
10,000, en route by rail, and has at least 20,000 to 25,000 men, with new regiments and conscripts 
arriving all the time also. General Rosecrans promises the two divisions of Smith and Mower, 
belonging to me, but I doubt if they can reach Tennessee in less than ten days. If I were to let 
go Atlanta and North Georgia and make for Hood, he would, as he did here, retreat to the south- 
west, leaving his militia, now assembling at Macon and Griffin, to occupy our conquests, and the 
work of last summer would be lost. I have retained about 50,000 good troops, and have sent back 
25,000, and have instructed General Thomas to hold defensively Nashville, Chattanooga, and De- 
catur, all strongly fortified and provisioned for a long siege. I will destroy the railroads of Georgia, 
and do as much substantial damage as is possible, reaching the sea-coast near one of the points 
hitherto indicated, trusting that Thomas with his present troops, and the influx of new troops 
promised, will be able in a very few days to assume the offensive. Hood’s cayalry may do a good 
deal of damage, and I have sent Wilson back with all dismounted cavalry, retaining only about 
4500. This is the best I can do, and shall, therefore, when I get to Atlanta the necessary stores, 
move south as soon as possible.” 

The same day Grant writes to Sherman: ‘‘ Do you not think it advisable, now that Hood has 
gone so far north, to entirely ruin him before starting on your proposed campaign? With Hood’s 
army destroyed, you can go where you please with impunity. I believed, and still believe, if you 
had started south while Hood was in the neighborhood of you, he would have been forced to go 
after you. Now that he is so far away, he might look upon the chase as useless, and he will go in 
one direction while you are pushing the other. If you can see the chance for destroying Hood's 
army, attend to that first, and make the other move secondary.” 

November 2. To General Tomas: ‘‘ According to Wilson’s account, you will haye, in ten days, 
full 12,000 cavalry, and I estimate your infantry force, independent of railroad guards, full £0,000, 
which is a force superior to the enemy.” 

November 2. To General Grant: ‘If I could hope to overhaul Hood, I would turn against him 
with my whole force; then he would retreat to tho southwest, drawing me as a decoy from Georgia, 
which is his chief object. If he ventures north of the Tennessee, I may turn in that direction and 
get between him and his line of retreat, but thus far he has not gone above the Tennessee. ‘Thomas 
will have a force strong enough to prevent his reaching any country in which we have an interest, 
and he has orders, if Hood turns to follow me, to push for Selma. No single army can catch him, 
and I am conyinced the best results will follow from our defeating Jeff. Davis’s cherished plan of 
making me leave Georgia by manceuvring. ‘Thus far I have confined my efforts to thwart his 
plans, and have reduced my baggage so that I can pick up and start in any direction; but I would 
regard a pursuit of Hood as useless. Still, if he attempts to invade Middle Tennessee, I will hold 
Decatur, and be prepared to move in that direction ; but, unless I let go Atlanta, my force will not 
be equal to his.” Lon ; 

To this Grant replies the same day: ‘‘ Your dispatch of 9 A.M. yesterday is just received. I 
dispatched you the same date, advising that Hood’s army, now that it had worked so far north, 
ought to be looked upon more as the object. With the force, however, you have left with General 
Thomas, he must be able to take care of Hood and destroy him. I really do not see that you can 
withdraw from where you are to follow Hood, without giving up all we have gained in territory.” 

November 2. 'To General Grant: ‘General Thomas reports to-day that his cavalry reconnoi- 
tred within three miles of Florence yesterday, and found Beauregard intrenching. I have ordered 
him to hold Nashville, Chattanooga, and Decatur, all well supplied for a siege ; all the rest of his 
army to assemble about Pulaski, and to fight Beauregard cautiously and carefully ; at the same 
time, for A. J. Smith and all re-enforcements to get up to enable him to assume a bold offensive, 
and to enable Wilson to get a good amount of cavalry. I think Jeff. Davis will change his tune 
when he finds me advancing into the heart of Georgia instead of retreating, and I think it will have 
an immediate effect on your operations at Richmond.” ~ ; 

November 3. To General HALLECK: ‘The situation of affairs now is as follows: Beauregard, 
with Hood’s army, is at Florence, with a pontoon bridge protected from our gun-boats from below 
by the Colbert Shoals, from above by the Muscle Shoals. He has with him Wheeler’s and Roddy’s 
cavalry. Forrest’s cavalry is down about Fort Heiman. The country round about Florence has 
been again and again devastated during the past three years, and Beauregard must be dependent 
on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, which also has been broken and patched up in its whole extent. 
He purposes and promises his men to invade Middle Tennessee for the purpose of making me let 
go Georgia, The moment I detected that he had passed Gadsden, I dispatched the Fourth Corps, 
General Stanley, 15,000 strong, who is now at Pulaski, and subsequently the Twenty-third Corps, 
General Schofield, 10,000, who is now on cars moving to Nashville. This gives General ‘Thomas 


674 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


ready in possession of the national armies. But, as soon as Hood moved 
from his front, the way seemed open for an advance through. Georgia to the 


tence ise elas Manilla Man ait, Se OEE ET SE SECS oe SRS SES a SS ie Se 
two full corps and about 8000 cavalry, besides 10,000 dismounted cavalry and all the new troops 
recently sent to Tennessee, with the raW¥road guards, with which to encounter Beauregard, should 
he advance farther. Besides which, General Thomas will have the active co-operation of the gun- 
boats both above and below the Shoals, and the two divisions of Smith and Mower, en route from 
Missouri. I therefore feel no uneasiness as to Tennessee, and have ordered General Thomas to 
assume the offensive in the direction of Selma, Alabama. With myself I have the Twentieth Corps 
at Atlanta, the Fifteenth and Seventeenth near Kenesaw, and the Fourteenth here [near Kingston J. 
I am sending to the rear, as fast as cars will move, the vast accumulation of stuff that, in spite of 
my endeavors, has been got over the road, and am sending forward just enough bread and meat to 
enable me to load my wagons, destroy every thing of value to the enemy, and start on my contem- 
plated trip. I can be ready in five days, but am waiting to be more certain that Thomas will be 
prepared for any contingency that may arise. It is now raining, which is favorable to us and un- 
favorable to the enemy. Davis has utterly failed in his threat to force me to leave in thirty days, 
for my railroad is in good order from Nashville to Atlanta, and his army is farther from my com- 
munications now than it was twenty days ago... ... I propose to adhere, as near as possible, 
to my original plan, and, on reaching the sea-coast, will be available for re-enforcing the army in 
Virginia, leaving behind a track of desolation, as well as a sufficient force to hold fast all that is of 
permanent value to our cause.” 

November 6. To General GRANT: 

“Dear GENERAL,—I have heretofore telegraphed and written you pretty fully, but I still have 
some thoughts in my busy brain that should be confided to you as a key to future developments. 

‘“‘The taking of Atlanta broke on Jeff. Davis so suddenly as to disturb the equilibrium of his 
usually well-balanced temper, so that at Augusta, Macon, and Columbia, South Carolina, he let 
out some of his thoughts, which otherwise he would have kept to himself. As he is not only the 
President of the Southern Confederacy, but also its commander-in-chief, we are bound to attach 
more importance to his words than we would to those of a mere civil chief magistrate. 

‘“‘The whole burden of his song consists in the statement that Sherman’s communications must 
be broken and his army destroyed. Now it is a well-settled principle that, if we prevent his suc- 
ceeding in his threat, we defeat him, and derive all the moral advantages of a victory. Thus far 
Hood and Beauregard conjointly have utterly failed to interrupt my supplies or communications. 
My railroad and telegraph are now in good order from Atlanta back to the Ohio River. His loss- 
es in men at Allatoona, Resaca, Ship’s Gap, and Decatur exceed in number ours at the block- 
houses at Big Shanty, Allatoona Creek, and Dalton; and the rapidity of his flight from Dalton to 
Gadsden takes from him all the merit or advantage claimed for his skillful and rapid lodgment on 
my railroad. ‘The only question in my mind is whether I ought not to have dogged him far over 
into Mississippi, trusting to some happy accident to bring him to bay and to battle; but I then 
thought that by so doing I would play into his hands, by being drawn or decoyed too far away 
from our original line of advance. Besides, I had left at Atlanta a corps, and guards along the 
railroad back to Chattanooga, which might have fallen an easy prey to his superior cavalry. I felt 
compelled, therefore, to do what is usually a mistake in war—divide my forces—send a part back 
into Tennessee, retaining the balance here. 

‘* As Thave before informed you, I sent Stanley back directly from Gaylesville, and Schofield from 
Rome, both of which have reached their destination; and thus far Hood, who has brought up at 
Florence, is farther from my communications than when he started; and I have in Tennessee a 
force numerically greater than his, well commanded and well organized, so that I feel no uneasi- 
ness on the score of Hood reaching my main communications, 

‘*My last accounts from General Thomas are to 9 30 last night, when Hood’s army was about 
Florence in great distress about provisions, as it well must be, and that devil Forrest was down 
about Johnsonville, making hayoc among the gun-boats and transports; but Schofield’s troops 
were arriving at Johnsonville, and a fleet of gun-boats was reported coming up from below, able to 
repair that trouble. You know that line of supplies was only opened for summer’s use, when the 
Cumberland is not to be depended upon. We now have abundant supplies at Atlanta, Chat- 
tanooga, and Nashville, with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the Cumberland River un- 
molested, so that I regard Dayis’s threat to get his army on my rear, or on my communications, 
as a miserable failure. , 

‘¢ Now as to the second branch of my proposition, I admit that the first object should be the 
destruction of that army; and if Beauregard moves his infantry and artillery up into the pocket 
about Jackson and Paris, I will feel strongly tempted to move Thomas directly against him, and 
myself move rapidly by Decatur and Purdy to cut off his retreat. But this would involve the 
abandonment of Atlanta, and a retrograde movement, which would be very doubtful of expediency 
or success ; for, as a matter of course, Beauregard, who watches me with his cavalry and his friend- 
ly citizens, would have timely notice, and slip out and escape, to regain what we have earned at so 
much cost. I am more than satisfied that Beauregard has not the nerve to attack fortifications, 
or it would be a great achievement for him to make me abandon Atlanta by mere threats and ma- 
noeuvres. 

‘*'These are the reasons which have determined my former movements. 

“*T have employed the last ten days in running to the rear the sick, wounded, and worthless, 
and all the vast amount of stores accumulated by our army in the advance, aiming to organize this 
branch of my army into four well-commanded corps, encumbered by only one gun to a thousand 
men, and proyisions and ammunition which can be loaded up in our mule-wagons, so that we can 
pick up and start on the shortest notice. I reckon that by the 10th instant this end will be reach- 
ed, and by that date I also will have the troops all paid; the presidential election over and out of 
the way; and I hope the early storms of November, now prevailing, will also give us the chance of 
a long period of fine healthy weather for campaigning. ‘Then the question presents itself, ‘ What 
shall be done?’ On the supposition always that Thomas can hold the line of the Tennessee, and 
very shortly be able to assume the offensive as against Beauregard, I propose to act in such a man- 
ner against the material resources of the South as utterly to negative Davis’s boasted threat and 
promises of protection. If we can march a well-appointed army right through his territory, it is a 
demonstration to the world—foreign and domestic—that we have a power which Davis can not re- 
sist. ‘This may not be war, but rather statesmanship; nevertheless, it is overwhelming to my 
mind that there are thousands of people abroad and in the South who will reason thus: If the 
North can march an army right through the South, it is proof positive that the North can prevail 
in this contest, leaying only open the question of its willingness to use that power. Now Mr. 
Lincoln’s election (which is assured), coupled with the conclusion thus reached, makes a complete 
logical whole. Even without a battle, the results, operating upon the minds of sensible men, would 
produce fruits more than compensating for the expense, trouble, and risk. 

‘* Admitting this reasoning to be good, that such a movement per se be right, still there may be 
reasons why one route should be better than another. There are three from Atlanta—southeast, 
south, and southwest—all open, with no serious enemy to oppose at present. 

** The first would carry me across the only east and west railroad remaining to the Confederacy, 
which would be destroyed, and thereby the communication between the armies of Lee and Beau- 
regard severed. Incidentally I might destroy the enemy’s dépéts at Macon and Augusta, and 
reach the sea-shore at Charleston and Sayannah, from either of which points I could re-enforce our 
armies in Virginia. 

** The second and easiest route would be due south, following substantially the valley of Flint 
River, which is very fertile and well supplied, and fetching up on the navigable waters of the Appa- 
lachicola, destroying en route the same railroad, taking up the prisoners of war still at Anderson- 
ville, and destroying about 400,000 bales of cotton near Albany and Fort Gaines. This, however, 
would leave the army in a bad position for future movements. 

‘* The third, down the Chattahoochee to Opelika and Montgomery, thence to Pensacola or Ten- 
sas Bayou, in communication with Fort Morgan. This latter route would enable me at once to 
a gis with General Canby in the reduction of Mobile, and occupation of the line of the Ala- 

ama. 

‘In my judgment, the first would have a material effect upon your campaign in Virginia; the 
second would be the safest of execution; but the third would more properly fall within the sphere 
of my own command, and haye a direct bearing upon my own enemy, ‘ Beauregard.’ If, there- 
fore, I should start before I hear farther from you, or before farther developments turn my course, 
you may take it for granted that I have moved via Griffin to Barnsyille; that I break up the road 
between Columbus and Macon good, and then, if I feign on Columbus, will move via Macon and 
Millen to Savannah, or, if I feign on Macon, you may take it for granted I have shot off toward 
Opelika, Montgomery, and Mobile Bay or Pensacola. 

‘I will not attempt to send couriers back, but trust to the Richmond papers to keep you well 
advised. I will give you notice by telegraph of the exact time of my departure.” 

To this Grant replies, November 7: ‘‘I see no present reason for changing your plan; should 
any arise, you will see to it, or if I do, I will inform you. I think every thing here favorable now. 
Great good fortune attend you. I believe you will be eminently successful, and at worst can only 
make a march less fruitful of results than hoped for.” 

November 8. To G. W. Trier, Louisville, Ky. : ‘Dispatch me to-morrow night and the next 
night a summary of all news, especially of elections, that I may report them to Governor Brown 
at Milledgeville, where I expect a friendly interview in a few days. Keep this very secret, for the 
world will lose sight of me shortly, and you will hear worse stories than when I went to Merid- 
me 0 eff. Davis’s thirty days are up for wiping us out, and we are not wiped out yet by a good 

November 10. To C. A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War: “If indiscreet newspaper men 
publish information too near the truth, counteract its effect by publishing other paragraphs calcu- 
lated to mislead the enemy—such as Sherman’s army has been much re-enforced, especially in the 


sea-coast. He had then to consider whether he could make the march, and 
at the same time protect Chattanooga and Nashville. This was a question 
which could only be answered when it was certainly ascertained what re- 
enforcements would be received. By the middle of October Hood had been 
driven off from the Chattanooga and Atlanta Railroad. About the 1st of 
November he threatened to cross the Tennessee in the neighborhood of De- 
catur. ‘This, indeed, was the only point at which he could effect a crossing, 
the rest of the river—from Muscle Shoals above and Colbert Shoals below 
—being guarded by gun-boats. Sherman had, by this time, dispatched Stan- 
ley’s Fourth and Schofield’s Twenty-third Corps—about 25,000 infantry— 
to General Thomas. Brevet Major General James Wilson had arrived from 
the Army of the Potomac, to take command of Sherman’s cavalry, and it 
seemed probable that in the course of a few days he would be able to mount 
12,000 men. New regiments of recruits were continually coming into 
Nashville, and Sherman ordered these to be ingrafted into the veteran corps 
of Stanley and Schofield. Hood would be delayed for some days in the ac- 
cumulation of supplies, and in the mean time A. J. Smith’s and Mower’s 
divisions could be brought over from Missouri. With these divisions added 
to his other forces, Sherman thought Thomas would have a force sufficient 
to attend to Hood. He thought, however, that Hood, learning of his march 
eastward, would follow him, at least with his cavalry In any event, he had 
no uneasiness in regard to Tennessee. 

But Thomas was not so confident. He thought it would be better to send 
Wilson’s cavalry through Georgia, and fight Hood with the whole of Sher- 
man’s army. Grant also urged this at first; but Sherman’s arguments final- 
ly convinced him that Thomas could take care of Tennessee, and that it was 
better that Sherman should carry out his project. Thomas also, in the end, 
reached the same conclusion. 

Sherman’s perfect confidence in his own scheme excites our admiration. 
He had no doubts. He had carefully balanced the forces on both sides, and 
knew that Thomas would be a match for Hood. To protect his long line 
of railroad, garrison Atlanta, and pursue Hood “all over creation” involved, 
in his judgment, the waste of 60,000 men. To make a wreck of Atlanta 
and Rome, and of the railroad from Atlanta to Dalton, left nothing for the 
enemy to occupy, nothing for himself to guard. The four army corps which 
he still retained—60,000 strong—contained the best fighting material of his 
command. North of Atlanta they were not needed. If they should oper- 
ate with Thomas against Hood, the latter, “ turning and twisting like a fox,” 
would slip out of their hands, and thus time, energy, and opportunity would 
be wasted, without any adequate results. In the strict economy of war, 
therefore, Sherman was justified in using this superfluous army elsewhere, 
striking instead of waiting, marching, and countermarching. It is true there 
were no armies in his front to strike, southward or eastward. Still, there 
were several important ends to be attained by his march. 

In the first place, the march of an organized army, as strong in numbers 
as that with which Sherman proposed to move through the interior of the 
enemy’s country, from its easternmost to its westernmost limit, would at 
the same time illustrate the inherent weakness of the Confederacy and the 
strength of the national armies. Such a march, with such an army, would 
demonstrate to the world that the ultimate triumph of the nation over the 
rebellion was an assured fact. In connection with President Lincoln’s re- 
election, it would ruin the hopes of the peace party in the loyal states. It 
would also destroy all confidence on the part of the Southern people that 
their usurped government could afford them protection. Well might Sher- 
man say that, ‘“‘even without a battle, the results, operating upon the minds 
of sensible men, would produce fruits more than compensating for the ex- 
pense, trouble, and risk.” 

But it would not be simply a political demonstration. The military con- 


cavalry, and he will soon move in several columns in a circuit, s0 as to catch Hood’s army. Sher- 
man’s destination is not Charleston, but Selma, where he will meet an army from the Gulf,” ete. 

November 11. To General Hauveck : “* My arrangements are now all complete. Last night 
we burned all founderies, mills, and shops of every kind in Rome, and to-morrow I leave Kings- 
ton, with the rear-guard, for Atlanta, which I propose to dispose of in a similar manner, and to 
start on the 16th on the projected grand raid. All appearances still indicate that Beauregard has 
gone back to his old hole at Corinth, and I hope he will enjoy it; my army prefers to enjoy the 
fresh sweet-potato fields of the Ocmulgee. I have balanced all the figures well, and am satisfied 
that General Thomas has in Tennessee a force sufficient for all probabilities, and I have urged 
him, the moment Beauregard turns south, to cross the Tennessee at Decatur and push straight for 
Selma. ‘To-morrow our wires will be broken, and this is probably my last dispatch. I would 
like to have Foster break the Savannah and Charleston Road about Pocotaligo about the Ist of De- 
cember. All other preparations are to my entire satisfaction.” 

The same day Colonel Beckwith reports to Sherman as follows: ‘‘ The Army of the Tennessee 
have obtained and have got in their wagons all they can haul and all they want; same of the 
Twentieth Army Corps. There is great plenty of salt, coffee, meat, pepper, and soap here. The 
Fourteenth Army Corps may want a little more bread, and perhaps a little more sugar. JI have 
about 100,000 rations of bread for the Fourteenth Army Corps; 22,000 rations sugar. I do not 
know how much General Davis may have on hand, but presume he has 200,000 rations of bread. 
Every thing is loaded in Atlanta save what is held for the Fourteenth Army Corps. There are 
at least 11,200,000 rations of the principal rations in hands of troops and available.” 

November 11. To General Tuomas: ‘‘ All right. I can hardly believe Beauregard would at- 
tempt to work against Nashville from Corinth as a base at this stage of the war, but all informa- 
tion points that way; if he does, you will whip him out of his boots. But I rather think you will 
find commotion in his camp in a day or two. Last night we burned Rome, and in two days more 
will burn Atlanta, and he must discover that I am not retreating, but, on the contrary, fighting 
for the very heart of Georgia. ... . By using detachments of recruits and dismounted cavalry 
in your fortifications, you will have Schofield, and Stanley, and A. J. Smith strengthened by eight 
or ten new regiments, and all of Wilson’s cavalry; you could safely invite Beauregard across the 
Tennessee, and prevent his ever returning. I still believe, however, that public clamor will force 
him to turn and follow me, in which event you should cross at Decatur, and move directly toward 
Selma as far as you can transport supplies. The probabilities are the wires will be broken to-mor- 
row, and that all communication will cease between us. . .. . You may act, however, on the cer- 
tainty that I sally from Atlanta on the 16th, with about 60,000 men, well provisioned, but expect- 
ing to live liberally on the country.” 

‘Thomas replies the next day: ‘‘ Ihave no fears that Beauregard can do us any harm now, and 
if he attempts to follow you I will follow him as far as possible; if he does not follow you, I will 
then thoroughly organize my troops, and, I believe, shall have men enough to ruin him unless he 
gets out of the way very rapidly. The country of Middle Alabama, I learn, is teeming with sup- 
plies this year, which will be greatly to our advantage. . .. . Iam now convinced that the great- 
er part of Beauregard’s army is near Florence and Tuscumbia, and that you will at least have a 
clear road before you for several days, and that your success will fully equal your expectations.” 

This was the last dispatch received by Sherman from Thomas before starting out on the great 
march. Sherman replied ‘‘ All right,” and the wires were cut. 


[ NOVEMBER, 1864, 


NovemBER, 1864.] BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 675 


sequences of such a march must be important and decisive. The cities of 
‘il i the Atlantic sea-board were doomed the moment Sherman’s army should 
ih reach their rear. At Savannah or Charleston this army could be transport- 
| ed by sea, or could march by land through the Carolinas, and, re-enforcing 
Grant, terminate the long-protracted conflict with Lee’s army. 

But what if Thomas should be conquered by Hood? Then, indeed, Sher- 
man’s march would have demonstrated only his own folly. He would have 
ascended like a rocket and come down astick. But to have anticipated such 
an event would have been an insult to General Thomas, and to the armies 
of Schofield, Stanley, and Smith. Sherman had no apprehensions on that 
score. Not until Thomas had himself expressed his faith in his own power 
to ruin Hood, if the latter advanced, or to assume the offensive against him 
if he retreated, did Sherman move from Atlanta. 

By the 14th of November, the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and 
Twentieth Corps were grouped about Atlanta, constituting an army 60,000 
strong, with an additional force of cavalry under Brigadier General Judson 
Kilpatrick, numbering 5500 men. The artillery consisted of about 60 guns, 
or one piece to every thousand men. Every thing had been sent to the rear 
which could not be used in the campaign. The railroad north had been 
destroyed as far as Dalton. Rome and Atlanta had been burned, only the 
dwelling-houses and churches escaping destruction. On the 16th of No- 
vember Sherman commenced his grand March to the Sea. While he is ad- 
vancing eastward through the fruitful fields of Georgia, let us follow the 
counter-movement of Hood against Nashville. 


4 


[\| 


yar 
: a 


CHAPTER XLVII. 
BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 


Hood attacks Decatur and is repulsed.—Forrest’s Demonstration against Johnsonville.—Hood 
north of the Tennessee.—Estimate of the opposing Forces. —Schofield abandons Pulaski.—Re- 
treat from Columbia to Franklin.—Narrow Escape at Spring Hill.—Battle of Franklin,—Its 
Results. —Hood in front of Nashville-—Demonstration against Murfreesborough.—Preparations 
for Battle on both sides.— Inclement Weather.— General Thomas assumes the Defensive.— 
Battles of December 15th and 16th.—Defeat of Hood’s Army.—The Pursuit.—Results of the 
Nashville Campaign.—Gillem defeated by Breckinridge.—Stoneman drives Breckinridge into 
North Carolina.—Destruction of the Works at Saltyille. 

ea had intended to cross the Tennessee in the vicinity of Gun- 

ter’s Landing and threaten Bridgeport, thus compelling Sherman to 
abandon Georgia in order to protect Tennessee. Beauregard had ordered 

Forrest to move with his cavalry into Tennessee, Hood not having a suffi- 

cient cavalry force to protect his trains north of the river.1| These orders 

did not reach Forrest in time, and Hood was therefore compelled to move 

down the Tennessee and await Forrest’s arrival. On the 26th of October a 

portion of Hood’s infantry appeared before Decatur, on the south side of the 

river, at the southern terminus of the Nashville and Decatur Railroad, and 
on the afternoon of that day made a feeble attack on the garrison, which 
was commanded by R.S. Granger. Granger was re-enforced by two regi- 
ments from Chattanooga, and instructed to hold his post at all hazards. The 
next day the enemy established a line of rifle-pits within 500 yards of the 
town. On the 28th a sortie was made by a part of the garrison, which, ad- 
vancing under cover of the guns of the fort, down the river bank and 
around to the rear of the enemy’s rifle-pits, dislodged the Confederates, cap- 
turing 120 prisoners. Forrest in the mean while had reached Corinth, and 
advanced from that point upon Fort Heiman, on the west bank of the Ten- 
nessee, about 75 miles from Paducah. Here he captured the gun-boat No. 

55 and two transports on the 31st, having previously burned the steamer 

Empress. He had about 17 regiments of cavalry, probably numbering alto- 

gether 5000 men, and 9 pieces of artillery. On the 2d of November he 

planted batteries above and below Johnsonville, one of General Thomas’s 
bases of supplies on the river, isolating, at that place, three gun-boats and 
eight transports. The gun-boats made an unsuccessful attack upon the 
| lower batteries, but, though repulsed, they recaptured from the enemy one 

of the transports which he had taken, and forced him to destroy the gun-boat 

No. 55. On the 4th Forrest made an attack on the gun-boats and the gar- 

rison, consisting of 1000 men. The gun-boats, being disabled, were burned 

to prevent their falling into the enemy’s hands, and the fire, spreading to the 
buildings of the commissary and quartermaster’s departments, and to the 
stores on the levee, caused the government a loss estimated at $1,500,000. 

The next morning Forrest repeated his attack upon the garrison, and, after a 

furious cannonade of over an hour’s duration, withdrew from Johnsonville. 

Hood’s army arrived at Florence on the 31st of October, one month after it 
had been transferred from Sherman’s front. This long delay, caused partly 
by the difficulties attending the transportation of supplies, had thwarted the 
sole object of Hood’s campaign. It had given Sherman and Thomas time 
for completing their preparations, the former for his march eastward, and 
the latter for the accumulation of an army large enough to protect Ten- 
nessee, 

Hood’s force, including all arms, on the 1st of November did not number 
over 40,000 effective men. Thomas had in his command a considerably 
larger force. After deducting the garrisons of Nashville, Decatur, and Chat- 
tanooga, however, his army available for battle numbered about 30,000 
men.” 


DESTRUCTION OF THE DEPOTS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND MANUFACTORIES AT ATLANTA. 


1 Hood's Report. 
He * Thomas says in his report: ‘‘ At this time (November 5th) I found myself confronted by the 
aia army which, under General J. E. Johnston, had so skillfully resisted the advance of the whole act- 
yin at ive army of the military division of the Mississippi from Dalton to the Chattahoochee, re-enforced 
| i “ati | Ti by a well-equipped and enthusiastic cavalry command of over 13,000, led by one of the boldest and 
i Meno ce CAAA | PMR PETAR PAPA CUA nt LA most successful commanders in the rebel army. My information from all sources confirmed the 
reported strength of Hood’s army to be from 40,000 to 45,000 infantry, and from 12,000 to 15.000 


676 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [Novemper, 1864. 


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MAP ILLUSTRATING 0OD's INVASION. 


Hood persisted in his scheme of invading Tennessee. General Beaure- 
gard does not seem to have exercised a very potent influence in this matter. 
The problem now presented puzzled him, and he could not solve it. He 
therefore left it to Hood’s option to do as he pleased—either to divide his 
forces, sending a part against Sherman and advance with the other, or to 
move against Thomas with his whole force. Hood had delayed on the 
banks of the Tennessee till past the middle of November, and until Sher- 
man was on his march. He had laid a pontoon bridge across the river, 
mooring it to the piers of the old railroad bridge at Florence, and had 
crossed Lee’s corps and two divisions of cavalry. Stewart and Cheatham 
still remained on the south side until November 17th. On the 21st For- 
rest’s cavalry joined the main army, and the movement northward was 
commenced. 

If the Confederate army of Tennessee had been under the disposition of 
General Grant to move where it would best suit him, he would not, he de- 
clares in his official report, have made any other disposition of it than that 
made by General Hood. Hood’s reasoning upon the proper course for him 
to take is exceedingly shallow. He says: “The enemy having for the first 
time divided his forces, I had to determine which of the two parts to direct 
my operations against. To follow the forces about to move through Georgia 
under Sherman would be to again abandon the regained territory to the 
forces under Thomas, with little hope of being able to reach the enemy in 
time to defeat his movement, and also to cause desertion and greatly impair 
the morale, or fighting spirit of the army, by what would be considered a 
compulsory retreat.” It was, indeed, of no use to follow Sherman except 
with cavalry. But the reason which Hood gives for advancing against 
Thomas is simply ludicrous. For what had he gained thus far in his cam- 
paign that he should hesitate to abandon? He had advanced from Jones- 
borough to Dalton, capturing some unimportant stations which he had hast: 
ily released, destroying a few miles of railroad which it had taken less than 
a fortnight to repair, then had fallen back to Gadsden, and had moved 
thence to Corinth and Florence. He held no post of any military value to 
himself or to his foe. Indeed, he had nothing to abandon except his design 
ofinvasion. But the chief motive of the invasion namely, to compel Sher- 
man to leave Georgia for the protection of Tennessee—no longer existed, 


cavalry. My effective force at this time consisted of the Fourth Corps, about 12,000, under Major 
General D. S. Stanley; the Twenty-third Corps, about 10,000, under Major General John M. Scho- 
field ; Hatch’s division of cavalry, about 4000; Croxton’s brigade, 2500, and Capron’s brigade of 
about 1200. The balance of my force was distributed along the railroad, and posted at Murfrees- 
borough, Stevenson, Bridgeport, Huntsville, Decatur, and Chattanooga, to keep open our commu- 
nications and hold the posts above named, if attacked, until they could be re-enforced, as up to this 
time it was impossible to determme which course Hood would take—advance on Nashyille or turn 
toward Huntsville.” 

According to this report, Hood had from 52,000 to 57,000 men, and Thomas about 30,000, ex- 
clusive of his detachments on the railroad and at the posts mentioned. 

As to the numbers of Hood’s army, the best authority is the official return of the Confederate 
Army of Tennessee for November 6th, 1864, which gives'a force of 30,600 men. This is exclusive 
of Forrest's cavalry, which probably did not reach 10,000. 

As to Thomas’s command, Sherman represents the Fourth Corps as 15,000 strong; but, taking 
Thomas's estimate, we have his available force (November 5th) : 

Gtanley’s Corps... ciscxsuaceeoe ce 12,000 Croxton’s Cavalry.............. 2,500 
MCNONAIG Ss ‘Corps... cbse. steers. 10,000 Capron's Cavalry ,............. 1,200 
Match’s Cavalry. <5\e05 sec cicscs ec 4,000 29,700 

But to this must be added Washburne’s command, 4500, which makes 34,200. It must also 
be remembered that, in case of an important battle, at least 6000 veteran troops, in addition to those 
above enumerated, could be brought into action. And in this estimate no notice whatever is taken 
of four elements which would soon give Thomas a very great preponderance of force as compared 
with Hood’s, namely: 1st, new regiments of recruits constantly arriving at Nashville; 2d, A. J. 
Smith’s two divisions on the way from Missouri; 3d, Wilson’s cavalry, which in a few days would 
amount to about 12,000 men; and, 4th, about 7000 men suitable for garrison duty which would 
soon be sent back to Thomas from Sherman’s army, on account of their unfitness for the great 
march. 

In connection with the official return of Hood’s army for November 6th, one thing is worthy of 
notice. On the 20th of September, before Hood moved from the Macon Road, his army numbered 
40,406. It is plain, therefore, that in the course of the advance to Dalton, the retreat to Gadsden, 
and the movement to Florence, Hood had lost about 10,000 men; and a large proportion of this 
loss must be attributed to desertion, Hood, it is clear, had not by his invasion very much im- 
proved the morale of his army, 


for Sherman had defied his projected invasion in the boldest and bluntest 
terms. The railroad from which Hood had been driven Sherman had de- 
stroyed with his own hands. Atlanta, which Hood had hoped to recover, 
Sherman had made a useless possession to the enemy as well as to himself. 
And Georgia, which Hood was pledged to redeem, was already being tram- 
pled down under the heels of 60,000 men, whom, with his own army, he 
could not reach if he would, and whom, if he could have reached, he dared 
not encounter. As to the morale of his army, Hood’s invasion thus far had 
certainly not improved that; for since he had started from J onesborough he 
had lost 10,000 men, or one fourth of his army, though in that time he had 
only fought a single serious battle—that of Allatoona. Hood could have 
lost nothing by a judicious retreat which could be compared with what he 
risked by an advance against Thomas. To allow the Federal forces to as- 
sume the defensive was to give them such advantages as must be decisive. 
The advance was the result of the infatuation of both Hood and Davis. The 
threat had been uttered, the pledge given, and it was too late now to hesi- 
tate or falter. 

The wager which Hood had offered Thomas was ready to accept. The 
latter would have preferred an encounter with the enemy south of Duck 
River: this would have been possible if the Confederate army had delayed 
its movements for a week or ten days. The Federal cavalry guarding the 
Tennessee about Florence had already been driven back, so that Croxton 
was on the east side of Shoal Creek, and Hatch occupied Lawrenceburg. 
Schofield, with the Twenty-third Corps, had arrived at Nashville Novem- 
ber 5th, and was directed to join the Fourth Corps at Pulaski, take the 
command of the troops at that point, and, as far as possible, retard Hood's ad- 
vance into Tennessee. It was obviously Thomas's policy to impede Hood’s 
movements, gradually withdrawing Schofield and Stanley, until he could 
receive the re-enforcements under A.J. Smith, and organize Wilson’s cay- 
alry and the new regiments. Hood’s army moved by parallel roads to 
Waynesborough and eastward of that place, with Forrest on the right flank. 
On the 22d of November Hatch’s cavalry was driven from Lawrenceburg. 
Hood desired to push his army up between Nashville and Schofield’s com- 
mand; but on the 23d the Federal forces evacuated Pulaski, and fell back 
to Columbia, on the Duck River. The retreat was ably conducted, all the 
public property being removed beforehand from Pulaski, and the trains 
carefully guarded. Thomas had meanwhile received some 7000 men which 
had been sent back from Atlanta by General Sherman; his command had 
also been re-enforced by 20 new one-year regiments, very many of which 
were absorbed in the veteran corps, replacing old regiments whose term of 
service had expired. R.S.Granger had withdrawn the garrisons at Athens, 
Decatur, and Huntsville, Alabama, taking a part of the force thus collected 
to Stevenson, and sending back five regiments to Murfreesborough. The 
garrison at Johnsonville was withdrawn to Clarkesville. 

Hood’s movement on Columbia was slow; not until the evening of No- 
vember 27th had his advance reached Schofield’s front. During that night 
Schofield crossed Duck River, taking a position on the north bank, where 
he was not disturbed during the 28th. General Wilson’s cavalry, 4300 
strong, guarded the crossings of the river above and below. On the atfter- 
noon of the 29th Wilson was pressed back and cut off from Schofield, while 
Hood’s infantry crossed the river, and threatened to turn Schofield’s flank 
by an advance on Spring Hill, about 15 miles north of Columbia. Scho- 
field, therefore, sending Stanley with Wagner's division to Spring Hill to 
head off the enemy at that point and cover the retreat, prepared to fall back 
toward Franklin. Stanley reached Spring Hill just in time to check For- 
rest’s advance and save the trains. The Confederate infantry coming up to 
Forrest’s assistance, a doubtful battle was maintained till dark, in which the 
enemy nearly succeeded in dislodging Stanley from his position. Schofield, 
having sent back his trains, was at the same time occupied in resisting the 
enemy’s attempts to cross Duck River in his front, and, after having several 
times repulsed the Confederate force opposed to him, retreated at night, his 
command making 25 miles under cover of the darkness, and, passing Spring 
Hill in safety, got into position at Franklin, 18 miles south of Nashville, on 
the morning of the 30th. 

With Cheatham’s corps supported by Stewart's, it seems that the enemy 
ought to have defeated Stanley at Spring Hill and cut off Schofield’s retreat. 
But Stanley maintained his position and saved the army.?' He was re-en- 
forced toward night by Ruger’s division of the Twenty-third Corps. But, 
even after this re-enforeement, the enemy had the advantage. With two 


‘ General Hood, in his report, gives the following account of the affair at Spring Hill: 

‘When I had gotten well on his flank, the enemy discovered my intention, and began to retreat 
on the pike toward Spring Hill. The cavalry became engaged near that place about midday, but 
his trains were so strongly guarded that they were unable to break through them. About 4 P.M. 
our infantry forces, Major General Cheatham in the advance, commenced to come in contact with 
the enemy, about two miles from Spring Hill, through which place the Columbia and Franklin 
Pike passes. The enemy was at this time moving rapidly along the pike, with some of his troops 
formed on the flank of his column to protect it. Major General Cheatham was ordered to attack 
the enemy at once, vigorously, and get possession of this pike, and, although these orders were fre- 
quently and earnestly repeated, he made but a feeble and partial attack, failing to reach the point 
indicated. Had my instructions been carried out there is no doubt that we could have possessed 
ourselves of this road. Stewart’s corps and Johnson’s division were arriving upon the field to sup- 
port the attack. Though the golden opportunity had passed with daylight, I did not at dark 
abandon the hope of dealing the enemy a heavy blow. Accordingly, Lieutenant General Stewart 
was furnished a guide, and ordered to move his corps beyond Cheatham’s, and place it across the 
road beyond Spring Hill. Shortly after this General Cheatham came to my headquarters, and 
when I informed him of Stewart’s movement, he said that Stewart ought to form on his right. I 
asked if that would throw Stewart across the pike. He replied that it would, and a mile beyond, 
Accordingly, one of Cheatham’s staff officers was sent to show Stewart where his (Cheatham’s) 
right rested. In the dark and confusion, Stewart did not succeed in getting the position desired, 
but about 11 P.M. went into bivonac. About 12 P.M., ascertaining that the enemy was moving 
in great confusion—artillery, wagons, and troops intermixed—I sent instructions to General Cheat- 
ham to advance a heavy line of skirmishers against him, and still farther impede and confuse his 
march. This was not accomplished. The enemy continued to move along the road in hurry and 
confusion, within hearing, nearly all the night. Thus was lost a great opportunity of striking the 
enemy, for which we had labored so long, the greatest this campaign had offered, and one of the 
greatest during the war.” 


November, 1864, ] BATTLE OF 


—- - acinar 


G. D. WAGNER, 


full corps of Forrest’s cavalry in the vicinity of Spring Hill, Schofield ought 
to have been cut off at least from the direct road to Franklin. His main 
army did not leave Duck River, where it had been fighting Lee, until after 
dark, and passed Spring Hill about midnight. It certainly had a narrow 
escape. General Wagner's division of Stanley’s corps held on to its position 
at Spring Hill until near daylight. Notwithstanding the superior numbers 
of the enemy, the only disturbances suffered in the retreat was from a slight 
attack made north of Thompson’s by Forrest’s cavalry, causing the loss of a 
few wagons. General Cooper, who had been left to guard the crossing at 
Duck River, was cut off from the direct road to Franklin, and proceeded to 
Nashville. 

When Schofield reached Franklin he found no wagon bridge across the 
Harpeth River, and the fords in a bad condition. The railroad bridge was 
rapidly repaired and a foot-bridge was constructed, which was also available 
for the use of wagons. He sent his train across, and intended to cross with 
his army. But the enemy was in too close proximity. As the Federal 
troops arrived they were placed in position on the south side of the river, 
the Twenty-third Corps, under General Cox, on the left and centre, cover- 
ing the approaches from Columbia and Lewisburg, and Kimball’s division 
of Stanley’s corps on the right; both flanks of the army resting on the river. 
Wood’s division of Stanley’s corps was sent to the north side of the river to 
cover the flanks, in the event of Hood’s crossing above or below. ‘T'wo 
brigades of Wagner’s division—the last to reach Franklin—were left in 
front, to retard the advance of the enemy. 

At daylight Hood had commenced the pursuit, which was pushed with 
great vigor. Stewart was in the advance, Cheatham following, while Lee, 
with the trains, brought up the rear from Columbia. Hood determined to 
make a direct attack with Stewart’s and Cheatham’s corps without waiting 
for Lee. No flank movement which he could now make would prevent 
Schofield from reaching Nashville.1 Stewart advanced on the right, Cheat- 
ham on the left, with the cavalry on either flank, the main body of the lat- 
ter, under Forrest, moving to the right. Johnson’s division of Lee’s corps ar- 
rived during the engagement, and went in on the left. 

Fortunately for Schofield, Hood’s attack was delayed until 4 o’clock on 
the afternoon of the 30th. In the mean time the Federal troops were con- 
structing breastworks and protecting them by a slight abatis on the left. 
To them, with the river in their rear, and with the roads, by which alone 
retreat was possible, crowded with the wagon trains, defeat would have been 
a terrible disaster, affecting the safety of Nashville. On both sides the de- 
cisive nature of the contest was fully appreciated. It was a brief battle, for 
at this season of the year 4 P.M. was the verge of twilight.2, Wagner's men, 
holding the outposts, ‘“‘imprudently brave,” reports Schofield, maintained the 
conflict outside of the intrenchments longer than was necessary, suffering 
heavy loss. When they fell back it was at a full run, and this movement 
swept back a portion of the first line in the works, allowing the enemy to 


1 T Jearned from dispatches captured at Spring Hill, from Thomas to Schofield, that the latter 
was instructed to hold that place till the position at Franklin could be made secure, indicating the 
intention of Thomas to hold Franklin and his strong works at Murfreesborough. Thus I knew that 
it was all-important to attack Schofield before he could make himself strong, and, if he should 
escape at Franklin, he would gain his works about Nashville. ‘The nature of the position was such 
as to render it inexpedient to attempt any farther flank movement, and I therefore determined to 
attack him in front, and without delay.”—Hood’s Report. 

? On the 30th of November, 1864, the sun set at 4 39. 


Schofield’s report makes the battle to 
have commenced at 3 30 P.M. 
Si 


_ occurred in Wagner’s division.’ 


NASHVILLE. 677 
enter in large numbers. In this attempt to fight a battle with outposts 
Wagner lost over a thousand men. ‘The enemy had gained an advantage, 
which, if pressed, might have resulted in success. Victory seemed almost 
within his grasp. The Federal line had been broken in the centre; two bat- 
teries of four guns each had been captured. But at this moment Opdyke, com- 
manding the remaining brigade of Wagner’s division, which had been held 
in reserve inside the works, leading his men on, shouting “ Forward to the 
lines!” rushed forward, recovered the lost batteries, and captured 400 pris 
oners. The gap had been closed; but the enemy, though disappointed, was 
not disheartened. He charged the works, making four distinct attacks, and 
was each time hurled back with heavy loss. ‘So vigorous and fierce were 
these assaults that the enemy reached the exterior slope of the rude intrench- 
ments, and hand-to-hand encounters occurred between the enraged com- 
batants across the works.”! Between the assaults, the enemy, covered by the 
undulations of the ground, pressed his sharp-shooters close to the works, and 
kept up a galling fire. 

The Confederates persistently assailed Schofield’s line until after dark, 
continuing the attack at intervals until near midnight, but were repulsed in 
every attempt to carry the works. The Confederate loss was between 4500 
and 6000 men. Schofield lost 2326, of which number of casualties 1241 
On the Federal side, General Stanley was 
severely wounded in the neck. The Confederate loss in general officers was 
very great, including among them Major General Pat. Cleburne, and Briga- 
dier Generals Gist, John Adams, Strahl, and Granbury; Brigadier Generals 
Carter, Manigault, Quarles, Cockrell, and Scott were wounded, and Brigadier 


| General Gordon was captured. At midnight Schofield withdrew from the 


trenches which he had held against the repeated assaults of far superior 
numbers, and fell back to Nashville. 

Hood’s orders to his corps commanders to drive Schofield into the river, 
and for Forrest to advance and capture the trains, had failed of execution. 
General Thomas’s position was now secure. On the 1st of December he 
had behind the fortifications of Nashville and covering its southern ap- 
proaches an investing force superior to General Hood’s, and a cavalry force 
in process of organization at Edgefield, north of the river, which in a few 
days would in numbers be at least equal to Forrest’s command. A.J. 
Smith’s command of three divisions had also reached Nashville. Smith was 
placed on the right of the line, Wood, now commanding the Fourth Corps, 
in the centre, and Schofield on the left. 

The next day, December 2d, the enemy advanced to within two miles of 
Nashville, and invested the town on the south side, General Lee holding the 
centre of the line, Cheatham the right, and Stewart the left; the cavalry on 
either flank extended to the river. The whole line was intrenched, and 
strong detached works were constructed to guard the flanks against attack. 
On Hood’s right, Murfreesborough was held by a Federal force 8000 strong 
under General Rousseau, which cut off all communication with Georgia and 
Virginia. Bates’s division of Cheatham’s corps attacked the block-house at 
Overall’s Creek, four miles north of Murfreesborough, on the 4th of December. 
The garrison maintained its position, and being soon re-enforced from Mur- 
freesborough with three infantry regiments, four companies of cavalry, and 
a section of artillery, the enemy was driven off. During the dth, 6th, and 7th, 
Bates, re-enforced by the greater portion of Forrest’s cavalry, demonstrated 
against Fortress Rosecrans at Murfreesborough. As the enemy hesitated 
to make a direct assault, Rousseau determined to assume the offensive him- 
self. Accordingly, on the 8th, General Milroy, with seven infantry regiments 
(8825 men), proceeded to the Wilkinson Pike, there encountered Bates and 
Forrest, and drove them from their temporary breastworks, capturing 207 
prisoners. The Federal loss in killed and wounded was 205. Buford’s di- 
vision of Forrest’s cavalry entered the town of Murfreesborough the same 
day, but was speedily driven out by a single infantry regiment and a section 
of artillery. Forrest’s cavalry, retiring from before Murfreesborough, pro- 
ceeded northward to Lebanon, and threatened to cross the Cumberland 
above Nashville and cut off Thomas’s communications by the Louisville 
Road. This movement was thwarted by a division of gun-boats and a de- 
tachment of Wilson’s cavalry. 

From the 8d to the 15th of December was spent by both armies in prep- 
aration for the conflict which was to decide the fate of Nashville. Hood 
was furnishing his army with supplies and with shoes. From the 7th to 
the 14th both armies were ice-bound. Thomas thus had time to remount 
Wilson’s cavalry, increase the strength of his works, bring up re-enforce- 
ments of new recruits and temporary volunteers, and to mature his plan of 
operations. Nashville was well fortified when Thomas entered it with his 
army. The southern approaches were covered by Forts Negley, Morton, 
Confiscation, Houston, and Gillem. Some of these had been constructed in 
the latter part of 1862, when the city was threatened by a portion of Brage’s 
army. ‘These forts were situated on commanding hills near the city, and 
some distance beyond ran the line now held by Thomas’s army. From 
Fort Morton westward an interior line of defense was also constructed, along 
the range of hills nearer Nashville.® 


1 General T. J. Wood’s Report. ' 

® Hood reports his own loss as 4500. Schofield, from information obtained afterward, makes 
the enemy’s loss ‘‘1750 buried upon the field, 3800 disabled, and 702 prisoners.” Hood claims 
that he captured 1000 prisoners. ‘This tallies well with Schofield’s report, in which he admits 1104 
missing, 670 of whom were from Wagner's division. * Hood’s Report. 

4 Hood reports that Bates’s division behaved badly. 

5 Thomas’s army at Nashville consisted of the following forces : 


Schofield’s Twenty-third Corps... .....+-sceceseeceeeeeeneseereseeeeeetenneneee 9,000 men. 
Woods's Fourth Corps ......ssecececccccrcneceeseeesscesesesseetttessesenecnes 11,000 * 
A. J. Smith’s Corps, say... ...cecccceccccsecrcesscenencccessseeceresesesesetene 11,000 * 
Steadman's Command, which arrived at Nashville from December 1..,........... 5,200 ‘ 
Wilson's Cavalry ....csccccccceccvvenctssscnevcccesevscssuseerecvossesvesevse 12,000 *“ 
Quartermaster’s Troops under Brigadier General Donaldson, and other forces un- 
der General Miller used in the immediate defense of Nashville, say............ 8,000 «6 
J) in ere r re Terr ee eT eer eer rere ee eeir hy ia) Terre ee 56,200 * 


678 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ DECEMBER, 1864. 


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December, 1864. ] 


The severity of the weather began to relax on the 14th, and on the after- 
noon of that day Thomas issued orders to his corps commanders for an ad- 
vance against the enemy. His army was now 50,000 strong, and fully pre- 
pared for battle. A large portion of Forrest’s cavalry was still absent from 
the Confederate army. Hood seems in his infatuation to have been abso- 
lutely confident of victory in the event of Thomas’s assuming the offensive.! 
He even dreamed of besieging Nashville. But the swollen river, patroled 
by gun-boats, hindered an advance against the Louisville Road, and, even if 
this road had been reached and broken by Confederate cavalry, Thomas was 
well supplied at Nashville with all that was necessary for either a defensive 
or offensive campaign. The term siege would be scarcely applicable to 
General Hood’s operations. 

Upon his first approach to the city on the 2d of December, Hood had 
seized Montgomery Hill, within 600 yards of the Federal centre, and thrown 
up strong lines of earth-works on the hills south and parallel with those oc- 
cupied by Thomas. His infantry stretched from the Nolensville Pike, on 
the right, along the high ground south and east of Brown’s Creek, and across 
the Franklin and Granny White Pikes to the hills bordering the Hillsbor- 
ough Pike. A wide interval, therefore, separated his left from the river. 
This—as also the corresponding interval between the Nolensville Pike and 
the river—was held by the cavalry, who had established batteries about 
eight miles below Nashville, blockading the river. The weak point of the 
Confederate position was its left flank, which, though strongly intrenched, 
was easily turned. 

Thomas’s long silence appeared to have increased Hood’s confidence. It 
also led to considerable apprehension on the part of Lieutenant General 
Grant, who, at so great a distance from the field, was not aware of the rigor- 
ous cold which hindered Thomas’s advance, and was also a serious incon- 
venience to the poorly-clad soldiers of Hood’s army. He thought that 
Thomas ought to have moved upon Hood as soon as the latter had made his 
appearance in front of Nashville, and before he was fortified, and that by 
waiting to remount Wilson’s cavalry he had made a great mistake. Per- 
haps, also, the narrow escape of Schofield’s army in the retreat from Colum- 
bia to Franklin —an escape which could only be attributed to either the 
stupidity of the Confederate generals or to their want of confidence in their 
commander—led him to suspect that the campaign was not being properly 
_ conducted. At any rate, so great was his impatience that he started West 
with the idea of superintending matters there in person. He had only 
reached Washington when he received a dispatch from Thomas announcing 
the successful commencement of the battle of Nashville.’ 

General Thomas’s plan of the battle was very simple, involving the turn- 
ing of the enemy’s left flank by a sudden and irresistible blow to be struck 
with the bulk of his army, and to be followed up until Hood’s army was 
destroyed or dispersed in utter rout. Success was as certain as the event 
of a battle ever could be. The execution of this plan was so perfect in all 
its details that it justly conferred upon General Thomas the first rank 
among the Union generals as a tactician.? He had delayed for the purpose 
of organizing an efficient cavalry corps, in order that, in the event of vic- 
tory, he might reap its full fruits by a relentless pursuit of the defeated 
army. He was prepared to attack a week before he did, but the weather, as 
we have said, was unfavorable. On the 12th Wilson’s cavalry had crossed 
the Cumberland from Edgefield to the left of the Hillsborough Pike. 

The morning of the 15th of December was every way favorable to the 
immediate execution of Genetal Thomas’s plans. The sheet of ice which 
had covered the earth for nearly a week was broken up; and, in addition to 
the undulations of the ground, a heavy mist, lasting until noon, completely 


1 “Should he attack me in position, I felt that I would defeat him, and thus gain possession of 
Nashville, with abundant supplies for the army. This would give me possession of Tennessee.”— 
Hood's Report. 

2 Tn his official report, Grant says : 

‘Before the battle of Nashville I grew very impatient over, as it appeared to me, the unneces- 
sary delay. This impatience was increased upon learning that the enemy had sent a force of cay- 
alry across the Cumberland into Kentucky. I feared Hood would cross his whole army and give 
us great trouble there. After urging upon General Thomas the necessity of immediately assuming 
the offensive, I started West to superintend matters there in person. Reaching Washington City, 
I received General Thomas’s dispatch announcing his attack upon the enemy, and the result as far 
as the battle had progressed. I was delighted. All fears and apprehensions were dispelled. I 
am not yet satisfied but that General Thomas, immediately upon the appearance of Hood before 
Nashville, and before he had time to fortify, should have moved out with his whole force and given 
him battle, instead of waiting to remount his cavalry, which delayed him until the inclemency of 
the weather made it impracticable to attack earlier than he did. But his final defeat of Hood was 
so complete that it will be accepted as a vindication of that distinguished officer’s judgment.” 

’ The following is a copy of Thomas’s order issued to his corps commanders on the 14th: 

‘“As soon as the state of the weather will admit of offensive operations, the troops will move 
against the enemy’s position in the following order: Major General A. J. Smith, commanding de- 
tachment of the Army of the Tennessee, after forming his troops on and near the Hardin Pike, in 
front of his present position, will make a vigorous assault on the enemy’s left. Major General 
Wilson, commanding the cavalry corps, Military Division of the Mississippi, with three divisions, 
will move on and support General Smith’s right, assisting, as far as possible, in carrying the left of 
the enemy’s position, and be in readiness to throw his force upon the enemy the moment a favor- 
able opportunity occurs. Major General Wilson will also send one division on the Charlotte Pike 
to clear that road of the enemy, and observe in the direction of Bell’s Landing, to protect our 
right rear until the enemy’s position is fairly turned, when it will rejoin the main force. Brigadier 
General T. J. Wood, commanding Fourth Army Corps, after leaving a strong skirmish line in his 
works from Laurens’s Hill to his extreme right, will form the remainder of the Fourth Corps on the 
Hillsborough Pike to support General Smith’s left, and operate on the left and rear of the enemy’s 
advanced position on Montgomery Hill. Major General Schofield, commanding the Twenty-third 
Army Corps, will replace Brigadier General Kimball’s division of the Fourth Corps with his troops, 
and occupy the trenches from Fort Negley to Laurens’s Hill with a strong skirmish line. He will 
move with the remainder of his force in front of the works, and co-operate with General Wood, 
protecting the latter’s left flank against an attack of the enemy. Major General Steedman, com- 
manding the District of Etowah, will occupy the interior line in front of his present position, 
stretching from the reservoir on the Cumberland River to Fort Negley with a strong skirmish line, 
and mass the remainder of his force in its present position, to act according to the exigencies which 
may arise during these operations. Brigadier General Miller, with the troops forming the garrison 
of Nashyille, will occupy the interior line from the battery on hill 210 to the extreme right, includ- 
ing the inclosed work on the Hyde’s Ferry Road. The quartermaster’s troops, under command of 

Brigadier General Donaldson, will, if necessary, be posted on the interior line from Fort Morton to 
the battery on hill 210, The troops occupying the interior line will be under the direction of 
Major General Steadman, who is charged with the immediate defense of Nashville during the oper- 
ations around the city. Should the weather permit, the troops will be formed to commence opera- 
tions at 6 A.M. on the 15th, or as soon thereafter as practicable.” 


BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 


679 


JAMES B, STEEDMAN, 


masked the preparations for battle. Under these auspicious circumstances, 
Smith advanced immediately in front of his works, with Wilson’s cavalry 
on his right. Wood and Schofield, leaving strong skirmish lines in their 
trenches, marched to the right, Wood forming in line on Smith’s left, and 
Schofield supporting Wood, guarding the left flank against attack. Steed- 
man, who had charge of the defenses of Nashville, leaving Donaldson’s and 
Miller’s troops to hold the interior line of defense, advanced with his main 
force against the encmy’s right. Steedman’s operations were demonstrative, 
and preceded the main attack. His force consisted of three brigades— 
Thompson’s, Morgan’s, and Grosvenor’s, the two former being composed of 
disciplined negro soldiers. Though unsuccessful in his attack on the Con- 
federate right, he succeeded in diverting the enemy’s attention from the 
centre and left, leaving the way open for Wilson, Smith, Wood, and Scho- 
field, 40,000 strong, to sweep around against the enemy’s works on the 
Hillsborough Pike. 

The advance of Smith and Wilson commenced as soon as Steedman’s 
movement was completely developed on either side of the Hardin Pike. 
Over difficult and broken ground, their movement proceeded from the Cum- 
berland and the hills adjoining it across and along the Hardin Pike, and 
then swept eastward, enveloping the Confederate left on the Hillsborough 
Pike, threatening to strike Brentwood, in Hood’s rear, on the road to Frank- 
lin. Hood was completely surprised, and his cavalry,a great portion of 
which was in the vicinity of Murfreesborough and along the Cumberland, 
was too weak to meet the sudden blow. Hatch’s cavalry division moved 
on Smith’s right, with Croxton’s brigade on his own right, and Knipe’s divi- 
sion in support. McArthur’s infantry division held the right, and therefore 
the advance of Smith’s corps, and, with Hatch’s cavalry, encountered the 
enemy alittle after noon. On the right of the Hillsborough Pike the enemy 
had some advanced works protecting his left. The Confederates were driven 
from this position by Hatch and McArthur, who, swinging to the left, came 
upon a redoubt containing four guns, which was carried by a portioy of 
Hatch’s division, and the captured artillery turned upon the enemy. A 
second redoubt was then carried, with four guns and about 300 prisoners. 
McArthur justly shared the glory of these captures. 

While the enemy’s left was being driven back on the Granny White Pike, 
the Fourth Corps, under Wood, was assaulting the centre at Montgomery 
Hill. This position was carried by Post’s brigade of Wagner's division, 
and several prisoners were captured. Wood now connected with Smith’s 
left, and Schofield’s corps was moved from the reserve to Smith’s right, the 
cavalry, at the same time, being thrown still farther around against the 
enemy’s rear. But, while Wilson, Schofield, and Smith pressed forward 
during the afternoon, sweeping every thing before them, Wood had still 
another line of works to assault on his front. This was at length carried, 
and 700 prisoners, 8 guns, and 5 caissons were captured. By night, Hood’s 
army had been driven out of its original line of works, and back from the 
Hillsborough Road, but still held possession of two lines of retreat to Frank- 
lin by the main road through Brentwood and the Granny White Pike. 
Thomas had won substantial trophies of victory, his captures consisting of 
1200 prisoners, 16 guns, 40 wagons, and a large number of small-arms, 
Owing to the unexpectedness of the attack, and the brilliant tacties of the 
Federal commander, these results had been gained with slight Union loss, 
while the Confederate loss was heavy. During the afternoon, Johnson’s di- 
vision of Wilson’s cavalry had, with the co-operation of the gun-boats, cap- 
tured the Confederate batteries blockading the river below Nashville at 
Bell’s Landing. At 9 P.M. Thomas telegraphed to Washington: “T shall 
attack the enemy again to-morrow if he stands to fight, and if he retreats 
during the night I will pursue him, throwing a heavy cavalry force in his 
rear to destroy his trains, if possible.” 

But Hood did not yet give up the contest. During the night he withdrew 


| i 


WEE 
WN 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


NASHVILLE, FROM EDGEFIELD. 


| DECEMBER, 1864. 


NASHVILLE FROM THE OPPOSITE BANK OF THE CUMBERLAND. 


j\ y i. | 
i ¢ 


( 


Decemper, 1864. ] 


EASTPORT, TENNESSEE, 


BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 


681 


his right and centre to conform to the left. Cheatham’s corps was transfer- 
red from right to left, leaving Stewart in the centre and Lee on the right. 
Thus, when Wood advanced at 6 A.M. on the morning of the 16th, he found 
only skirmishers in his front. He advanced, therefore, directly south from 
Nashville on the Franklin Pike until he developed the enemy’s main line. 
Then Steedman came up by the Nolensville Pike on Wood’s left, and Smith 
on his right. These troops faced southward, while Schofield, facing to the 
east, held the position which he had gained the evening before. Wilson ex- 
tended away off to the enemy’s rear, still threatening Brentwood, at the same 
time that he guarded the Federal right, and was ready, in case of Hood’s re- 
treat, to fall upon his flank. Hood’s right rested upon Overton’s Hill, four 
miles north of Brentwood, and his left upon the hills bordering the Granny 
White Pike. His centre was weaker than either flank. The whole line, 
about three miles long, had been hastily but strongly intrenched, with aba- 
tis thrown up in front. 

Not until mid-afternoon were Thomas’s preparations for attack completed. 
About 600 yards separated the opposing armies. On the right, Wilson had 
extended well to Hood’s rear and across the Granny White Pike. The tac- 
tics of the day before were repeated in the attack of the 16th. Wood and 
Steedman proceeded to assault Overton Hill. The movement, commencing 
at 3 P.M., was open to the enemy’s observation, and troops were hurried 
from the Confederate left and centre to meet the attack at this point. Post’s 
brigade, which the day before had stormed Montgomery Hill, again formed 
the main column of assault, Steedman’s colored troops co-operating on the 
left. The result is thus briefly reported by General Thomas: ‘“ The assault 
was made, and received by the enemy with tremendous fire of grape and 
canister, and musketry. Our men moved steadily onward up the hill until 
near the crest, when the reserve of the enemy rose and poured into the as- 
saulting column a most destructive fire, causing the men first to waver and 
then to fall back, leaving their dead and wounded, black and white indis- 
criminately mingled, lying amid the abatis, the gallant Colonel Post among 
the wounded.” 

Wood again reformed his command in its first position, and prepared to re- 
new the attack. Hood, in the momentary enthusiasm following his partial 
success, began to hope that the day was already won. But his anticipations 
were doomed to disappointment; for Smith and Schofield had heard of 
Hood’s weakening his lines in their front to support Lee’s corps, and rushed 
forward upon the enemy’s right and centre, “ carrying all before them, irrep- 
arably breaking his lines in a dozen places, and capturing all his artillery and 
thousands of prisoners.”! Among the latter were four general officers, in- 
cluding Major General Edward 8S. Johnson, and Brigadier Generals Jackson 
and Smith. Wilson made a simultaneous advance in the rear, falling upon 
the flank of the routed enemy and cutting him off from the Granny White 
Pike. This was a fitting prelude to Wood’s second assault on Overton Hill. 
Once again the slopes of that eminence were ascended in the face of the en- 
emy’s fire. The summit was gained, the enemy was swept like chaff from 
his works, so many, at least, as were not taken prisoners, and all the artil- 
lery was captured. Hood’s army, routed as no army had been in the history 
of the war, with but a remnant of artillery, abandoning its wagons and fling- 
ing aside its muskets, blankets, and every thing which might impede its own 
flight, or, clogging the road behind, might delay the pursuit of its victorious 
enemy, scattered in irrecoverable confusion down the Franklin Pike through 
Brentwood Pass. 

If the battle could have been fought in the forenoon instead of in the 
afternoon, nothing could now have saved Hood’s army from annihilation, 
The Fourth Corps pursued rapidly for several miles, capturing more pris- 
oners, until darkness kindly enveloped the enemy’s retreat. As soon as 
Hatch’s dismounted men received their horses they also pursued on the 
Granny White Pike, Croxton and Knipe closely following. After proceed- 
ing about a mile, Hatch encountered Chalmers’s Confederate cavalry, posted 
across the road behind barricades. The Twelfth Tennessee, Colonel Spaul- 
ding, charged and broke the enemy’s lines, scattering the Confederates, and 
capturing, among other prisoners, Brigadier General G. W. Rucker. 

Thus ended the two days’ battle of Nashville. Hood’s dead and wounded 
were left upon the field ; besides these, he had lost 4462 prisoners, including 
287 officers of all grades, from major general down, 58 guns, and thousands 
of small-arms. 

The next morning the pursuit was continued. The Fourth Corps was 
followed by Steedman, and Wilson’s cavalry by Schofield and Smith. John- 
son’s cavalry division was dispatched directly across the Harpeth to menace 
Franklin. Upon reaching the point where the Granny White runs into the 
Franklin Pike, Wilson took the advance, and encountered the Confederate 
rear-guard, under Stevenson, four miles north of Franklin, and charging in 
front and flank, dispersed the enemy and captured 413 prisoners. ‘The pres- 
ence of Johnson’s cavalry division near Franklin compelled Hood to aban- 
don that town, leaving in the hospitals over 2000 Confederate wounded. 
Wilson’s cavalry still pursued, Now, more than ever, did Hood feel his 
need of Forrest, whom, in an evil moment, he had sent off on a bootless er- 
rand, just as formerly he had sent off Wheeler’s cavalry at the very crisis of 
the Atlanta campaign. Forrest had been ordered back, but, owing to the 
swollen streams which barred his progress, he did not join Hood until the 
latter had reached Duck River. About five miles south of Franklin, the 
rear-guard, toward nightfall, made a temporary stand in the road, posting a 
battery of artillery on some rising ground. But Wilson, sending Hatch to 
the left and Knipe to the right of the road, with their batteries, charged Ste- 
venson with his own body-guard, the Fourth Regular Cavalry, 180 strong. 
Freely using their sabres, the Union horsemen broke the Confederate centre, 

1 Thomas's Report. 


682 


Knipe and Hatch at the same time falling upon the flanks. Stevenson was 
thus swept from his chosen position for the second time, leaving his artillery 
in the road. 

The 18th, like the day before, was rainy and dismal. The pursuit was 
continued to Duck River, where Hood had intrenched to make a stand, but 
wisely repented of his rash design and continued his flight to the Tennessee, 
leaving some of his guns at the bottom of Duck River. On reaching Ruth- 
erford’s Creek, three miles north of Columbia, that stream was found impass- 
able by the national troops. Sherman had taken the best pontoon train 
along with his army, and another, which had been hurriedly constructed at 
Nashville, was incomplete, and did not arrive in time. The delay thus oc- 
casioned relieved Hood from instant danger. But his army was reduced— 
so far as organization was concerned—to a simple rear-guard. Hood was 
retreating from Tennessee in precisely the same condition in which Davis 
had three months before predicted that Sherman would retreat from Georgia. 
Still, Thomas, as soon as possible, continued the pursuit to the Tennessee 
River. The route of the flying enemy—if toilsome dragging along the miry 
roads could be called flight-—was easily traced by ruins of baggage wagons, 
by small-arms and blankets, and other débris of a demoralized army. At 
Pulaski, four guns were abandoned and thrown into Richland Creek; and 
a mile beyond, twenty wagons loaded with ammunition, and belonging to 
Cheatham’s corps, were destroyed. All along the road Hood’s stragglers 
lined the wayside, where they had fallen out, tired and discouraged. The 
Confederate army, or rather its disorganized remnant, crossed the Tennessee 
on the 27th of December, and fell back to Tupelo, Mississippi. Here Hood, 
overwhelmed by the denunciations which beat upon him heavily from all 
sides, resigned his command of the wreck of an army which he had brought 
back, and was succeeded by General Dick Taylor, who had managed to get 
across from the west of the Mississippi.’ But the Confederate Army of Ten- 
nessee, as an organized force, had fought its last campaign. 

Thomas, on December 30th, announced to his army the successful com- 
pletion of the campaign. It was an army which had been hastily gathered 
together from all quarters to meet Hood’s invasion. Its numbers and effi- 
ciency were indications at the same time of the prompt and unyielding pa- 
triotism of the West, and of the generalship of Thomas. He it was who had 
moulded its segregate parts into a mobile army. And in all military histo- 
ry probably no army was ever more skillfully wielded. Thomas had quiet- 
ly manifested his military capacity in the early battles of 1862; he had 
greatly distinguished himself, in a situation more adapted to a larger display 
of tactical skill, on the battle-field of Chickamauga, in 1863; but the battles 
of Nashville were the seal and impress of his military genius. In these lat- 
ter battles he saw the end from the beginning; the victorious event was as 
clear to him on the morning of the 15th as on the night of the next day, 
when Hood had been routed; with him no mistake was possible, and thus 
upon victory followed its full fruits. or the first time in the history of the 
war, a Confederate army 40,000 strong had been destroyed on the field of 
battle and in its flight. The numbers directly brought to bear upon Hood’s 
army had not been far superior; the result is therefore to be attributed to 
the admirable tactics of General Thomas. The battles of Nashville deserve 
to rank with those of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. A very 
memorable feature of these battles is the slight loss of the Federals in killed 
and wounded.? The grand result had been accomplished rather by skillful 
manceuvre than by an enormous sacrifice of life. The Confederate loss had 
been heavier in killed and wounded, and, in addition, over 8000 prisoners 
had been captured. During the Tennessee campaign Hood lost 13,189 pris- 
oners, and by desertion over 2000, besides 72 guns. 

At the close of 1864 Thomas disposed of his army as follows: Smith’s 


corps was stationed at Hastport, Mississippi; Wood’s was concentrated at 
ES CU emeneneee e 

* “With the exception of his rear-guard, his army had become a disheartened and disorganized 
rabble of half-armed and barefooted men, who sought every opportunity to fall out by the wayside 
and desert their cause, to put an end to their sufferings. The rear-guard, however, was undaunted 
and firm, and did its work bravely to the last.”— Thomas's Report. 

* “Here, finding so much dissatisfaction throughout the country as in my judgment to greatly 
impair, if not destroy, my usefulness and counteract my exertions, and with no desire but to serve 
my country, I asked to be relieved, with the hope that another might be assigned to the command 
who might do more than I could hope to accomplish. Accordingly, I was so relieved on the 23d 
of January by authority of the President.”—Hood’s Report. 

* General ‘Thomas reports his loss in killed, wounded, and missing during the entire campaign as 
10,000, 


SALTVILLE, VIRGINIA, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ DECEMBER, 1864. 


Huntsville and Athens, Alabama; Schofield’s at Dalton, Georgia; and Wil- 
son’s cavalry at Eastport and Huntsville. 

In the mean time the cavalry force, 800 strong, which, under General 
Lyon, had been sent by Hood across the Cumberland to operate against 
Thomas's communications in Kentucky, had been defeated and driven back 
into Alabama, after some 600 of its number had been scattered or captured. 
The small remnant was about the middle of January surprised in camp be- 
tween Warrenton and Tuscaloosa, where General Lyon, with about 100 of 
his men, was captured. Lyon was taken in bed, and, having been permitted 
to dress himself, he watched his opportunity and treacherously shot his sen- 
tinel, escaping in the darkness. 

To finish this chapter, it remains only for us to glance at the operations 
which, toward the close of the year,had been going on east of Knoxville, 
on the yet contested border of Hast Tennessee and West Virginia. 

General Morgan had been captured and killed on the 4th of September, 
1864, at Greenville, in East Tennessee, and his command had passed into the 
hands of his confederate and recent biographer, General Basil Duke. In 
November General Breckinridge proceeded to East Tennessee, and took 
command of the operations in that quarter. On the 13th of November, with 
about 8000 men, he attacked Brigadier General A.C. Gillem, near Morris- 
town, routing him and capturing his artillery (6 guns), with about 500 pris- 
oners. ‘The remainder of Gillem’s command escaped to Strawberry Plains, 
and thence to Knoxville. Gillem’s command, 1500 strong, had formerly be- 
longed to the Army of the Cumberland, but at the instance of Governor An- 
drew Johnson had been made an independent command. It was this sep- 
aration, and the consequent lack of co-operation between Gillem and the offi 
cers of Thomas’s army, which doubtless led to this disaster. 

Breckinridge followed up his success, moving through Strawberry Plains 
to the immediate vicinity of Knoxville, but on the 18th of November be- 
gan hastily to retrace his line of advance. For General Thomas, in all his 
preparations against Hood, had not weakened his rear, and the force under 
Breckinridge was not competent to meet that suddenly brought to his front. 
On the 18th—the day of Breckinridge’s retreat—General Ammen’s troops, 
re-enforced by 1500 men from Chattanooga, reoccupied Strawberry Plains. 

General Schofield had left Stoneman at Louisville to take charge of the 
Department of the Ohio during his absence with Thomas’s army. Stone- 
man started for Knoxville, having previously ordered Brevet Major General 
Burbridge to march with all his available force in Kentucky, by way of 
Cumberland Gap, to Gillem’s relief. On his way to Knoxville, Stoneman re- 
ceived instructions from Thomas to concentrate as large a force as possible 
in East Tennessee against Breckinridge, and either destroy his force or drive 
it into Virginia, and destroy the salt-works at Saltville, in West Virginia, 
and the railroad from the Tennessee line as far into Virginia as practicable. 

Having rapidly concentrated the commands of Burbridge and Gillem at 
Bean’s Station, on the 12th of December General Stoneman advanced against 
the enemy. Gillem struck Duke at Kingsport, on the north fork of the Hol- 
ston River, killing, capturing, or dispersing the whole command. Burbridge, 
at Bristol, came upon the enemy under Vaugn, and skirmished with him un- 
til Gillem’s troops came up. Vaugn then retreated. Burbridge pushed on 
to Abingdon, to cut the railroad between Wytheville and Saltville, to pre- 
vent re-enforcements from Lynchburg. Gillem also reached Abingdon on 
the 15th, and the next day struck the enemy at Marion, routed him, and cap- 
tured all his artillery and trains, and 198 prisoners. Wytheville, with its 
stores and supplies, was destroyed, as also the extensive lead-works near the 
town, and the railroad bridge over Reedy Creek. Stoneman, having made a 
demonstration on Saltville, proceeded to join Burbridge at Marion, where 
Breckinridge had collected the scattered remnants of his command. But 
the Confederates avoided battle, retreating into North Carolina. Stoneman 
then moved on Saltville with his entire command, capturing at that place 
eight guns, a large amount of ammunition, and two locomotives. The salt- 
works were destroyed by breaking the kettles, filling the wells with rubbish, 
and burning the buildings. Stoneman then returned to Knoxville, accom- 
panied by Gillem’s command, while General Burbridge, by way of Cumber- 
land Gap, fell back into Kentucky. The country marched over by Stone- 
man’s troops during these operations was laid waste, and all mills, factories, 
and bridges were destroyed. 


SALT VALLEY. 


la 


Novemser, 1864.] — ‘ SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 683 


CHAPTER XLVITI. 
SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 


After the Battle of Nashville the East becomes the Theatre of the War.—Estimate of General 
Sherman’s Generalship.—He marches from Atlanta,.—Constitution of his Army.—The Order of 
March.—The Movement not simply ‘‘a big Raid.”—The Country traversed.—Occupation of 
Milledgeville.—Action at Griswoldville.—Crossing of the Oconee.—Sandersville occupied. —Kil- 
patrick’s Movement on Millen.—Destruction of Railroads. —Apprehension in the North.—Cross- 
ing of the Ogeechee.—The Approaches to Savannah.—Capture of Fort McAllister, and commu- 
nication with Dahlgren’s Fleet.—Investment of Sayannah.—Sherman demands a Surrender.— 
Hardee declines. —Movement against the Charleston and Savannah Railroad.—Hardee’s Retreat. 
—Sherman enters Savannah.—Results of the March.—The Amount of Property captured or de- 
stroyed.—Character of the Defenses of Savannah.—Conduct of Sherman’s Army on the March, 


Y Thomas’s victory at Nashville the Confederate army of Tennessee 
had been eliminated from the problem of the war. After this event 
the continuance of the struggle on the part of the Confederate government 
involved a useless waste of human life. The interest of the war from this 
point is transferred to the Kast. With the exception of the conflict termi- 
nating in the capture of Mobile, there were, after the battle of Nashville, no 
great military operations in the West. We are therefore prepared to follow 
Sherman’s March to the Sea, and thence to Goldsborough in North Carolina. 
Since General Sherman had been given an independent command in the 
West, he had fully illustrated his characteristic qualities as a great captain. 
As a subordinate he had shown these qualities only in a limited degree, be- 
cause in that capacity he could only display his power to execute operations 
which were conceived and planned by others. No officer had so complete- 
ly won the confidence of General Grant. At Shiloh his military talents 
were so conspicuous that Grant afterward acknowledged that the final tri- 
umph of the national arms on that occasion was chiefly due to Sherman. 
Of course, in this acknowledgment, we must make large allowances on the 
score of General Grant’s natural modesty; but, if he was modest, he was also 
just. Sherman’s prompt and unquestioning obedience to the orders of his 
superior officer ought not, perhaps, to be remarkable, but it was, neverthe- 
less. He was never behind time. His comprehension of the task assigned 
him made misconception or mistake impossible, and he never lacked in vig. 
or of execution. It is true that he sometimes failed in the object sought. 
His assault on the Confederate works at Chickasaw Bayou has been fre- 
quently adduced as proof of his indiscretion. But it must be remembered, 
in the first place, that he was acting in obedience of positive orders, and, 
secondly, that he was ignorant of the failure that had attended General 
Grant's movement in the rear, and it was this latter circumstance alone which 
made the assault indiscreet, or its success impossible. The assault on Kene- 
saw has also been adduced for a similar purpose. But here, too, the critics 
have a losing case, unless they can withstand the testimony of Genera: 
Thomas and the best officers of Sherman’s army, who assert that success 
must have followed the attempt but for the fall of Harker and McCook at a 
critical moment. The popular conception of General Sherman is greatly at 
fault. It has been the fashion to accord him brilliancy of conception—great 
strategic powers—and to ignore those characteristic qualities of his mind 
without which his strategy would have been ludicrous and useless. 

In the first place, a factitious distinction has been made between strategy, 
and tactics, and Sherman has been pronounced a great strategist, but an in 
ferior tactician. Strategy properly includes tactics. The commander whe 
can so determine and control the movements of his army as to, in the surest 
way, and with the least friction and waste, accomplish the object in view, is 
a great strategist... If we confine these movements to the disposition of an 
army upon the field of battle, then we have what is properly termed tactics 
Of course the original conception of the object and plan of a campaign is 
back of both strategy and tactics, and depends upon the speculative side of 
military genius—the power of ideal combination. This power of combina- 
tion may exist without the practical knowledge or experience necessary to 
WOR ail | | successful strategy or to successful tactics. But this is rarely the case, for 

Ht NY in iI the very practicability of the theoretical scheme must be determined by a 
knowledge of the material elements involved. So also it might happen that 
NN a great strategist should not be a great tacticlan—that a commander might 
be successful in large movements, and fail in his combinations on the battle- 

field and in the presence of the foe. But such cases must of necessity be 
| very exceptional; for the skillful disposition of an army on a large scale 
would naturally involve its skillful manipulation on a limited field of op- 
erations. The exception could only occur by reason of certain elements in- 
volved in actual battle which demand peculiar qualities in the commander. 
Thus a general might exhibit brilliant strategic powers in bringing his army 
upon a well-chosen field of battle, or in forcing a battle upon his antagonist, 
and yet utterly fail in the battle itself through a lack either of promptness 
or of self-control in the presence of the enemy. Certainly Sherman lacked 
none of the qualities demanded upon the battle-field. In what, then, did his 
poor tactics consist? Was it for his strategy or his tactics that Grant com- 
mended him at Shiloh? Or upon what battle-field did he illustrate his 
weakness in tactics? If the battle of Chickasaw Bayou was a failure, that 
certainly was not Sherman’s fault. No general on earth could have suc- 
ceeded there, and Sherman only obeyed orders in fighting there. Under the 
circumstances he had no discretion, any more than he had at Tunnel Hill, in 
the battle of Chattanooga. But if we consider the tactics displayed by Sher- 
man in the Atlanta campaign, where he had an independent command, do 
we find him deficient? It is true that, at Resaca, Sherman failed to destroy 
Johnston’s army, where that result was possible. But why? Simply be- 
cause his orders were not executed. But the order given is to decide his 
tactical ability, and not its execution by a subordinate. Surely all the on- 


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1 This is clear from the very etymology of the term strategy, which is from two Greek words— 
stratos, an army, and ago, to move. 


[ NOVEMBER, 1864. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


684 


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November, 1864. ] 


erations of the Atlanta campaign were tactical as well as strategic, and the 
success of these operations was as much due to skillful tactics as it was to 
skillful strategy. 

It must be admitted that Johnston, by leaving open the approach to Re- 
saca through Snake Creek Gap at the beginning of the campaign, afforded 
Sherman a splendid opportunity to destroy the Confederate army. And 
Sherman designed to accomplish this. He only failed through the exces- 
sive caution of McPherson. A similar opportunity was offered by Hood at 
the close of the Atlanta campaign by the division of his army. And here 
again, while Sherman’s tactics were faultless, his subordinate officers failed 
him. But in both cases—at Resaca and Jonesborough—if Sherman’s or- 
ders had been executed, the result would have involved the annihilation of 
the Confederate army. 

It has also been said that Sherman could not organize and discipline an 
army. ‘To this we only need reply that, so far as the purposes of war are 
concerned, Sherman’s army was as well disciplined and efficient as any oth- 
er. beyond that it would be too curious to inquire. 

General Sherman’s conceptions were always bold, and his daring was only 
equaled by his confidence in ultimate success. No movement ever made by 
Generat Thomas or General Grant surpassed that by which Sherman trans- 
ferred the bulk of his army to Jonesborough. Sherman was never vacillat- 
ing or irresolute. His plans, once formed, were immutable. He was also as 
remarkable for discretion as for boldness. Thus his audacity never verged 
upon rashness. He was the Centaur general, being at once the fiery horse 
and the curbing rider. No pet military project could infatuate him. No 
better illustration of Sherman’s caution can be given than his manner of 
undertaking the boldest movement of the war—his March to the Sea. With 
Hood in his front, he would not attempt the movement without an objective 
point on the coast already secured and awaiting his arrival. And even 
when Hood moved to the rear, leaving him an open path eastward, Sher- 
man followed him, and, driving him far westward, waited and watched until 
he was over 200 miles west of Atlanta, and Thomas was prepared to meet 
his invasion. 

Sherman’s foresight was almost prophetic. At the beginning of the war 
he discerned the gigantic proportions which it would assume. He was 
laughed at, and thought insane, when he asserted that 200,000 men were nec- 
essary to prosecute the first great Western campaign; but time proved that 
he was right, and that the insanity with which he had been charged was 
lodged in other brains than his. He predicted Butler’s failure at Fort Fish- 
er. No military man ever had a clearer discernment between the practica- 
ble and the impracticable, or as to what might be accomplished with given 
means. He was as sure of the success of his grand march before he set out 
as when he reached its termination; he predicted the time of his arrival 
upon the coast, and anticipated the full effect of the movement in its bear- 
ings upon the war. 

This foresight is not so strange when we consider Sherman’s wonderful 
knowledge of the minute details of the conflict. He had been not only a 
careful student of military science, but also a careful observer of the coun- 
try in which the war was conducted. He knew its mountains, its rivers, its 
railroads, its resources, and its people. His experience in regard to all these 
matters had been large before the war began, but since that time he had 
made them an especial study. What he once learned he never forgot. The 
movements of Cape Fear River were as well known to him as those of the 
Red River, upon whose banks he had lived. The whole Southern country 
was a grand chart before his mind; no geographical feature escaped him; 
he knew the natural products of each district, its population, its proportion 
of slaves, its cattle, its horses, its factories. This kind of knowledge his mind 
seemed to absorb and retain almost without effort. Yet, with all this atten- 
tion to the minutie of campaigning, Sherman always based his plans upon 
general principles. Therefore, while he knew perfectly how to feed, march, 
and fight an army of a hundred thousand men, the conceptions which con- 


_ troled him in the use of this army, and which formed the basis of his cam- 


paign, were calculated to accomplish the grandest results possible with the 
means employed. Sherman’s military economy, as illustrated in the Atlan- 
ta campaign, and the operations which were its natural sequel, will hereafter 
be to the military student the most instructive portion 


SHERMAN'’S CAMPAIGN.—THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 


685 


spiration; but its movements, like that of the tides, were mathematically ac- 
curate and certain. There was no lagging from the march, there was no 
shrinking from battle. 

It was a grand moment for Sherman when he had been, by Hood’s folly, 
released from his dependence upon the railroad in his rear. In the event 
of an advance upon an army in his front, this long line of communication 
was a serious and unavoidable perplexity. From Atlanta to Allatoona, 
Sherman’s sub-base was 40 miles. Thence to Chattanooga was 98 miles, 
But Chattanooga itself was only a dépét, and was exposed to siege and cap- 
ture, unless a large portion of the army was detached for its protection. 
Thus Sherman’s real base of supplies is pushed back to Nashville, 290 miles 
from Atlanta, and, in the case of a successful Confederate attack on Nash- 
ville, back to Louisville, nearly 500 miles. ‘This perplexity, as we have 
seen, was removed by Hood’s invasion of Tennessee; and by giving Thomas 
an army sufficient to meet Hood, Sherman was permitted to ignore his con- 
nection with the North, and move eastward with from 60,000 to 70,000 
men, 

On the 16th of November, Sherman’s army, with the smoking ruins of 
Atlanta in his rear, began its great march.) The right wing of the army, 
under General Howard, with Kilpatrick’s cavalry, was put in motion in the 
direction of Jonesborough, and McDonough, with orders to make a strong 
feint on Macon, to cross the Ocmulgee near Planter’s Mills, and rendezvous 
in the neighborhood of Gordon in seven days. At the same time, Slocum, 
with the Twelfth Corps of the left wing, moved by Decatur, with orders to 
tear up the railroad from Social Circle to Madison, to burn the railroad 
bridge across the Oconee, east of Madison, and, turning south, to reach Mil- 
ledgeville on the same day that Howard should reach Gordon. General 
Sherman in person accompanied Jeff. C. Davis’s corps—the Fourteenth—on 
the road through Covington, directly to Milledgeville. All the troops were 
provided with good wagon trains, loaded with ammunition and supplies, ap- 
proximating 20 days’ bread, 40 days’ sugar and coffee, with a double allow- 
ance of salt, and beef-cattle sufficient for 40 days’ supplies. The wagons 
were supplied with three days’ rations in grain. Each brigade commander 
was instructed to organize a foraging party, to gather near the route corn, 
forage, meat, and vegetables, aiming at all times to keep in the wagon trains 
at least 10 days’ provisions and three days’ forage. The cavalry was to re- 
ceive orders direct from General Sherman. Soldiers were forbidden to enter 
the dwellings of the inhabitants or to commit any trespass, but were permit- 
ted, during a halt or when in camp, to gather vegetables, and to drive in 
stock in their front. On the march the gathering of provisions was to be 
left entirely to regular foraging parties. Army commanders were permitted 
to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, etc., but such destruction must only 
take place in regions where the army should be molested. Horses, mules, 
and wagons were to be appropriated as they were needed, but discrimination 
must be made in these captures, the rich rather than the poor being made 
the victims. No family was to be deprived of any thing necessary to its 
maintenance. Able-bodied negroes might be taken along, in so far as this 
would not cause embarrassment in the matter of supplies. The troops were 
to start each morning at 7 o'clock, and make about 15 miles per day.? 


1 Major Nichols thus describes the spectacle of Atlanta in flames: ‘‘ A grand and awful specta- 
cle is presented to the beholder in this beautiful city, now in flames. By order, the chief engineer 
has destroyed by powder and fire all the store-houses, dépdt buildings, and machine-shops. ‘The 
heaven is one expanse of lurid fire; the air is filled with flying, burning cinders; buildings cover- 
ing two hundred acres are in ruins or in flames: every instant there is the sharp detonation or the 
smothered booming sound of exploding shells and powder concealed in the buildings, and then the 
sparks and flame shoot away up into the black and red roof, scattering cinders far and wide. 

‘¢These are the machine-shops where have been forged and cast the rebel cannon, shot and sheli 
that have carried death to many a brave defender of our nation’s honor. These warehouses have 
been the receptacle of munitions of war, stored to be used for our destruction. The city, which, 
next to Richmond, has furnished more material for prosecuting the war than any other in the 
South, exists no more as a means for injury to be used by the enemies of the Union. 

‘¢ A brigade of Massachusetts soldiers are the only troops now left in the town: they will be the 
last to leave it. To-night I heard the really fine band of the Thirty-third Massachusetts playing 
‘John Brown’s soul goes marching on,’ by the light of the burning buildings. I have never heard 
that noble anthem when it was so grand, so solemn, so inspiring.” 

2 The following is a copy of the general orders for the march, issued by General Sherman at 
Kingston, November 9th : 

‘*T. For the purpose of military operations, this army is divided into two wings, viz., the right 
wing, Major General O. O. Howard commanding, the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps; the left 
wing. Major General H. W. Slocum commanding, the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps. 

‘*TI. The habitual order of march will be, whenever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel 


of the American Civil War. The greatest results were 


accomplished with the smallest possible waste of force. 


Perhaps the most characteristic point of Sherman’s 


generalship was his perfect appreciation of the American 


soldier and of the discipline best adapted to his peculiar- 


ities. He was par eminence the American general, and 


his army was the military microcosm of the republic, 
for the maintenance of which it fought and marched. 
Both on the part of the general and his army there was 
perfect military subordination; but there was, at the 
same time, absolute freedom from conventional or arbi- 
trary restraint in minor details. The martial enthusiasm 
of the soldier was not held in check by petty restrictions. 
Sherman scouted the idea that the American army must 
be made a mere machine. In the place of a purely me- 
chanical discipline he substituted one which recognized 
the intelligence, not only of his subordinate officers, but 
of every private in the army. To inspire his soldiers 
with his own ideas appeared to him a more efficient 
means of control than the establishment over them of a 
military autocracy. The result fully vindicated his pe- 
culiar mode of discipline. His army moved as if by in- 
8 L 


ATLANTA IN RUINS. 


—_———  . 


a eee ee a, CE 


The line of march of the several corps of Sherman’s army we shall not 
attempt to follow in detail, but will merely trace the general features of the 
movement. In the first place, it must be distinctly asserted that Sherman’s 


as possible, and conyerging at points hereafter to be indicated in orders. ‘The cavalry, Brigadier 
General Kilpatrick commanding, will receive special orders from the commander-in-chief, 

‘*TII. There will be no general trains of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition and pro- 
vision train, distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and 
one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition wagons, provi- 
sion wagons and ambulances. In case of danger, each army corps should change this order of 
march by having his advance and rear brigade unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns 
will start habitually at seven A.M.,and make about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in 
orders. 

“TV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each bri- 
gade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or 
more discreet officers, who will gather near the route traveled corn or forage of any kind, meat of 
any kind, vegetables, corn meal, or whatever is needed by the command; aiming at all times to 
keep in the wagon trains at least ten days’ provisions for the command and three days’ forage. 
Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants or commit any trespass; during the halt 
or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and drive in 
stock in front of their camps. To regular foraging parties must be intrusted the gathering of pro- 
visions and forage at any distance from the road traveled. 

‘**“V. To army corps commanders is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, 
etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the 
army is unmolested, no destruction of such property should be permitted ; but should guerrillas or 
bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or other- 
wise manifest local hostility, then army corps commanders should order and enforce a devastation 
more or less relentless, according to the measure of such hostility. 

““VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, etc., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery 
may appropriate freely and without limit ; discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usu- 
ally hostile, and the poor or industrious, who are usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may 
also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack mules for 
the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from 
abusive or threatening language, and may; when the officer in command thinks proper, give written 
certificates of the facts, but no receipts; and they will endeavor to leave with each family a rea- 
sonable portion for their maintenance, 

‘* VII. Negroes who are able-bodied, and can be of service to the several columns, may be taken 
along ; but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very import- 
ant one, and that his first duty is to see to those who bear arms, 

“* VIII. The organization at once of a good pioneer battalion for each corps, composed, if possi- 
ble, of negroes, should be attended to. This battalion should follow the advance-guard, should re- 
pair roads and double them if possible, so that the columns will not be delayed after reaching bad 
places. Also, army commanders should study the habit of giving the artillery and wagons the 
road, and marching their troops on one side; and also instruct their troops to assist wagons at 
steep hills or bad crossings of streams. 

all B.€ Captain O. M. Poe, Chief Engineer, will assign to each wing of the army a pontoon train, 
Se Tae and organized, and the commanders thereof will see to its being properly protected 
at all times. 


i gma army on the march, besides Kilpatrick’s cayalry, 5500 strong, included the follow- 
ing forces: 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


JUDSON C, KILPATRICK, 


{ NOVEMBER, 1864. 


re eee ee — 


march was not simply “a big raid.” It accomplished all the purposes of a 
raid—the destruction of railroads and supplies. The large force with which 
Sherman marched of course more effectually accomplished these purposes 
than could have been done by a cavalry expedition. To destroy the rail- 
roads by which Georgia was connected with the Carolinas and with Vir- 
ginia, and to consume the supplies upon which the Confederate armies de- 
pended, was a very important object. But, after all, this was only incidental. 
The Grand March was at once a magnificent raid and a decisive campaign. 
Sherman was conducting offensive operations against Lee’s army, threaten- 
ing his rear and flank. 

Again, it was not Sherman’s object to capture important strategic points 
upon his route to Savannah. Macon and Augusta were the main points 
likely to be defended by the enemy. Sherman could not afford to delay his 
columns in consideration of the results to be gained by the capture of either 
place; accordingly, he determined to demonstrate against each and avoid 
both. Kilpatrick, therefore, until the army was past Macon, kept on the 
right flank, and from that point covered the left wing, demonstrating against 
Augusta. Sherman’s line of march followed the Georgia Central Railroad, 
covering a wide belt on either side, and, east of Louisville, extended over 
the entire tract—the most fertile in Georgia— between the Ogeechee and 
Savannah Rivers. 

On the 23d of November Slocum occupied Milledgeville, the capital of 


Georgia, and Howard had reached Gordon. Slocum gained possession of 
OE ee ee 


Corps. Divisions. 
: igadier G ». R. Woor's. 
Fifteenth, Sees hapetay 
Major General y E earrats : 
P. J. OSTERHAUS. “ 7 M. Corse's. 


Riant Wine, 
Seventeenth, Major General T. A. MoweEr's. 


“ a7 
Major General 0. 0. Howarn. e 
Major General Brigadier General M. D. LeaeGrtt’s. 
Frank P. Buarr, Jr.* aS “6G. A. SmrtTH’s. 
Fourteenth, Brigadier General W. P. Caritn’s. 
Brevet Major General 4" «J.D, More an's. 
Jerr. C. Davis. A. Batgp’s. 
Twentieth, fence General N. T. Jaoxson's. 
“ 


Lert Wire, 
Major General H. W. Stocum. 


a “ 


Brigadier General J. W. Grany's. 
A. S. WILLrAMs. W. T. Warp's. 


Brigadier General Judson C. Kilpatrick’s cavalry division consisted of two brigades, commanded 
by Colonels Eli H. Murray and Smith D, Atkins. 


* Brigadier General T. E. G. Ransom had commanded this wa'4 during the pursuit of Hood, though suffering from 
a severe attack of dysentery, and too weak to mount his horse, He died at Rome, October 29, 1864, aged thirty years 


“ oe 


Novemper, 1864. ] SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE MARCH TO THE SEA. | 687 


Fi 


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EXTERIOR VIEW OF THP PRISON PEN AT MILLEN, 


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DESTRUCTION OF MILLEN JUNCTION, 


688 


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\ COVINGTON 


\V/ ? GREENSBORD-\ 
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\ JACKSON = __. =—=QEATONTON | 


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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


Ms. Se 
\ AUGUSTA 


= 


[ NOVEMBER, 1864. 


cold ground, while near by lay the graves of 700 dead, marked only 
by head-boards designating them by the fifties. 

By the last of November Sherman’s army had crossed the Ogeechee 
River. still covered by Kilpatrick’s cavalry—an impenetrable cloud 
to the enemy. ‘The railroad was destroyed all along the line of 
march.’ In the mean while the Confederates have been predicting 
the ruin of Sherman’s army. ‘They do not seem to have had any 
accurate knowledge of its numbers. Hood and Beauregard esti- 
mated it as about 36,000 strong. In the North there was great 
anxiety for Sherman’s fate. Both the confidence of the enemy and 
the apprehensions of the loyal are indications of the impression 
which then prevailed as to the audacity of Sherman’s movement. 

After Sherman crossed the Ogeechee there was no opportunity for 
the enemy to oppose his march to the city of Savannah. ‘No op- 
position from the enemy worth speaking of,” says Sherman, “ was 
encountered until the heads of the columns were within fifteen miles 
of Savannah, where all the roads leading to the city were obstructed 
more or less by felled timber, with earth-works and artillery. But 
these were easily turned and the enemy driven away,so that by the 
10th of December the enemy was driven within his lines at Savan- 


fj 
f 


f— Rs : \ : 
J \ f cv> Cal ” , ity —# j 
ee a = (| ere 7 \ | nah.” There were five approaches to the city—the two railroads 


> \ MACON 
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a 


PE: 


MAP ILLUSTRATING THE MAROH TO THE SEA. 


the bridge across the Oconee. The day before, a force of the enemy, con- 
sisting mainly of Cobb’s militia, had advanced from Macon to Griswoldville, 
and attacked Walcott’s infantry brigade and a portion of Kilpatrick’s cav- 
alry, but was severely punished, losing over 2000 men. In this affair Gen- 
eral Walcott was wounded. A few days before Slocum’s occupation of 
Milledgeville, the State Legislature, then assembled at the capital, had hur- 
riedly absconded on hearing of Sherman’s approach. The panic seems to 
have spread to the citizens, and the trains out of Milledgeville were crowd- 
ed to overflowing, and at the most extravagant prices private vehicles were 
also pressed into service by the fugitives. Only a few of the Union troops 
entered Milledgeville. The magazines, arsenals, dépéts, factories, and store- 
houses, containing property belonging to the Confederate government, were 
burned; also some 1700 bales of cotton. Private dwellings were respected, 
and no instances occurred of pillage or of insult to the citizens. Sherman 
occupied the executive mansion of Governor Brown, who had not waited 
to receive the compliments of his distinguished visitor, but had removed his 
furniture, taking good care, it is said, to ship even his cabbages. 

Slocum continued his progress eastward, crossing the Oconee, when it was 
discovered that Wheeler, with a large body of Confederate cavalry, had also 
crossed, and was covering the approaches to Sandersville, to which point he 
was driven by the advancing Federal column. On the 26th the Fourteenth 
and Twentieth Corps entered the town. Howard, in the mean time, accom- 
plished the passage of the Oconee lower down, in the face of a Confederate 
cavalry force under Wayne, and proceeded to Tennille Station, opposite 
Sandersville. 

Before reaching Milledgeville, Kilpatrick had been ordered to move rap- 
idly eastward to break the railroad from Augusta to Millen, and, turning 
upon the latter place, to rescue the Union prisoners there confined. He 
skirmished with Wheeler all the way to Waynesborough, destroying there 
the railroad bridge across Brier Creek, between Augusta and Millen. But 
at Millen he found only the empty prison pens in which the Union soldiers 
had been confined. For some time past the Confederates had been remov- 
ing these prisoners to points far remote from Sherman’s line of march. But 
they had left behind the traces of their cruel neglect. The corpses of sev- 
eral of those who had died in the prison were found yet unburied on the 


SPRINGFIELD 


and three dirt pikes—but they were narrow causeways through 
otherwise impassable swamps, and were strongly guarded by artil- 
lery. The entrance of the Ogeechee River to Ossibaw Sound was 
guarded by Fort McAllister. To invest the city and to reduce this 
fort, so as to command an outlet to the sea, were the next things 
to be accomplished. Admiral Dahlgren’s fleet was awaiting Sher- 
man off Tybee, Warsaw, and Ossibaw Sounds; and, although the lat- 
ter had an abundant supply of beef-cattle and breadstuffs, still he 
held it of the utmost importance that he should connect with the 
fleet outside. Captain Duncan, one of Howard’s best scouts, had passed 
down the Ogeechee in a canoe to Dahlgren’s fleet, giving full information 
of Sherman’s present situation. But, in order to establish a line of com- 


munication with the sea by way of the Ogeechee River, it was necessary to 
reduce Fort McAllister. 


CAPITOL AT MILLEDGEVILLE. 


To Hazen’s division of the Fifteenth Corps was allotted this work. On 
the 13th of December this division crossed to the southwest bank of the 
Ogeechee. The fort was commanded by Major Anderson, who had a garri- 
son of about 200 men; it was mounted by 23 guns en barbette, and one mor- 
tar. As Hazen was crossing the Ogeechee, Generals Sherman and Howard 
went to Dr. Cheves’s rice-mill on the river bank, whence they had a full 
view of the fort. About noon they heard the guns of the fort open inland, 

and Hazen’s skirmishers were seen firing in response. 


By means of signals, Hazen was ordered to take the 


SS 


= E = 


SS 


work that day, if possible. He soon accomplished his 


mission. The guns, being en barbette, were not availa- 


ble for defense. With a loss of only about 90 men, the 


Union troops carried the work by assault and captured 


the garrison. That very night Sherman and Howard, in 


a small boat, passed down the river to the fort, and thence 


down to a steamer which during the conflict had passed 


up from the fleet within view of the army. 


VORT McALLISTER, 


1 <‘'The destruction of railroads in this campaign has been most thor- 
ough. The work of demolition on such long lines of road necessarily re- 
quires time, but the process is performed as expeditiously as possible, in 
order to prevent any serious delay of the movement of the army. The 
method of destruction is simple, but very effective. ‘Iwo ingenious in- 
struments have been made for this purpose. One of them is a clasp, 
which locks under the rail. It has a ring in the top, into which is in- 
serted a long lever, and the rail is thus ripped from the sleepers. The 
sleepers are then piled in a heap and set on fire, the rails roasting in the 
flames until they bend by their own weight. When sufficiently heated, 
each rail is taken off by wrenches fitting closely over the ends, and, by 
turning in opposite directions, it is so twisted that even a rolling-ma- 
chine could not bring it back into shape. In this manner we have de- 
stroyed thirty miles of rail which lay in the city of Atlanta, and all on the 
Augusta and Atlanta Road from the last-named place to Madison, besides 
the entire track of the Central Georgia line, from a point a few miles east 
of Macon to the station where I am now writing.” —ichols’s Story of the 
Great March. 


Decempgr, 1864. ] SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 689 


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WILLIAM B, HAZEN. 


By the route thus opened abundant supplies were soon brought from 
Hilton Head, and heavy ordnance for the reduction of Savannah. Sher- 
man’s army had already invested the city, shutting up every avenue of sup- 
ply, and the only possible way of retreat left to General Hardee, who now, 
with about 10,000 men, mostly militia, conducted the defense of Savannah, 
was in the northeast toward Charleston. On the 17th General Sherman de- 
manded the surrender of the city. He wrote to Hardee that he held all the 
avenues by which Savannah was supplied, and that if the city was surren- 
dered he would grant liberal terms to the garrison, while, if he was com- 
pelled to assault, or depend upon the slower process of starvation, he should 
feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and should make little 
effort to restrain his army, “burning to avenge the great national wrong 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| DECEMBER, 1864. 


they attach to Savannah and other large cities, which have been so promi 
nent in dragging our country into civil war.” ‘To this communication Sher- 
man added: “I inclose you a copy of General Hood’s demand for the sur- 
render of the town of Resaca, to be used by you for what it is worth.” 

General Hardee declined to surrender on the ground that he still main- 
tained his line of defense, and was in communication with his superior offi- 
cer. In order to complete the investment of Savannah on the north, and 
across the plank road on the South Carolina shore, known as the ‘‘ Union 
causeway,” it would be necessary for Sherman to throw his left across the Sa- 
vannah River. This would be scarcely safe, since the enemy still held the 
river opposite the city with gun-boats, and could easily destroy the pontoon 
bridge and isolate any force which might cross to that side. General Fos- 
ter, with Admiral Dahlgren’s co-operation, had established a division of 
troops on the narrow neck between the Coosawatchee and Tullifiny Creeks, 
at the head of Broad River, threatening the Savannah and Charleston Rail- 
road, which was within easy range of his artillery. On the 20th Sherman 
started for Port Royal by water to confer with Foster and Dahlgren. THe in- 
tended to increase the forces operating up Broad River, which would thus be 
able to break the railroad, and then turn upon the single line of retreat held 
by Hardee. He left instructions for his army commanders to prepare for an 
attack on the enemy’s lines before Savannah. 

But, before Sherman’s arrangements were concluded, Hardee evacuated the 
city, retreating to Charleston, and on the morning of the 21st the Federal 
army took possession of the enemy’s lines. The next morning Sherman, 
having returned up the Ogeechee, rode into the city of Savannah. Then, in 
a brief note to President Lincoln, Sherman thus announced the termination 
of his campaign : 

“T beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with 156 
heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about 25,000 bales of cot: 
ton.” 

Between the 16th of November and the 10th of December, Sherman’s en- 
tire army had marched 255 miles. For the greater portion of the army, the 
march really commenced at Rome and Kingston, and extended over 300 
miles. The railroads had been rendered completely useless along the line 
of march, and a belt of country from Atlanta to Savannah, thirty miles wide, 
had been exhausted of supplies. If we include the devastation involved in 
the Atlanta campaign, Sherman’s immense army had spread itself over more 
than one third of the State of Georgia. Georgia, as a feeder of the Confed- 
eracy, had been wholly annihilated. Sherman estimates the damage done 
to the state as fully $100,000,000, one fifth of which had been of use to his 


1Tt is 190 miles in a straight line from Atlanta to Savannah. 
tances on the road followed by the Twentieth Corps: 


The following is a table of dis- 


Miles 
Atlanta to Decatur .....cccsesscecaes Milledgeville to Hebron ........s0.+6. 18 
Decatur to Rockbridge........ Hebron to Sandersville ..../......005 10 
Rockbridge to Sheffield....... Sandersville to Davisboro’ ........++ 10 
Sheffield to Social Circle... 2 Davisboro’ to Louisville............+6 12 
Social Circle to Rutledge .......-....- T Louisville to Millen..........-..s000e 30 
Rutledge to Madison..........-...... ) Millen to Springfield............seee0 40 
Madison to Katonton...........eseee 20 Springfield to Savannah ............. 30 
Eatonton to Milledgeville............. 21 Atlanta to Savannah’. 2... lence. OBB 


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SHEBMAN’S ARMY ENTERING SAVANNAH. 


December, 1864. ] SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE MARCH TO THE SEA. 694 


_ 
ZZ EA 


Sa 


“HVYNNVAVS ONLLVOOVAR SALVUACAANOO 


own army, and the rest sheer waste and destruction. “This,” he adds, “may 
seem a hard species of warfare, but it brings the sad realities of war home to 
those who have been directly or indirectly instrumental in involving us in 


_ its attendant calamities.” About 7000 negroes followed the march through 


tc the coast, and General Slocum estimates that as many more joined the Fed- 
eral columns, but through weakness or old age were unable to hold out to 
the end. Over 10,000 ‘norses and mules were captured on the march. A 
large quantity of cotton, estimated at about 20,000 bales, was destroyed be- 
fore reaching Savannah. As regards the provisions captured, the estimate 
given is almost incredible, including 10,000,000 pounds of corn, and an equal 
amount of fodder. Slocum reports the capture of 1,217,527 rations of meat, 
919,000 of bread, 483,000 of coffee, 581,534 of sugar, 1,146,500 of soap, and 


692 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ DECEMBER, 1864. 


137,000 of salt. Howard estimates the breadstuffs, beef, sugar, and coffee | nearly three weeks. These obstructions were commanded by four works— 


captured by the Fifteenth and Seventeenth corps as amounting in value, at 
the government cost of rations at Louisville, to $283,202. 

The grand prize of the campaign, however, was the city of Savannah. 
This was indeed a precious “Christmas gift” to the nation. It had been 
gained—if we count out the assault on Fort McAllister—without a battle. 
The whole number of casualties on the march had not amounted to 1000 in 
killed and wounded. With Savannah were captured 25,000 bales of cot- 
ton, and, as was found on a careful reckoning, about 200 guns. The city 
was almost impregnable against a purely naval attack. Both the north 
and the south branch of the Savannah River, at the head of Elba Island, 
were obstructed by a double line of cribs, to remove which, so as to allow 
a channel in each branch a little over 100 feet wide, occupied the navy for 


* Howard’s report includes the following statistics of property captured and destroyed, negroes 
freed, and prisoners taken by the right wing : 


Negroes set free (estimated nUMDET).........ssccccecccccccccesccsvrces 3,000 
Prisoners captured.—By Fifteenth Army Corps : 
Commissioned OfMcers . ccc sccccecscccnsnsackgesapesbeuetavaaces 32 
Hon ligtad Men: s 6:51. wats ain losis. esielnicim on siciatak po enlenheah cake canes 515 547 
By Seventeenth Army Corps: 
Mommissioned officers: ccs0 > scereceseacsivenav sss emehbestiolataoese ef 2 
Pers bed TEM: 55s aren eveininrajsin/ee wni0.c'o 3 4aia/oi0'e «im slaaigangs he vee eeneaeae 117 119 
Total prisoners: CAPbULEM..1.s0<ccsse vee evuseeauslescieaccetinn ss cs 666 
Escaped Federal prisoners : 
Commisstoned: Officers tes «ses sreaeiersis steele vine Polvcdiscrmnste ranean 6 
RLIGHOG IGN «(y/eie'sisiave tants Waa .e/se vane w slata wn xererniete alee ia erersalseieinieete 43 49 
Bales of cotton: Durned i iivis sin a'e se :acei'e sis.e.0 p.e'y sis e'eine clelng elealate sisieis Bctvioisivicts 3,523 
Ocmulgee Mills, 1500. Spindles and large amount of cotton cloth 
burned, value not known. 
Subsistence captured; namely, breadstuffs, beef, sugar, and coffee, at gov- 
ernment cost of ration in Louisville..........ssccccceccscccsecccccce $283,202 
Command started from Atlanta with head cattle 1,000 
SHOOK 173 AH CAPATOD.\. 2s scien = 0 <0.60 ve eae's 10,500 11,500 
Consumed on the trip. < 5. <2 siccssceaveccews's 9,000 
Balance on hand December 18, 1864......,. Sree eaedeccrcessencion 2,500 
Horses captured.—By the Fifteenth Army Corps........seceeceeseceece 869 
By the Seventeenth Army Corps. ..:05.00. cn ceepeecasnecswurtegascee 562 931 
Mules captured.—By the Fifteenth Army Corps......scceeescecseeseece 786 - 
By the Seventeenth Army Corps: .sccsicccc asingagauiese caguarielas 1,064 1,850 
Corn.—By the Fifteenth Army Corps........sscccccccccsvecccccses Ibs. 2,500,000 
By the Seventeenth Army Corps .......ccccsccscecsvescccssage * 2,000,000 4,500,000 
Fodder.—By the Fifteenth Army Corps.......scecccesescesetsseess & 2,500,000 
By tho Seventeenth Army Corpsss.c.scecctsanccenesmeccactare * 2,000,000 4,500,000 
Miles of railroad destroyed ...iicc0:'s's cclelcanowcs ce coe coemecdemceen aden 191 


Slocum’s report gives the following estimate for the left wing: 

**Tt was thirty-four days from the date my command left Atlanta to the day supplies were re- 
ceived from the fleet. ‘The total number of rations required during this period was 1,360,000. 
Of this amount there were issued by the Subsistence Department 440,900 rations of bread, 142,473 
rations of meat, 876,800 of coffee and tea, 778,466 of sugar, 213,500 of soap, and 1,123,000 of 
salt. As the troops were well supplied at all times, if we deduct the above issues from the amount 
actually due the soldiers, we have the approximate quantities taken from the country, namely, ra- 
tions of bread, 919,000; meat, 1,217,527; coftee, 483,000; sugar, 581,534; soap, 1,146,500; 
salt, 187,000. The above is the actual saving to the government in issue of rations during the 
campaign, and it is probable that even more than the equivalent of the above supplies was obtained 
by the soldiers from the country. Four thousand and ninety (4090) valuable horses and mules 
were captured during the march, and turned over to the Quartermaster’s Department. Our trans- 
portation was in far better condition on our arrival at Savannah than it was at the commencement 
of the campaign. 

**The average number of horses and mules with my command, including those of the pontoon 
train and a part of the Michigan engineers, was fourteen thousand five hundred. We started from 
Atlanta with four days’ grain in wagons. Estimating the amount fed the animals at the regula- 
tion allowance, and deducting the amount on hand on leaving Atlanta, I estimate the amount of 
grain taken from the country at five million pounds; fodder, six million pounds; besides the for- 
age consumed by the immense herds of cattle that were driven with the different columns. It is 
very difficult to estimate the amount of damage done the enemy by the operations of the troops un- 
der my command. During the campaign one hundred and nineteen miles (119) of railroad were 
thoroughly and effectually destroyed, scarcely a tie or rail, a bridge or culvert, on the entire line 
being left in a condition to be of use again, At Rutledge, Madison, Eatonton, Milledgeville, Ten- 
nille, and Dayisboro’, machine-shops, turn-tables, dépdts, water-tanks, and much other valuable 
property was destroyed. ‘The quantity of cotton destroyed is estimated by my subordinate com- 
manders at seventeen thousand bales. A very large number of cotton-gins and presses were also 
destroyed. 

‘“Negro men, women, and children joined the column at every mile of our march, many of them 
bringing horses and mules, which they cheerfully turned over to the officers of the Quartermaster’s 
Department. I think at least fourteen thousand of these people joined the two columns at differ- 
erent points on the march ; but many of them were too old and infirm, and others too young, to en- 
dure the fatigues of the march, and were therefore left in the rear. More than one half of the 
above number, however, reached the coast with us. Many of the able-bodied men were transferred 
to the officers of the Quartermaster and Subsistence Departments, and others were employed in 
the two corps as teamsters, cooks, and servants.” 


Forts Lee and Jackson, Battery Lawton, and a water battery—mounted with 
26 heavy guns, of which 18 were Columbiads. The river is so completely 
lined with marshes that the attack in front could have no co-operation from 
troops on either side. To guard against the approach by St. Augustine 
Creek there were also formidable batteries—Turner’s Rocks, Thunderbolt, 
and Barton, with its outpost Causton’s Bluff—mounting 84 heavy cannon ; 
and obstructions were sunk in the narrow channel of the creek. But this 
entire net-work of defenses could be turned by troops landing on the Ver- 
non and Ogeechee Rivers. To prevent this, the former was closed with ob- 
structions commanded by Fort Beaulieu, 9 guns, while Big Ogeechee, in ad- 
dition to the obstructions, was guarded by Fort McAllister with 23 guns. 
On the Little Ogeechee stood Fort Rosedew, with 6 guns. In the land 
works around the city there were 116 cannon of less calibre. Altogether 
the defensive works of Savannah mounted 229 cannon. It is clear, there- 
fore, that, without a great sacrifice of life, Savannah could not have been 
captured in any other way than that adopted by General Sherman. 

In justice to General Sherman and to the United States government, it 
is necessary that we should, in our comments upon the Great March, allude 
to the conduct of the army. It must be candidly admitted that many out- 
rages were committed, or, to use the words of General Sherman, his soldiers 
“did some things they ought not to have done.” We can safely affirm, 
however, that, with the same opportunities for wantonness, no European and 
no other American army would have accomplished the march with less vio- 
lence. The only way in which outrage could have been absolutely prevent- 
ed by the commander would have been the disbandment before the march 
of every soldier who would, under strong temptation, disobey the Decalogue. 
It is simply nonsense to attribute the violence of scattered foraging parties 
to the lack of discipline in Sherman’s army. The strictest orders were giy- 
en forbidding soldiers to enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or to com- 
mit any trespass. IfGeneral Sherman could have been every where present 
these orders would have been obeyed. It must be remembered that what- 
ever supplies could in any way assist the Confederates in prolonging the 
war were a legitimate prize. In many cases there was wanton plunder. 
Many of the wealthy planters had faded aon? on the approach of Sher- 
man’s army, and had hastily concealed their treasures of gold, silver, and 
precious stones in the earth. Aided by the disclosures of the negroes, these 
places were diligently sought and rifled wherever opportunity offered. This 
gave color to extravagant reports, which had no other basis of credibility 
than the imagination of those who circulated them. But the violence actu- 
ally perpetrated was far less than, under the circumstances, might have been 
expected. While we do not exculpate the wrong, we entirely exonerate 
General Sherman in the matter. No restrictions imposed by discipline 
would have prevented the evil done; and that there was no serious want 
of discipline in Sherman’s army is clearly shown by the promptness with 
which the march was accomplished, and the perfect efficiency of the army as 
an organization when it reached Savannah. This would have been impos- 
sible if the army had not been held under restraint. There is universal and 
undisputed testimony that, in connection with the occupation of Savannah, 
there was no breach of good order.? . 


‘ In regard to this, General Sherman reports: ‘‘'The behavior of our troops in Savannah has 
been so manly, so quiet, so perfect, that I take it as the best evidence of discipline and true cour- 
age. Never was a hostile city, filled with women and children, occupied by a large army with less 
disorder, or more system, order, and good government. The same general and generous spirit of 
confidence and good feeling pervades the army which it has ever afforded me especial pleasure to 
report on former occasions.” 


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DINWIDDIE C.H1 


THE LINES AT PETERSBURG AND RIOHMOND, 


CHAPTER XIIX. 


THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 

Opening of the Siege.—Strategic Relations of Petersburg and Richmond.—The Defenses of Rich- 
mond.—The Confederate Commissariat. —'The Weldon, Southside, and Danville Railroads.— 
Birney and Wright’s Attempt on the Weldon Road. —Character of the Region. — Hill drives 
back Birney, and is repulsed.—Anderson assails Wright.—Results of the Movement.—Wilson 
and Kautz’s Cavalry Raid.—They cut the Railroads.—Are assailed, and return with Loss.— 
Results of the Expedition.—The Financial Effects of the Destruction of the Railroads. —Condi- 
tion of the Federal Army.—Early sent to the Shenandoah.—Grant demonstrates before Rich- 
mond.—Burnside’s Mine before Petersburg.—Grant resolves to assail the Confederate Works. 
—Condition of Burnside’s Corps.—He wishes to put the Colored Division in Front.—This is 
refused by Meade and Grant.—The leading Division chosen by Lot.—Delay in the Explosion 
of the Mine.—The Explosion. —Burnside’s Plan of Assault. —The Assault after the Explosion. 
—The Confederates paralyzed.—They rally.— Potter attempts to advance.—Meade orders a 
general Assault.—Advance and Repulse of the Colored Division.—Meade orders a Withdrawal. 
—Losses at the Mine.—The Opinions of the Court of Inquiry. —Grant’s Opinion as to the Causes 
of the Failure.—The Situation after the Mine Failure.—Lee re-enforces Early.— Grant again 
demonstrates North of the James.—The Operation fails. —Warren’s Movement against the Wel- 
don Railroad.—Warren holds the Road.—Hancock’s Movement upon Reams’s Station.—The 
Action. —Both Parties withdraw. — Prisoners and Deserters. —Period of Repose.—Assaults 
upon Forts Harrison and Gilmer.—Fight at Peebles’s Farm.—First Movement upon Hatcher's 
Run.—Butler’s Co-operative Movement.—The Army in Winter Quarters.—The Dutch Gap 
Canal.— Warren destroys the Weldon Railroad.—Raid of the Confederate Iron-clads.—Anoth- 
er Movement upon Hatcher’s Run. 


diss fatal misapprehension and delay of the 15th of June forfeited the 
golden opportunity when Petersburg, defended only by a mere hand- 
ful, would have fallen at a touch. During the next three days it had been 
demonstrated, at a cost of 10,000 men, that its improvised defenses had 
become so strong, and were so strongly held, as to preclude all hope of car- 
rying them by assault. This siege could be conducted only by gaining the 
avenues through which the defending army received its supplies. Rich- 
mond itself was even more impregnable to direct assault than Petersburg, 
for the elaborate system of works by which it was encircled had been the 
leisurely work of two years. The James River, coming in from the west, 
makes a sharp bend, almost a right angle, to the south. Here, on the north 
bank, at the head of navigation, stands Richmond. The river runs straight 
northward for ten miles, then turns eastward, and, after a tortuous course, 
alternating to every point of the compass, receives the Appomattox at City 
Point. The Appomattox, coming also from the west, bends northward. <At 
this bend, upon the southern bank, stands Petersburg. The Appomattox 
approaches within three miles of the James, at the point where it makes its 
eastward turn; then bends to the east, running parallel with the James, 
which at length turns southwestward to meet it. The peninsula inclosed by 
these rivers is styled Bermuda Hundred; it is of irregular shape, from six 
SN 


SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 


| 


693 


to ten miles in either direction. Here, upon the northern bank of the Ap: 
pomattox and the southern bank of the James, lay the Army of the James, 
shut in upon the landward side by the Confederate lines thrown up across 
the narrow neck of the peninsula. The Army of the Potomac lay upon the 
south bank of the Appomattox, over which had been thrown pontoon bridges, 
which, with the gun-boats, afforded ready means of connection between the 
two armies. Richmond and Petersburg were thus separated by the two 
rivers; but bridges at the two cities, and pontoons across the James ten 
miles below Richmond, enabled an army to pass without interruption from 
one to the other. The cities are connected by a railroad and highway run- 
ning parallel with the James and Appomattox at the distance of a mile or 
two. ‘The rivers, except for the space of three miles across the neck of the 
peninsula at Bermuda Hundred, effectually covered the Confederate line 
from any assault from either of the Federal armies. Had the Confederate 
works across the isthmus been taken, a way would have been opened for a 
direct assault upon the line of the railway. This, if successful, would have 
severed the connections of Richmond with the south as effectuall y as would 
have been done by the capture of Petersburg. This might easily have been 
done on the 16th, for during that day Beauregard had abandoned these 
works, and for hours they were occupied only by a few sentries. An at- 
tempt was indeed made to occupy these lines on that day ; they were held 
for hours by a mere picket-guard, and the failure to retain them forms a 
conspicuous part of the first ill-judged operations around Petersburg.) This 
opportunity lost was never again presented. Thereafter no attempt was 
made to disturb the communications between Petersburg and Richmond. 

The defenses of Richmond had long been complete. The exterior line, 
not in itself very strong except at one or two points, covered the city on the 
east at a distance varying from four to ten miles, terminating on the south 
at Chapin’s Bluff, on the north bank of the James, opposite to which, on the 
south bank, is Fort Darling, which effectually bars the passage of the river. 
From this fort a line of works was extended westward across the railroad. 
This exterior line, saving at its southern extremity, was never occupied in 
force. Kilpatrick and Sheridan, in their raids, rode through it, back and 
forth, but were brought up before the inner line. This line enveloped the 
city, at a distance of about two miles, from the northeast to the southwest, 
both extremities resting upon the James, which completed the circuit. The 
works, extending fully ten miles, were never assailed. They were never 
even seen by any part of the Union army, save the cavalry, until they were 
finally abandoned. During the long siege, really of Richmond, though ap- 
parently of Petersburg, it is doubtful whether any Federal soldier, save as 
a prisoner, ever caught sight of the spires of the Confederate capital, or 
whether the noise of the great battles which were waged for its defense were 
ever heard in its streets. 

Richmond, as fortified, was clearly invulnerable to assault, and could be 
held so long as the great army which defended it could be fed. But, as has 
been seen, the capture of Petersburg would involve the loss of the avenues 
of supply for that army, which must then, of necessity, abandon Richmond. 
But, as matters stood during the summer and autumn of 1864, the abandon- 
ment of Richmond involved the probability of the speedy disbandment of 
the Army of Northern Virginia. Not only would the abandonment of 
Richmond be looked upon as the virtual surrender of the cause, but there 
was then no point in Virginia or the Carolinas at which sufficient supplies 
could be concentrated. Richmond was the focus upon which converged all 
the lines of railway from the producing regions, which were soon practically 
reduced to portions of the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. 
What with the ravages of both armies, the conscription of every able-bodied 
man, thus reducing the area planted, and finally the general failure of crops, 
Virginia was practically exhausted.? Supplies from these distant and widely 
spread regions, and from abroad through the port of Wilmington, could 
reach the army only over the Weldon, Southside, and Danville railways. 
These, then, were the vital and assailable points of attack; and to gain these, 
not the intrenchments which guarded the two cities, or rather fortified 
camps, was the aim of Grant. ‘To hold these, not to waste his strength in 


? “On the 16th the enemy, to re-enforce Petersburg, withdrew from a part of his intrenchments 
in front of Bermuda Hundred [that they withdrew entirely from these intrenchments is shown by 
Fletcher, vol. iii., 260; referred to ante, p. 640], expecting, no doubt, to get troops from the north 
of the James to take the place of those withdrawn before we could discover it. General Butler, 
taking advantage of this, at once moved a force on the railroad between Petersburg and Richmond. 
As soon as I was apprised of the advantage thus gained, to retain it I at once ordered two divisions 
of the Sixth Corps, General Wright commanding, to report to General Butler at Bermuda Hund- 
red, of which General Butler was notified, and the importance of holding a position in advance of 
his present line urged upon him. About two o'clock in the afternoon General Butler was forced 
back to the line the enemy was forced from in the morning. General Wright, with his two divi- 
sions, joined General Butler on the morning of the 17th, the latter still holding with a strong picket 
line the enemy’s works. But, instead of putting these divisions into the enemy’s works to hold 
them, he permitted them to halt and rest some distance in the rear of his own line. Between four 
and five o’clock in the afternoon the enemy attacked and drove in his pickets, and reoccupied his 
old line.” —Grant’s Report. ‘ f 

* See Pollard, Lost Cause, 648.—In October, before Sherman’s march had cut off the supplies 
from Georgia, the chief of the Bureau of Subsistence reported to President Davis: ‘‘The commis- 
sariat is in an alarming condition. Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi are the only states where 
we have an accumulation, and from these all the armies of the Confederacy are now subsisting, to 
say nothing of the prisoners. The chief commissary of Georgia telegraphs that he can not send 
forward another pound. Alabama, under the most urgent call, has recently shipped 125,000 
pounds, but can not ship more. Mississippi is rendering all the aid possible to the command of 
General Beauregard in supplying beef: she is without bacon, South Carolina is scarcely able to 
subsist the troops at Charleston and the prisoners in the interior of the state. During my late visit 
to North Carolina I visited every section of the state for the purpose of ascertaining the true con- 
dition of affairs, and under your orders to send forward every pound of meat possible to the Army 
of Northern Virginia, and to supply the forts at Wilmington; T was unable to ship one pound to 
either Virginia or Wilmington. We have on hand in the Confederate States 4,105,048 rations of 
fresh meat, and 3,426,519 rations of beef and pork, which will subsist 300, 000 men twenty-five 
days. We are now compelled to subsist, independent of the armies of the € onfederacy, the prisoners 
of war, the Navy Department, and the different bureaus of the War Department. -This statement 
was furnished in the autumn, after the harvests had been gathered. Before that time the state of 
things could not have been better in this respect. Thus Pollard says that ‘‘at the opening of the 
campaign Lee had urged that rations for thirty days should be kept in reserve at Richmond and 
Lynchburg, yet on the 2d of May there were at Richmond rations for only two days, and on the 
23d of June rations for only thirteen days.” 


694 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JUNE, 1864, 


TENTH —— 


aT 


BATTERY BEFORE PETERSBURG 


the almost hopeless task of dislodging the beleaguering force from its posi- 
tion, was the policy of Lee. Only twice during the siege, and in both cases 
under extraordinary circumstances, was any real attempt made by either 
army upon the intrenchments of the other, and both attempts resulted in 
disaster. 

The siege of Petersburg really began immediately after the repulse of the 
assault of the 18th of June. Within two days the Union army had thrown 
up strong lines parallel to those of the Confederates. On the 21st Grant 
made his first attempt to seize or destroy the railroads. Hancock’s and 
Wright’s corps, the Second and the Sixth, were moved out of their in- 
trenchments. Hancock’s wound, received at Gettysburg, had broken out 
afresh, and Birney was now in command of the Second Corps. The object 
of the movement was to capture the lines to the Weldon Road, and, while 
holding that, to push the investment of Petersburg farther to the west. The 
region to be traversed was covered by forests and swamps filled with a dense 
undergrowth, and cut up by small creeks and runs which fall mainly south- 
ward into the streams emptying into Albemarle Sound. These had all to 
be crossed by the advancing force, while between them ran several toler- 
able roads by which the Confederates could strike the advancing columns 
in the flank. The position was, on a smaller scale, not unlike that of the 
Wilderness. Birney, having the advance, soon came upon the enemy, post- 
ed behind earth-works three miles south of Petersburg, but beyond the line 
of the regular intrenchments. A slight attempt was made upon these by 
Barlow’s division of the Second Corps; but this was soon recalled, and a 
position taken up for the night. Next morning Wright, who had marched 
in the rear of Birney, was pushed forward, with the design of taking up a 


GERSHOM MOTT, 


SS ed 


position on his left, reaching to the railroad. While this movement, some: 
what slowly made, was going on, Birney was ordered to swing his left 
around, so as to take the Confederate works in the flank. This carried him 
directly away from Wright, and left a wide gap between the two corps, in- 
creased every moment by Wright’s movement. Hill, who had drawn to 
this quarter the bulk of his corps, availed himself of the opportunity thus 
presented, and flung a strong column into the opening, striking each Union 
corps upon the flank. The weightiest blow fell upon the Second. Bar- 
low’s division, on the left, was doubled upon itself, and fell back in confu- 
sion, losing heavily; Mott, the next on the right, was then struck, and re- 
treated with loss; this uncovered Gibbon’s right, from which whole regi- 
ments were swept away. But the corps was finally reformed upon its orig- 
inal line, where it was assailed. But the fierce Confederate swoop had ex- 
hausted its impetus. The assault was repelled; and Hill’s columns with- 
drew as suddenly as they had advanced, carrying with them many hundreds 
of prisoners and several guns. Meanwhile another Confederate column had 
struck Wright’s corps, and forced back its advanced line. But in the even- 
ing the whole line was reformed and intrenched for the night, while the 
Confederates intrenched themselves upon the railroad. The next morning, 
the 23d, Wright sent a small reconnoitring force to the railroad, which was 
reached at a point below the Confederate position. But hardly had they cut 
the telegraph wires when Anderson, at the head ‘of Longstreet’s division, 
fell upon their flank, drove them away, capturing many prisoners, and as- 
sailed the main line, which was withdrawn to the cover of the breastworks. 

This attempt, which cost from 8300 to 4000 men in killed, wounded, and 
prisoners, resulted in no advantage. The line of investment was indeed 
somewhat extended to the left; but, as the railroad was not reached, the ex- 
tension was of no use; and after it had been held without molestation for a 


DAVID B. BIRNEY 


ee 


June, 1864.] 


SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 


BULLDING WORKS. 


few days, most of it was abandoned, and the advanced force was withdrawn 
to its former intrenchments in front of the Confederate lines.: 
Simultaneously with this infantry movement, a cavalry expedition, con- 
sisting of Wilson’s and Kautz’s divisions, 8000 strong, was sent against the 
railroads. On the 22d they struck the Weldon Road at Reams’s Station, ten 
miles below Petersburg, seven miles from the point where Birney and Smith 
were engaged. Having burned the dépét and water-tank, and destroyed a 
considerable stretch of the road, they pushed on for the Southside Road, 
which they struck at a point fifteen miles from Petersburg. Kautz rode 
forward to Burkesville, the junction of the Southside and Danville roads, 
50 miles from Petersburg, where he began to destroy the track. Wilson 
pushed ten miles down the Southside Road, which he destroyed in his way. 
Here he was met by Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry, which he defeated after a brisk 
fight, and thence moved on to rejoin Kautz. Both divisions then pushed 
down the Danville Road, damaging it for eighteen miles to Roanoke Bridge. 
This was found defended by a considerable body of militia, hastily gathered 


* It is singular that this costly attempt upon the Weldon Road is not even alluded to in Grant’s 
otherwise comprehensive Report. For the losses we are compelled to resort mainly to conjecture. 
Swinton, p. 512, states that the Second Corps lost 2500 prisoners, and the Sixth several hundreds. 
Ido not find the authority upon which the statement is made, and think it an over-estimate. The 
semi-official statement furnished to Coppeé (Grant and his Campaigns, 399) gives the entire loss 
in the Army of the Potomac from June 20 to July 30 at 5316, of whom 605 were killed, 2494 
wounded, and 2217 missing. It does not certainly appear whether this includes the losses in the 
cavalry expedition of Wilson and Kautz, in which Lee claims to have taken 1000 prisoners ; and 
whether among these are to be included several hundred negroes who had followed this expedition 
on its return, does not appear. Although in these forty days there was no active battle, there was 
continued picket-firing between the lines. Burnside, whose corps was most exposed, gives ( Testi- 
mony, Battle of Petersburg, 144) the loss in his corps during this time at 1138 men killed and 
wounded. The other corps undoubtedly lost many ; probably the entire loss in the trenches was 
about 1500 (for the eighteen days following August 1 it was 868). Assuming that in the foregoing 
5315 are included the losses of the cavalry expedition, and that these amounted, exclusive of cap- 
tured negroes, to 1000, and that the losses in the trenches were 1500, there remain 2836 for this 
attempt upon the railroad, of whom probably more than 1800 were prisoners, leaving about 400 for 
the captures from the cavalry. From the best accessible data, I judge the foregoing estimates to 
be a close approximation to the truth. 


from the adjacent parts of Virginia and North Carolina. The whole region 
was now aswarm, and on the 24th the expedition, having accomplished its 
purpose, set out on its return. At Stony Creek, on the Weldon Road, they 
had a sharp but indecisive action with a force of Confederate cavalry. 
Finding these too strong to be dislodged, by a wide detour to the left they 
struck for Reams’s Station, which was supposed to be in possession of the 
Union forces. But, instead of this, it was held by a strong force of Confed- 
erate cavalry and infantry, sent down from Petersburg after the abandon- 
ment of Birney’s and Wright’s attempt. Wilson was forced to fall back in 
every direction, losing all his artillery and trains. The two divisions be- 
came separated, and only succeeded in making their way back within the 
Federal lines in straggling parties and most wretched plight, having lost at 
least 1000 men.? 

Although this expedition terminated so disastrously, it had accomplished 
much for which it was undertaken. The destruction of the railroads was so 
thorough, that, urgent as was the need of their repair, it required twenty- 
three days to accomplish this. Lee had then but thirteen days’ rations for 
his army. To feed them the commissary general had to offer the market 
price for wheat still standing uncut or shocked in the field. This market 
price was then twenty dollars a bushel in Confederate money; for specie it 
could be bought for a dollar. The price rose almost at a bound to forty 
dollars. That is, Confederate paper, which had for months been received 
and paid at the rate of twenty dollars for one in specie, fell suddenly to 
forty, and thence steadily declined to sixty for one. For months, indeed, it 
would have wholly lost all recognized value had not the government steadi- 


* Lee, in his dispatch, says: ‘‘In the various conflicts with the enemy’s cavalry in their late ex- 
pedition against the railroads, besides their killed and wounded left on the field, 1000 prisoners, 13 
pieces of artillery, and 80 wagons and ambulances were taken.” As before noted, we think that 
among the prisoners are included some hundreds of negroes who had attached themselves to the 
expedition. 


696 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [J UNE, 1864, 


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SIGNAL STATION, 


ly sold gold at nearly or quite that rate. Bankruptcy of the government had 
quite as much to do with the sudden collapse of the Confederacy as the de- 
feats which it suffered in the field. For a time, indeed, under a rigid des- 
potism, soldiers can be kept in the ranks without pay. The Confederate 
government succeeded in doing this for months. Indeed, it is said that 
“there were thousands of soldiers who had not received a cent of pay in the 
last two years of the war.” When a“ loaf of bread was worth three dollars 
in Richmond, and a soldier’s monthly pay would hardly buy a pair of 
socks,” it mattered little whether this nominal pay was ever received. But 
to feed, clothe, and equip an army requires money. Any government which 
has exhausted all its resources, actual and possible, must go down. The 
bankruptcy of the French monarchy under Louis XVI. was the immediate 
cause of its overthrow; for without this, the States-General, which inaugu- 
rated the Revolution, would never have been convened. This raid of Wilson 
hurried on the bankruptcy of the Confederacy. But for this it might have 
had a longer lease of life, with all the innumerable possibilities of the chap- 
ter of accidents. Grant, therefore, looking back after a year, was justified in 
affirming that “the damage suffered by the enemy in this expedition more 
than compensated for all the losses we sustained.” 

But for the time the attitude of the Army of Northern Virginia was more 
defiant, and seemingly more threatening than at any former period during 
the campaign. It was, after all its losses, nearly as strong as when it moved 
upon the Wilderness; stronger than when it foiled Grant at Spottsylvania, 
held him in check upon the North Anna, and defeated him upon the Chicka- 
hominy. The efficiency of the Federal army, in the mean while, had been 
greatly impaired. Its numbers, perhaps, had been kept up, but it had lost 


well-nigh half of its best officers and men; the remainder had suffered fear- | 
fully by their arduous labors under a fierce midsummer sun, through a) 
drought of unexampled intensity, with a sky of brass overhead, and a soil | 


of ashes underfoot. Not a few of the recruits, brought in by the enormous 


SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 


697 


Lee, indeed, was now so confident of the invulnerability of his position, 
that he ventured to detach a quarter of his army from Petersburg and Rich- 
mond to threaten once more the Federal capital. Hunter’s eccentric retreat 
from Lynchburg had left the Valley of the Shenandoah bare of troops. The 
defenses of Washington had been stripped of almost every man to re-enforce 
the Army of the Potomac. Lee, reasoning justly from all former experience, 
was warranted in believing that a demonstration upon Washington would 


bounties then paid, were poor material for soldiers; and even the good ma- | 


terial needed time to transform them into efficient soldiers. 
veterans lacked much of their old determination. 


Even the tried | 
More than one leader of | 


a storming-party in the fresh assaults upon the outworks of Petersburg was. 


compelled to admit that his men did not charge as they had done a month 
before. But when, in the Weldon movement, the Second Corps, which had 


come to be recognized as the best in the army, fell back, division after divi- 


sion, almost routed by an inferior foe, losing twice as many in prisoners as 


‘in killed and wounded, it became clear that there must be a pause for reor- 


ganization and recuperation. Five weeks passed before another active Op- 
eration was undertaken, and that also resulted in disaster. 
i oe nw 1! 


* Pollard, Lost Cause, 647. For the effect of Wilson’s raid upon Confederate finances, see 
Ibid., 647, 652, 
80 


induce the recall of a large part of the force in his front, and not improbably 
even to the entire abandonment of the siege. arly had been already sent 
with a part of his corps to check the advance of Hunter upon Lynchburg. 
Now re-enforced by a part of Longstreet’s corps, he was directed to march 
down the Valley of the Shenandoah to the Potomac, thus separating him by 
a perilous distance from the main army. This movement failed in its main 
purpose of causing Grant to detail any considerable part of his force from 
the lines before Petersburg. The Sixth Corps was sent thence, and to these 
was added the Nineteenth, under Emory, which had just arrived at Hamp- 
ton Roads from the unlucky Red River expedition of Banks, and, without 
even disembarking, sailed up the Potomac to Washington. Grant’s army 
was thus reduced by about the same number of men which Early had taken 
from that of Lee. Of the career of Early in this expedition, ending months 
after, in the annihilation of his forces, we shall speak hereafter. 

As the month of July drew toward a close, signs of movement began to 
appear in the Federal army upon the James. Butler had, simultaneously 
with the attempt on the railroads, crossed a division over to the north bank 
of that river, which had intrenched itself securely at Deep Bottom, ten miles 
below Richmond. This position formed a point from which a force might, 
upon occasion, be directed against Richmond. Grant now planned an oper: 
ation with a twofold object. The immediate purpose was by means of a 
cavalry expedition to cut the railroads north of Richmond, and thus make 
Lee wary of the situation of Early, who, having failed in his demonstration 
upon Washington, was lying in the Valley of the Shenandoah. The sec- 
ondary purpose was, by apparently threatening a movement against Rich- 
mond, to force Lee to withdraw a considerable force from Petersburg, which 
was then to be assaulted. On the night of the 26th of July, Hancock’s 
corps, with three divisions of cavalry, crossed the James. On the two fol- 
lowing days offensive movements were made in such force as to convince 
Lee that Richmond was to be assailed. He brought over five of his eight 
divisions, leaving but three at Petersburg. This force was sufficient to pre- 
vent the Union cavalry from moving to the railroad, but its withdrawal 
across the James seemed to promise success to a sudden attack upon the 
lines at Petersburg, to be opened by the explosion of a mine which had been 
excavated under a fort which formed a part of the Confederate works. 

This mine had been prepared with the consent rather than the approval 
of Meade. Burnside’s corps had held the line upon the right. At one point 
his intrenchments approached within a hundred and forty yards of the Con- 
federate works. Just in the rear of the advanced position was a deep hol- 
low, where work could be carried on unseen by the enemy. One of Burn- 
side’s regiments was made up of miners from Pennsylvania. Some of the 
soldiers suggested that a mine should be dug right under this Confederate 
fort, perched upon the brow overhanging the hollow. The talk passed from 
grade to grade, until it reached Colonel Pleasants, the commander of the 
regiment, by whom it was communicated to his division commander, and by 
him to Burnside, who at once gave permission for the commencement of the 
work. So little confidence had Meade in its success that only the slightest 
facilities were afforded for its execution. Nothing better than empty crack- 
er-boxes were furnished to carry out the earth. In spite of all obstacles, 
Pleasants pushed on the work. It was begun on the 25th of June, and was 
finished on the 23d of July. It consisted of a main shaft four or five feet in 
diameter, five hundred and twenty feet long, terminating in lateral branches 
forty feet in either direction, Four days after, Grant having finally resolved 
upon assaulting Petersburg, orders were given to charge the mine with 
8000 pounds of powder.. Burnside asked for 12,000 pounds, but the engi- 
neers at headquarters decided that this was too much. 

Daybreak of the 30th was the time fixed upon for the attack. The mine 
was to be exploded at half past three. Burnside was to dash through the 


OARBYING POWDER TO THE MINE, 


“ 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


698 


[JULY, 1864. 


breach, and seize a crest a few hundred yards in the rear, which was appa 
rently unfortified. This crest, known as Cemetery Hill, commanded Peters- 
burg. Warren, upon Burnside’s right, was to mass his whole corps, except 
just enough to hold his intrenchments, and join in the assault. Ord, who 
had replaced Gillmore in the command of the Eighteenth Corps of the Army 
of the James, was to support Burnside on the left. Thus fully 50,000 men 
were appointed for the attack. Hancock, moreover, who had been secretly 
withdrawn from the north side of the James, was to hold himself in readi- 
ness to support the assaulting column; while Sheridan, with his whole cay- 
alry corps, was to move against the enemy’s left. It seemed that the opera- 
tion could hardly fail of success, for the entire Confederate force holding the 
intrenchments at Petersburg was barely 15,000 men. 

But in the execution of this well-conceived plan every thing went awry. 
Burnside had proposed to put Ferrero’s division of colored troops in the 
front. They had not as yet been engaged, and were comparatively fresh, 
while the other divisions had performed arduous duty during the whole 
campaign, and ever since they had occupied the position before Petersburg 
had been so close to the enemy that no man could safely raise his head 
above the parapet. In forty days, without being engaged in any formal 
action, they had lost more than 1100 men out of 9000. They had acquired 
the habit of seeking shelter, and it could be hardly expected that they would 
at once forego the habit, and be efficient in the fierce and sudden charge 
upon which depended success. The colored division, on the contrary, had 
been for several weeks trained for just such an enterprise. Meade disap- 
proved of the plan of putting the colored troops in the front. He averred 
that, should the operation prove unsuccessful, it would be said that these 
men had been pushed ahead because we did not care for them. Burnside 
was, however, so urgent that the question was referred to Grant, who agreed 
with Meade. Then Burnside left it to be decided by lot which of his three 
white divisions should lead. The chance fell upon Ledlie’s, the poorest 
probably, certainly the worst commanded, of all. The fuse was lighted at 
the appointed moment. An hour passed, and no explosion followed. Two 


brave men, Lieutenant Douty and Sergeant Rees, volunteered to creep into 


the mine and ascertain the cause. They found that the fuse had parted 
within fifty feet of the magazine. They relighted it, and had just emerged 
from the mine when the explosion took place. A solid mass of earth, 
mingled with timbers, rose two hundred feet into the air, and fell sullenly 
back, leaving where the fort had stood a crater two hundred feet long, sixty 
feet wide, and thirty deep. At the instant the guns from all the batteries 
opened fire. The enemy were taken completely by surprise, and replied but 
feebly, and this feeble fire was soon almost silenced. Ledlie’s men dashed 
over the lip of the crater, and plunged wildly into its depths. Between 
them and the commanding crest there was nothing but the rough, steep sides 
of the crater. A determined rush would have crowned the crest with the 
loss of hardly a man. } 

Burnside’s original plan of assault, submitted to Meade four days before, 
was judiciously conceived. The fort occupied a re-entering angle where 
the Confederate intrenchments receded from the general direction of the 
lines. This fort being demolished, not only were the defenses pierced, but 
the works to the right and left were taken in reverse. Believing that his 
colored division might be relied upon for a vigorous charge, he proposed 
that it should be massed into two close columns; as soon as the heads of 
these had passed through the breach caused by the explosion, the two lead- 
ing regiments of each were to sweep to the right and left, seizing the ene- 
my’s lines, while the remainder of the columns should dash straight forward 
upon Cemetery Hill, to be followed by the other divisions as rapidly as they 
could be thrown in. The crest gained, the colored division was to push 
right into the town. He seems to have supposed that his corps was suffi- 
cient for the assault, merely suggesting that the other corps should co-oper- 
ate indirectly, and be in readiness to hold the crest, while he pushed forward 
toward Petersburg.! But the refusal of Meade to permit the colored divi- 


‘ The sending the whole of the Ninth Corps to Cemetery Hill would, says Burnside, ‘‘ involve 
the necessity of relieving these divisions by other troops before the movement, and of holding col- 
ums of other troops in readiness to take our place on the crest in case we gain it and sweep down 


Juxy, 1864. ] 


sion to take the advance materially changed Burnside’s plans; and Meade’s 
general order, issued on the evening before the assault, was so worded as ap- 
parently to ignore the movement to the right and left, or at least to leave 
the seizure of the lines to be performed by Warren and Ord.!' There was 
one important part of the order of Meade with which Burnside failed to 
comply. He directed that Burnside should “prepare his parapets and abatis 
for the passage of the columns.” Nothing of the kind was done. Burnside 


declares that “this part of the order was necessarily inoperative, because of 
the lack of time and the close proximity of the enemy, the latter of which 
rendered it impossible to remove the abatis from the front of our line with- 
out attracting not only a heavy fire of the enemy, but letting him know ex- 
actly what we were doing.” Thus it was that the only approach to the 
breach was by two crooked covered ways, only wide enough to admit the 
passage of two to four men abreast.” 

The explosion of the mine took the enemy completely by surprise. Hard- 
ly had the concussion ceased when the head of Ledlie’s division began to 
move for the breach. Climbing the rim, they saw before them the deep cra- 
ter, its sides of loose sand, from which protruded masses of clay, mingled 


with beams and timbers, the ruins of the fort. It presented an obstacle over 


which it was impossible to pass in military order. Into this the men pressed 
and huddled in inextricable confusion. 
for a space on each side of the chasm. Into these the troops spread them- 
selves, and, although as yet no fire was opened upon them, they sought shel- 


ter, and refused to move. Brigade after brigade poured in, until the crater 


was crowded with a disorganized mass. A single regiment climbed the slope, 
and advanced a few hundred yards toward the crest, to seize which was the 
first object of the assault, but, seeing no others following them, fell back into 
the shelter of the crater and the abandoned Confederate lines. 
passed, the confusion growing momentarily greater. Ledlie all this time was 
safely ensconced in a bomb-broof in the rear of the Union lines, which he 
hardly left fora moment. In the mean while the enemy, recovering from 
his first astonishment, began to plant batteries so as to sweep the approaches 
to the crater, toward and upon each side of which Burnside’s divisions were 
how pressing. Potter, on the right, endeavored to extricate his division 
from the crowded gulf and gain the crest in its rear. But he found the way 
blocked up by Ledlie’s men lying in the shelter of the works which they 
had seized, and from which they made no attempt to advance. Potter at 
length got two or three regiments across, and had formed them into some- 
thing like order. It was now six o'clock, an hour and a quarter after the 
explosion. Meade, who had taken his position a mile from the scene of ac- 
tion, imperfectly informed of what was going on, sent orders to Burnside to 
push his men, white and black, forward at all hazards; to lose no time in 
making formations, but to rush for the crest. Ferrero’s colored division 
dashed forward gallantly toward the crater, although the approach was swept 
by a heavy cross-fire right and left. A part of these troops rushed straight 
for the chasm and plunged into it, filling it so that there was barely stand- 
ing-room. Some of them pressed through the troops near the crater, par- 
tially formed, and charged toward the crest, capturing two or three hundred 
prisoners—the only semblance of success on this fatal day. But they were 
met by a counter-charge, and broke and fled in utter confusion, sweeping 
back in their flight many of the white troops. It was clear that all chance 
of success was past. Orders had been given to Warren and Ord to sup- 
port Burnside; these were countermanded, and at a quarter to ten Burnside 
was directed to abandon the erater and withdraw to his intrenchments. 
Burnside was chagrined at this order, He still hoped against hope that he 
could carry the crest. Ord, who had advanced a brigade of his division, de- 
clared that this was impossible, and the order to cease all further efforts was 
reiterated. 

But to withdraw now was a work of difficulty and danger. The space 
over which the troops must retire was now swept by a furious fire of mus- 
ketry and artillery. The men within the crater were sheltered by the de- 
clivity from a direct fire; but the Confederates had planted mortars, from 
which shells were rained down among the densely packed masses. To re- 
main was as perilous as to retreat, more perilous than it would have been 
to advance. ‘The troops swarmed out in squads, losing fearfully on the way. 
The enemy charged fiercely down to the edge of the crater, and were re- 
pulsed; a second charge was made; the whole mass broke and fled. It 


it. It would, in my opinion, be advisable, if we succeed in gaining the crest, to throw the colored 
division right into the town. here is a necessity for the co-operation, at least in the way of artil- 
lery, by the troops on our right and left. Of the extent of this General Meade will necessarily be 
the judge. I think the chances of success in a plan of this kind are more than even.” —Burnside, 
however, had good reason to avoid more than a mere suggestion as to the employment of “ther 
corps. Nearly a month before, when asked for his opinion as to the practicability of making an as- 
sault in front of his lines, he had said: ‘If the assault be delayed until the completion of the mine, 
I think we should have a more than eyen chance of success. If the assault be made now, I think 
we have a fair chance of success, provided my corps can make the attack, and it is left to me to say 
when and how the other two corps shall come to my support.” Meade replied, somewhat curtly: 
“The recent operations in your front,” that is, the mine, ‘as you are aware, though sanctioned by 
me, did not originate in any orders from these headquarters. Should it, however, be determined to 
employ the army under my command in offensive operations, I shall exercise the prerogative of my 
position to control and direct the same, receiving gladly, at all times, any suggestions which you 
may think proper to make. I consider these remarks necessary in consequence of certain sugges- 
tions which you have thought proper to attach to your opinion, acceding to which in advance would 
not, in my judgment, be consistent with my position as commanding general of this army.” 

* “Major General Burnside will spring his mine, and his assaulting columns will immediately 
move rapidly upon the breach, seize the crest in the rear, and effect a lodgment there. He will be 
followed by Major General Ord, who will support him on the right, directing his movement to the 
crest indicated, and by Major General Warren, who will support him on the left.” Meade, how- 
ever, says: ‘‘General Burnside submitted for my consideration a plan of attack of which I never 
disapproved. The only question of difference was in regard to the troops to be employed. I never 
objected to the handling of his troops ; I only objected to the colored troops being placed in the ad- 
vance. General Burnside afterward seemed to be under the impression that I objected to all of his 
secs But as to his tactical formation, and what he was to do with his troops, I made no ob- 
jection, 

‘ y Officers attribute mainly to this neglect to remove the abatis and parapets the disastrous 
result of the operation. This forms one of the four grounds upon which the Court of Inquiry cen- 
sured General Burnside, 


SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 


The enemy abandoned their lines 


So an hour 


- 


699 


was now past noon. - For eight hours the men had been crowded, without 
water, under a fierce July sun, within that narrow slaughter-pen. This dis- 
astrous attempt cost 4000 men, of whom 1900 were prisoners, who surren- 
dered rather than run the fierce gauntlet of fire. In Burnside’s corps of 
hardly 15,000 men, the loss was 3828. With the exception of a single bri- 
gade of Ord’s corps, none of the 50,000 men who had been prepared for this 
assault, save Burnside’s corps, were put into action. Burnside had no au- 
thority to call upon Warren or Ord, and Meade delayed until too late to or- 
der them into action. 

This affair of the mine was made the subject of searching investigation 
by a Court of Inquiry and by the Congressional Committee. Their conclu- 
sions as to the causes of the failure were somewhat different. The court 
found that this was owing to the injudicious formation of the troops, the 
movement being made by flank instead of extended front; to the halting of 
the troops in the crater instead of going forward to the crest when there was 
no fire of consequence from the enemy; that some parts of the assaulting 
column were not properly led; and to the want of a competent common 
head at the scene of assault to direct affairs as occurrences should demand. 
They mildly censured Burnside for all except the last of these, and sharply 
censured Ledlie and Ferrero for absolute inefliciency, if not cowardice in, 
keeping themselves habitually in a bomb-proof instead of being present at 
the assault. The Congressional Committee attribute the failure primarily 
to the refusal of Meade, sanctioned by Grant, to permit the colored division 
to lead the assault, and generally to the fact that “the plans and suggestions 
of the general who had devoted his attention for so long a time to the sub- 
ject, who had carried out to a successful completion the project of mining 
the enemy’s works, and who had carefully selected and drilled his troops for 
the purpose of securing whatever advantages might be attainable from the 
explosion of the mine, should have been so entirely disregarded by a gen- 
eral who had evinced no faith in the successful prosecution of that work, 
had aided it by no countenance or open approval, and had assumed the en- 
tire direction and control only when it was completed, and the time had 
come for reaping any advantages that might be derived from it.” Grant, 
in his testimony, attributes the disaster to the utter inefficiency of the divi- 
sion commanders, and especially of the one who was to lead the advance of 
the attacking columns. Meade’s order, he says, was all that was required; 
“if the troops had been properly commanded, and been led in accordance 
with this order, we should have captured Petersburg, with all the artillery, 
and a good portion of its support, without the loss of five hundred men. 
There was a full balf hour when there was no fire against our men, and they 
could have marched past the enemy’s intrenchments just as they could in 
the open country; but that opportunity was lost in consequence of the di- 
vision commanders not going with their men, but allowing them to go into 
the enemy’s intrenchments and spread themselves there without going on 
farther, thus giving the enemy time to collect and organize against them. 
If they had marched through to the crest of that ridge they would have tak- 
en every thing in the rear. I do not think there would have been any op: 
position at all to our troops had that been done.” Although Grant after- 
ward believed that, if Burnside had been allowed to put his colored division 
in the advance, “it would have been a success,” he still thought his own re- 
fusal and that of Meade to permit this was at the time right and proper. 
‘We had,” he says, “ but one division of colored troops in the whole army 
about Petersburg at that time, and I do not think it would have been prop- 
er to put them in front, for nothing but success would have justified it. The 
cause of the disaster was simply the leaving the passage of orders from one 
to another down to an inefficient man. I blame his seniors, also, for not 
seeing that he did his duty, all the way up to myself.” He thought this 
commander the poorest of all; he knew that he had been chosen simply by 
lot; yet he adds, “I did nothing in regard to it.” This great effort, for 
which such abundant preparations had been made, was conducted without 
any common head. Although the lieutenant general and the second in com: 
mand were all the while close at hand, neither gave any practical orders 
until the crisis was past. Neither even took adequate measures to know 
what had been done or left undone. They seem to have thought success so 
certain that they neglected all precaution to secure it. It is inexplicable 
that, out of the 50,000 men who stood drawn up in battle order for this very 
purpose, not a third were ordered to advance for the hours during which 
the operation continued. In Warren’s front the fire of the enemy was si- 
lenced, and yet he was never permitted to move a man from his lines 
‘Thus terminated in disaster what promised to be the most successful as- 
sault of the campaign.”? It cost more than 4000 men to the assailants, while 
the entire loss to the Confederates, including the regiment blown up in the 
fort, and the prisoners captured by the colored division, were hard] y a quar- 
ter as many, 

The mine enterprise had been undertaken under a conjuncture of favor: 
able circumstances, a recurrence of which could not be looked for. It had 
failed utterly and disastrously. The failure had demonstrated that the 
works about Petersburg could not be carried by direct assault upon their 
strong centre. But the whole line necessary for the defense of the two 
cities was so extended that it seemed certain that there must be weak points 
somewhere, and that these points were to be found at the extremities, 
Grant had thrown up works opposite those of the enemy, in front of Peters- 
burg, so strong that they could be held by a fraction of his army, leaving 
the bulk of it free to operate upon either flank of the Confederate lines, 
These lines nominally extended from the north side of Richmond around to 
the James, thence to and around Petersburg. As finally developed north- 


? Grant’s Report. 


700 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


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Avaust, 1864 ] 


SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 


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ward to Hatcher's Run, their whole extent from the north of Richmond to 
the south of Petersburg was forty miles. But Grant, in placing his army 
on the south side of the James, had abandoned all purpose of assailing, or 
even menacing Richmond from the north or east. The works immediately 
around the Confederate capital were therefore held only by Ewell, who had 
been disabled from active service in the field. The garrison of Richmond 
was really nothing more than a body of militia, nominally numbering about 
10,000; but of these there were never during the summer 5000 reported as 
present for duty. During the whole siege, indeed, the gay people of the 
Confederate capital—and Richmond was never so gay as during this period 
—hever saw a regiment of the veteran troops who were defending it. 

The real line which Lee had to hold began upon the James River, ten 
miles below Richmond. Here, at Chapin’s Bluff, on the north bank, and 
Fort Darling, opposite on the south bank, strong works had been erected, 
Thence to Petersburg the distance is fifteen miles. But this space, as has 
been shown, was protected by the two rivers, and by the works across the 
narrow neck of Bermuda Hundred. So perfect were the natural defenses 
of this space of fifteen miles that it was never occupied in force. It could 
be assailed only by the narrow isthmus, During the whole siege this space 
was never even menaced. At the time of the mine affair a demonstration 
here was suggested, but the idea was pronounced impracticable. Lee's 
Army of Northern Virginia was then posted in two great divisions: the 
left, under Longstreet, who was slowly recovering from the wound received 
in the Wilderness, at Chapin’s Bluff; the right, with which was Lee, at 
Petersburg. An attack any where upon the centre, from Petersburg to 
Fort Darling, being out of the question, Grant was shut up to the alterna- 
tive of assailing one flank or both of the Confederate lines; that is, to move 
upon the left from Deep Bottom, where a part of Butler’s force had a secure 
lodgment, up the north bank of the James, and thus threaten Richmond di- 
rectly, or to operate upon the right flank, assailing, not Petersburg directly, 
but the railroads whereby the Confederate armies were mainly fed... Grant’s 
theory of operations was to make a strong demonstration upon one flank, 
and then to follow it up with a movement upon the other, each being made in 
such force as to be converted into a real attack should circumstances warrant. 
It was assumed throughout that the enemy could not strengthen one flank 
without greatly weakening the other. The capture of Richmond, though im- 
portant, was still a secondary consideration, for the Confederate army occu- 
pying Petersburg would still remain to be destroyed before any decisive ad- 
vantage was gained; whereas, if the railroads were destroyed or seized, 
the enemy, deprived of sustenance, must become a certain prize. Hence 


> It has indeed been suggested that the works in front of Petersburg might have been operated 
against by a system of regular approaches. ‘* Two saps,” it is said, ‘ might haye been run, and, 
in the course of a month, there is every likelihood that the Confederate line might have been car- 
nea.” But during that month the enemy would haye had ample time to fortify an inner line to 
which he could fall back, and so the work would have to be repeated. Lee was too accomplished 
an engineer to neglect such an obvious precaution. When, in the end, the line of works, having 
been almost stripped of troops, was carried, there was found an inner line before which the oyer- 
whelming Union force was held in check. This inner line was never actually carried. It was 
abandoned by the Confederates when defeats in another quarter had rendered the abandonment of 
Petersburg a necessity. ‘Those who suggest this course quite overlook the essential difference he- 
tween the siege of a fortress, the capture of whose works involve the loss of every thing, and oper- 
ations against a line defended by a series of parallel or concentric works, which may be continued 
to an: aumber, the seizure of any one of which involves only the cain of a few rods of space, 


8 P 


CONFEDERATE WORKS AT HATCHER'S RUN. 


| Grant’s main efforts were always directed against the enemy’s right, while 
Lee, equally aware of the nature of the case, massed the bulk of his force in 
the works around Petersburg, leaving at Chapin’s Bluff hardly more than a 
corps of observation, yet always ready to strengthen it whenever a menace 
was made in that quarter. 

The terrain south of Petersburg presented great natural obstacles for at- 
tack, and furnished admirable facilities for an offensive defense. The roads 
radiate like the sticks of an expanded fan. First running south is the Je- 
rusalem Plank Road. This was now in the possession of the Union force. 
Next, parallel to it, is the Weldon Railroad; then come several minor roads, 
and then the Boydton Plank Road running southwest; and, lastly, the South- 
side Railroad, running almost west. Hatcher's Run, a small stream thread- 
ing through swamps and thickets, flows eastwardly from near the Southside 
Railroad, crossing the Boydton Plank Road, when it bends southward, form- 
ing a sort of wet ditch to the south side of Petersburg, at a distance of six 
miles. The Confederate works closely encircled Petersburg until they reach- 
ed the Boydton Plank Road, which they then followed to Hatcher’s Run, 
crossing it and continuing for a space along its southern bank. They thus 
effectually covered the Southside Railroad for a space of many miles. To 
reach this vital artery the assailants must pass westward clear around the 
Confederate lines, and then turn northwest, involving a march of at least 
thirty miles by any practicable roads. A column making this march was 
exposed to a blow upon its flank from any one of the roads leading from 
Petersburg. The Confederates could sally from their intrenchments, strike 
any exposed part of the column, and return, in case of check, to their forti- 
fied position. The Union lines followed the general course of those of the 
enemy. But the complete development of both was a work of months, 
Karly in August the Confederate intrenchments had only reached the Wel- 
don Railroad, while the extreme left of the Federal line was on the Jerusalem 
Plank Road. 

After the repulse of the mine assault, Lee felt his position so strong as to 
warrant him in detaching re-enforcements to Karly, who, having given up 
the invasion of Maryland, was still hovering in the Valley of the Shenan- 
doah. Only Kershaw’s division was actually dispatched, although orders 
were ostentatiously given that Anderson, who yet commanded Longstreet’s 
corps, should take the command. This would leave the north bank of the 
James only weakly defended, and Grant perceived in this a favorable ocea- 
sion to menace Richmond. On the 18th of August, Hancock, with the See- 
ond Corps, and Birney, who had replaced Smith, and now commanded the 
‘Tenth, followed by Grego’s cavalry division, were sent across the James. 
To mask the movement, Hancock’s force was embarked on transports, which 
were ostentatiously towed down the river as though their destination was 
Fortress Monroe, and thence up the Potomac to Washington. But, as soon 
as darkness set in, their course was reversed, and next morning, after some 
vexatious delays, they were landed at Deep Bottom, whence they advanced 
in the direction of Richmond. In the afternoon they came upon the ene- 
my’s intrenched line, upon the right of which an attack was made by 
Barlow with two of Hancock’s divisions. This was vigorously repelled, 
and nothing was effected. Birney, on their left, gained some slight advan- 
tage. During the four succeeding days a serics of brisk but undecisive en: 


~J 
co) 
bo 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ AUGUST, 1864. 


ZS 


= LM \ 


UNION WORKS ON THE WELDON ROAD. 


gagements was kept up, Hancock trying in vain to discover some weak 
point. Lee, in the mean while, by detaining two of the three divisions or- 
dered to the Shenandoah, and withdrawing largely from those at Petersburg, 
had accumulated a force too strong to be formally assaulted. He even ven- 
tured, on the 18th, to assume the offensive by an attack upon Birney; but 
the assault was repelled with heavy loss. In this operation the Union loss 
was about 1500, of which two thirds fell upon the corps of Hancock. The 
Confederate loss was about the same. 

The operation had failed in its ostensible and perhaps its immediate pur- 
pose to secure a position more directly menacing Richmond. It had, how- 
ever, accomplished two ulterior objects. It had prevented large re-enforce- 
ments being sent to Karly, and had, by weakening the force at Petersburg, 


given a promising occasion for a movement against the Weldon Railroad. 
This was committed to Warren. On the 18th he moved quietly from his 
position on the extreme left, and struck the railroad without serious opposi- 
tion at a point four miles below Petersburg. Leaving Griffin’s division to 
hold this, he pushed Ayres’s and Crawford’s divisions for a mile up the road, 
until they found themselves confronted by the enemy drawn up in line of 
battle. Warren’s position was a critical one. His corps was isolated, for 
its march had left a wide gap between itself and the troops on his right. 
The left ot his advanced division also was approached by an obscure road 
of which he had no knowledge. Down this came the enemy, striking heay 
ily upon Ayres, forcing him back for a space with heavy loss. The troops 
rallied, and the Confederates were repulsed in turn, Warren still holding 


BRINGING IN PRISONERS BY NIGUT. 


Serremper, 1864. | 


Ab 
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is 


MN 


SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 703 


1 A 
WEARING PA) 
Wil 


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LDON 


DESTRUCTION OF T 


_— 


fast to and intrenching himself upon the railroad. This was of too great 
importance to be surrendered without a struggle. The next day Lee, hav- 
ing concentrated a powerful force, burst suddenly upon Warren. The wide 
space between Warren and Burnside had by some mischance been left un- 
covered, Into this broad gap Lee thrust Mahone’s division, striking War- 
ren’s right, and, gaining its rear, pressed fiercely along it toward the left, 
throwing the whole line into confusion, and sweeping away more than 2000 
prisoners, while at the same time Heth’s division assailed the left. The core 
of Warren’s troops still stood firm, and opportunely at the moment 2000 
men from the Ninth Corps came upon the scene. With his whole force 
Warren now struck back upon his assailants right and left, and drove them 
back in confusion within their lines. On the 20th all was quiet along the 
lines, and Warren wisely passed it in strengthening the position against an 
attempt which he could not doubt would be made to regain it. On the morn- 
ing of the 21st, Lee, having massed thirty guns, opened a fierce fire, under 
cover of which a heavy infantry foree moved upon Warren’s front, while an- 
other body endeavored to turn the left flank. The front attack was speedi- 
ly repelled; the turning force met with still worse success; pushing heedless- 
ly on, they encountered a fire so severe that they broke and fled in confu- 
sion, leaving behind 500 prisoners. So the Weldon Railroad was won, but 
at heavy cost. In the three days’ struggle the Union loss was 45438, of 
whom more than two thirds were “ missing.” 

It was now resolved to destroy the railroad for a dozen of miles south of 
the point where it was held by Warren. For this purpose a part of Han- 
cock’s corps, which had been withdrawn from across the J ames, with a bri- 
gade of cavalry, 8000 men in all, was dispatched on the 21st. In the course 
of the next two days the work was effectually performed for four miles, as 
far as Reams’s Station, where hasty and ill-planned breastworks were erected. 
On the morning of the 24th it was pursued three miles farther, and orders 
were given that on the next day five miles more should be destroyed. Up 
to this time no enemy had been encountered, and none was looked for, 
But Lee had in the mean while sent a strong force under Hill down the 
Boydton Road, which showed itself on the morning of the 25th. Hancock 
then withdrew his infantry behind the breastworks at Reams’s Station, the 
cavalry having been pushed some distance to the left. Two sharp attacks 
were made and repulsed. Hill then, assuming a position where his artillery 
could take Hancock’s line in reverse, opened a hot fire, throwing the Feder- 
als into some confusion. This was followed by an impetuous charge, by 
which the disordered lines were broken through and three batteries captured, 
The breastworks were carried after a feeble resistance, and all seemed lost. 
Miles, whose lines had been broken through, succeeded in rallying upon 
a new line, where the advance of the enemy was checked, and one of the 
lost batteries regained. Night put an end to the contest, and Hancock in 
the darkness withdrew. Hill, not suspecting how small was the force Op- 
posed to him, also withdrew at the same time, and when morning broke the 
place was vacant save of the dead. Out of his 8000 men, Hancock had lost 
2400, of whom almost three fourths were missing.? 

Five weeks of almost unbroken quiet now ensued. To all seeming the 
armies of Lee and Grant had come to a dead-lock. Hach lay behind intrench- 
ments which it was hopeless for the other to assail. Men’s eyes were turn- 
ed to other quarters—to Georgia, where Sherman at Atlanta was watching 
the heady manceuvres of Hood, ready to take advantage of the first false 
move, and meditating the great March to the Sea; to the Valley of the Shen- 
andoah, where Sheridan was operating against Early, who had for a month 
menaced the Federal capital ; to Mobile, where Farragut was sealing up that 
important port, precious to the Confederacy as the last save Wilmington hith- 
erto open to blockade-runners. Grant, meanwhile, was steadily tightening 
his grasp upon what he had won, and seeking to make this a base for farther 
acquisitions. The extension of his lines across the Weldon Road had 
compelled Lee in like manner to stretch his, so that it seemed that he could 
have left few troops north of the James, and that there was most likely an 
opportunity of gaining something in the direction of Richmond. On the 
28th of September, Ord and Birney, with the two divisions of the Army of 
the James, crossed the river, and fell fiercely upon the strong works near 
Chapin’s Bluff. One of these, Fort Harrison, was captured, but an assault 
upon Fort Gilmer was repulsed with heavy loss. Fort Harrison occupied a 
commanding position, and was the main defense of that part of the Confed: 
erate lines, Desperate attempts were made to retake it, but they were un 
availing, and Butler held a secure position from which to threaten Richmond. 
This compelled Lee to maintain a larger force than before upon the north 
bank of the James. 


? Killed and wounded, 1367; missing, 3176. The Confederate loss in killed and wounded was 
probably quite as great; in prisoners, hardly a sixth as many. 

? Killed and wounded, 663; missing, 1769. The Confederate loss is stated by Pollard (Lost 
Cause, 607) to have been ‘‘ 720 killed, wounded, and missing ;” of prisoners there were yery few, 
so that the respective losses in killed and wounded were about equal. When we consider the char. 
acter of the fighting during the seven days from August 18 to 25, and note the inordinate ratio of 
Union prisoners to the killed and wounded (2000 killed and wounded, 5000 missing), we are forced 
to the conclusion that the greater part of the prisoners were really deserters—the scum of the army 
who had been brought in by the enormous bounties which had been for some months paid for re- 
cruits and substitutes, the loss of whom was really a gain to the effective strength of the army. 
Of the 24,000 losses in the army of the Potomac during what may be strictly considered the siege 
of Petersburg, from June 20 to November 1, considerably more than 12,000 were ‘‘ missing ;” yet 
during this period there was no action excepting that at the mine, in which the Union forces 
were really defeated. The Confederates during that period, while losing fully 10,000 in killed and 
wounded, lost barely 2000 prisoners. ‘There were, indeed, some thousands of deserters who sought 
refuge in the Union lines, and a still larger number who managed to escape from the army and re- 
gain their homes. Pollard (Lost Cause, 647), speaking of the manner in which, during the last 
year, the Confederate ranks were recruited, says: ‘It was not unusual to see at the railroad sta- 
tion long lines of squalid men, with scraps of blankets in their hands, or small pine boxes of pro- 
visions, or whatever else they might snatch in their hurried departure from their homes, whence 
they had been taken almost without an hour’s notice, and ticketed for the various camps of instruc- 
tion in the Confederacy, In armies thus recruited, it is no wonder that desertions were numer- 
ous ; but for every Confederate soldier who went over to the Federal lines, there were hundreds who 
dropped out from the rear and deserted to their homes,” 


WITTY | 
| | 
\ salt 
gt irs 


Ny 
H 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [OCTOBER, 1864. 


WORKS BEFORE PETERSBURG. 


UNION 


The Confederates being thus strong upon their left, it was assumed that 
they must be weak on their right. ‘T’o ascertain this, Warren was directed 
on the 80th to make a strong reconnoissance with two divisions of his own 
corps and two of the Ninth, now commanded by Parke. The reconnois- 
sance was to be converted into an attack should the enemy prove to be in 
small force. Some works at Peebles Farm were taken and held; but 
Parke, pushing on, came upon the enemy in force, who charged upon him, 
threw Potter's division into rout, and swept off a thousand prisoners. Wil- 
cox’s and Griffin’s divisions coming up, checked the pursuit, and the corps 
returned to the works which they had captured. Next day a fierce storm 
suspended operations. On the 2d of October a reconnoissance was pushed 
out, but the enemy had fallen back to his intrenchments. The loss in this 
operation was 2685, of whom 1756 were missing, mainly the unreliable re- 
cruits which had been added to Parke’s corps. But the line had been ex- 
tended three miles westward, and now reached within five miles of the 
Southern Railroad. 

If this railroad could be seized, it would be equivalent to the capture of 
Petersburg. Grant, after long and careful preparation, attempted this with 
a force greater than he had put forth upon any one operation during the 
siege. ‘The plan was to find the extremity of the Confederate intrenched 
line, turn it, gain the rear, and then move westward and strike the railroad. 
On the morning of the 27th of October the whole Army of the Potomac, 
leaving only sufficient men to hold the fortified line, was put in motion, both 
Grant and Meade accompanying the expeditionary force. Parke, who was 
posted at the extreme left, in the position which had been won ten days be- 
fore, was to move out toward the Boydton Road, and, if possible, force the 
Confederate lines as far down as the crossing of Hatcher’s Run. Warren 
was to support Parke, and, in case he was successful, was to closely press 
the retreating enemy; otherwise Warren was to cross the stream, march up 
its south side beyond the plank road, then recross, thus gaining the rear of 
the enemy’s line, in front of which Parke would be posted. Meanwhile the 
main movement to the railroad was to be executed by Hancock. March- 
ing down southwardly in the rear of Parke and Warren, he crossed the Run 
with slight opposition, then turning sharply to the northwest, he reached by 
noon the Boydton Road, whence a march of six miles would bring him to 
the railroad. Here he received an order from Meade to halt; for Parke, 
upon coming in front of the line which he was to carry, found it impenetra- 
ble. He therefore halted and intrenched himself. Hancock’s corps was 
now wholly isolated, and the halt was ordered to give Warren time to exe- 
cute his alternative movement, which would connect him with Hancock. 
Grant had by this time become convinced that it would be impossible to 
reach the railroad, and ordered the troops to be withdrawn to the fortified 
lines from which they had set out. Up to this time the enemy had not 
moved from his intrenchments, or shown any disposition to attack. Grant, 
having received an erroneous report that Warren had connected with Han- 
cock, rode off to his headquarters at City Point, whence in the evening he 
sent a dispatch to Washington stating that there had been no serious fight- 
ing, intimating that he intended no offensive operation, but should hold his 
advanced position for a few hours to invite an attack from the enemy.} 

But there was no need to invite an attack upon a force so isolated as was 
that of Hancock. Warren had, indeed, promptly endeavored to connect 
with Hancock. Crawford’s division crossed Hatcher’s Run, and.moved up 
the south bank through dense woods, wherein whole regiments lost their 
way. But by the middle of the afternoon he reached a point opposite the 
enemy’s intrenchments on the opposite side of the stream, and within a mile 
of Hancock’s right, which had been extended to meet him. Yet such was 
the difficult character of the intervening space, that each command was un- 
aware of the precise position of the other. Hill meanwhile, apparently un- 
aware of the approach of Crawford, had arranged an assault upon Hancock. 
Heth crossed the run between Hancock and Crawford, fairly turned the 
right of the former, and fell upon Mott’s division, which, looking for an at- 
tack from another direction, was struck in the rear. Pierce’s brigade gave 
way for a space, losing a number of guns. But Egan promptly changed 
front with his division, so as to face Heth, who had now become aware that 
Crawford was close upon his left. The Confederates, bewildered, changed 
front so as to expose their flank to Egan, who, with his own regiment and 
one of Mott’s brigade, swept on, while De Trobriand’s brigade and Kerwin’s 
dismounted cavalry struck in front. The Confederates, overborne by the 
fierce rush, gave way, and were driven from the field, leaving behind them 
nearly a thousand prisoners. Had Crawford in the mean while advanced, 
the whole Confederate force, isolated by the stream, must have been cap- 
tured. But, though so close at hand, the noise of the musketry was not 
heard through the forest. T'wo hundred of the Confederates, bewildered in 


‘The Army of the Potomac, leaving only sufficient men to hold its fortified lines, moved by 
the enemy’s right flank. The Second Corps, followed by two divisions of the Fifth, with the cay- 
alry in advance, forced a passage of Hatcher’s Run, and moved up the south side of it toward the 
Southside Railroad, which I had hoped by this movement to reach and hold; but, finding that 
we had not reached the end of the enemy’s fortifications, and no place presenting itself for a suc- 
cessful assault by which he might be doubled up and shortened, I determined to withdraw within 
our fortified line. Orders were given aecordingly. Immediately upon receiving a report that Gen- 
eral Warren had connected with General Hancock, I returned to my headquarters.” —Grant’s Re- 
port. ‘Our line now extends from its former left to Armstrong’s Mill; thence by the south bank 
of Hatcher’s Run Creek to its crossing at the Boydton Plank Road. At every point the enemy 
was found intrenched and his works manned. No attack was made during the day farther than to 
drive pickets and cavalry inside of the main work. Our casualties have been light, probably less 
than 200 killed, wounded, and missing ; the same is probably true of the enemy. I shall keep the 
troops out where they are until toward noon to-morrow, in hopes of inviting an attack.”— Grant's 
Dispatch. From the wording of the report, it might be inferred that the withdrawal was ordered 
to be made during the afternoon of the 27th, and that therefore the fighting which ensued was in 
consequence of a violation of orders. But the dispatch shows that the withdrawal was not to be 
made till next day. Grant’s direction for holding on until then was subsequently modified by 
Meade, who left it optional with Hancock to withdraw during the night of the 27th. ‘For this 
whole operation, see especially Swinton (Army of the Potomac, 540-546), where will be found vita- 
tions from the as yet unpublished reports of Hancock and Warren. 


— 


met a decided repulse; but Hancock’s position was still critical. 


‘Ocroser, 1864. ] 


SIEGE OF PETERSBURG. 


705 


ca 
| 


aoe 
= 
“4 


DUTOH GAP OANAL, 


the woods, strayed within Crawford’s lines, and gave themselves up as pris- 
oners. Meanwhile Hampton, with five brigades, assailed Grege’s cavalry 
upon the Union left and rear. But Hancock, sending thither all of his force 
not actually engaged with Heth, held his ground. The Confederates had 
He was yet 
isolated and in front of the enemy in unknown strength, who would un- 
doubtedly attack next morning with increased force. His ammunition was 


_ well-nigh exhausted, and it was not likely that it could be replenished in 


time. So, the option having been given by Meade, he withdrew that night, 
and retraced his way to the lines from which he had set out. It was well 
that he did so, for during the night Hill had massed 18,000 infantry and 
cavalry, with which he proposed to renew the attack at daybreak, The en- 
tire Union loss was 1900, of whom a third were missing. Most of this fell 
upon Hancock’s corps, Parke’s losing only 150, and Warren’s probably about 
asmany. The Confederate loss was probably greater in killed and wound- 
ed, certainly twice as great in prisoners, of whom 1200 were taken.! 


* Lee's dispatch gives a very inadequate view of this affair. He says: ‘‘ General A. P. Hill re- 
ports that the attack of General Heth upon the enemy upon the Boydton Plank Road was made by 
three brigades under General Mahone in front, and General Hampton in the rear. Mahone cap- 


8Q 


Butler’s co-operative movement was feebly made and ineffectual. He 
pushed out two columns toward the Williamsburg Road and the York Rail- 
road. The first column was checked at the outset, losing 400 prisoners; the 
second column carried a small fortified work, which it forthwith abandoned, 
and both returned to their former position. Thus the operation for which 
such ample preparation had been made, and from which so much had been 
expected, resulted in nothing beyond gaining some slight knowledge of the 
region, a knowledge which proved that the Southside Railroad could not be 
reached by that line. Yet the same costly experiment was made three 
months later, and with the like result. 

The army now took up winter quarters behind its intrenchments, and 
during the remainder of the year no important operation was undertaken 
around Petersburg, although the quiet of the camps was broken by the con- 
tinual picket-firing and artillery duels inevitable when two great armies lie 
intrenched face to face. Butler, indeed, was prosecuting a scheme from 


tured 400 prisoners, three stands of colors, and six pieces of artillery. The latter could not be 
brought off, the enemy having possession of the bridge. In the attack subsequently made by the 
enemy, General Mahone broke three lines of battle, and during the night the enemy retired from 
the Boydton Plank Road, leaving his wounded and more than 250 dead on the field.” 


706 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE 


CIVIL WAR. [ FEBRUARY, 1865. 


RAID OF THE CONFEDERATE IRON-CLADS, 


which he, and he alone, expected large results. Above Bermuda Hundred 
the James makes a double bend, first to the west, then south, thence east, 
and after a course of six miles returns to within less than half a mile of its 
starting-point. This tortuous bend was commanded by batteries which 
barred the farther ascent of the river. Butler proposed to dig a canal 
through the narrow isthmus, by which gun-boats could ascend the river and 
assail the Confederate works at Chapin’s Bluff, and perhaps even force a 
passage to Richmond. The work, begun late in the summer, was prosecuted 
all through the autumn, mainly by details from the colored troops, not with- 
out considerable annoyance from the hostile batteries. At the close of the 
year the excavation was completed, save a narrow bulkhead at the upper 
end. On New-year’s day this was blown up, but the earth fell back into 
the channel, leaving only space for a little rivulet. The Confederates forth- 
with established a battery opposite the mouth of the canal, which completely 
swept its whole length, and the scheme came to naught. 

The Weldon Railroad meanwhile, though crossed by the Union intrench- 
ments, and destroyed for some distance below, had not been rendered whol- 
ly useless to the Confederates. Cars still ran to within a few miles of the 
Union lines, and then freight, mainly supplies brought to Wilmington by 
blockade-runners, was hauled by wagons to Richmond. On the 7th of De- 
cember Warren started out to destroy the road still farther down. The 
work was thoroughly and systematically done. The troops were formed in 
line of battle along the road. Lach division destroyed that in its front; 
then each one moved down to the left, and so on in succession. In two days 
twenty miles of road were destroyed. At length the enemy were encoun- 
tered in some force, strongly posted across the road. The expedition then 
returned, having marched a hundred miles in six days. 

The communication with Wilmington was rendered somewhat more diffi- 
cult, but was not wholly interrupted, for at this very period the supplies 
from hence saved the Confederate army in one of its sorest straits. On the 
9th of December the commissary general reported that there were but nine 
days’ food for Lee’s army, producing also a letter from the commander stat- 
ing that his men were deserting on account of short rations. On the 14th 
Lee telegraphed to Davis that his men were without meat. This disaster 
was only averted by the opportune arrival at Wilmington of several vessels 
loaded with supplies, which were then on their way to the army. 

The capture of Fort Fisher on the 15th of January effectually closed the 
port of Wilmington, and thus compelled Lee to rely solely upon the South- 
side and Danville roads. Taking advantage of the absence of the iron-clads 
at Wilmington, the Confederates made a bold attempt to destroy the Union 
shipping in the James. On the night of the 23d of January, their three iron- 
clads, the Virginia, Richmond, and Fredericksburg, accompanied by five 
steamers and three torpedo-boats, dropped silently down the river, passed 


? Pollard, Lost Cause, 649. 


4 


Fort Brady, which covered the upper extremity of Butler’s position, and — 


broke the chain which had been stretched across the river opposite the low- 
er end of the Dutch Gap Canal. The Fredericksburg got through the ob- 
structions; the other iron-clads and the steamer Drewry grounded. The 
iron-clads returned, the Virginia being severely injured by a bolt from a 
monitor. The Drewry, being immovable, was abandoned and blown up. 

As spring approached, and Sherman was beginning to move northward 
through the Carolinas, Grant wished to prevent Lee from dispatching any 
part of his army to the south. The immediate problem to be solved was 
entirely changed. Before it had been how to drive Lee out of Petersburg ; 
now it was to keep him there for a space, until Sherman had swept away the 
forces opposed to him. An offensive operation must be undertaken, and 
there seemed to be no one except an essential repetition of that which had 
been attempted in October.! 

On the 5th of February, Warren’s corps, accompanied by Gregg’s cavalry, 
was sent to turn the Confederate lines at Hatcher’s Run, while Humphreys, 
who now commanded the Second Corps—Hancock having been ordered 
north to organize a new corps—was to assail in front. Warren’s route 
was nearly the same as that formerly taken by Hancock. Humphreys ad- 
vanced to the Run, and was furiously assailed; but the attack was repelled, 
and at night the position was firmly held, Next morning Warren, who, 
having crossed the Run, had moved in the rear, came up, and the two corps 
were connected, Warren then pushed his left under Crawford up the west 
bank of the stream, through tangled woods and miry sloughs. Pushing be- 
fore him a Confederate force under Pegram, Crawford went as far as he had 
gone in October. Here Pegram, re-enforced by Evans, made a stand, and 
in turn forced Crawford back. Meanwhile a Confederate force had made a 
detour around his left and rear. They struck Ayres’s division, which was 
advancing to the support of Crawford, drove it in confusion upon Crawford, 
whose division also gave way and fell into rapid retreat. They fell back 
wildly to the position on Hatcher’s Run, where Humphreys had hastily in- 
trenched himself. The Confederates pursued fiercely; but, as they emerged 
into an open space, they encountered a sharp fire, and hastily withdrew into 
the shelter of the woods, whence they fell back within their lines. The 
Union loss in these two days was 2000; that of the Confederates less— 
probably not more than 1000. The only gain to the Federals was a far- 
ther extension of their line to the westward—an extension which might 
have been made without a battle. With this unsuccessful endeavor fell the 
curtain of the great drama, soon to be raised for the final short and stirring 
act. 


‘Thus only can we explain the movement now undertaken. Grant, in his report, refers to it 
only incidentally. He says: ‘‘The operations in front of Petersburg and Richmond until the 
spring campaign of 1865 were confined to the defense and extension of our lines, and to offensive 
movements for crippling the enemy’s lines of communication, and to prevent his detaching any 
considerable force to send south. By the 7th of February our lines were extended to Hatcher’s 
Run, and the Weldon Railroad had been destroyed to Hicksford.” 


a 


Jury, 1864.] 


THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN.—EARLY AND SHERIDAN. 


CUTTING THE OHESAPEAKE AND OHIO CANAL, 


CHAPTER L. 
THE CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.—EARLY AND SHERIDAN. 


Hunter’s Advance upon Lynchburg.—His Retreat through Western Virginia.—Early sent to the 
Valley of the Shenandoah.—Sigel driven from Martinsburg.—Early crosses the Potomac into 
Maryland.—Defeats Wallace on the Monocacy.—Threatens Washington.—Troops arrive for its 
Defense,—Early repulsed at Fort Stevens.—Recrosses the Potomac.—Is followed by Crook, who 
is defeated at Kernstown.—Early’s Raid into Pennsylvania.—The Burning of Chambersburg.— 
Sheridan appointed to the command of the Middle Department.—His Instructions.—Opening 
Movements.—Position in September.—Sheridan to go in.—The Battle of the Opequan, or Win- 
chester.—Early defeated.—Battle of Fisher’s Hill.—Early routed.—The Pursuit.—Sheridan 
Returns.—Devastation of the Valley of the Shenandoah.—Early advances. —Battle of Middle- 
town, or Cedar Creek.—The Federals surprised and driven back.—Sheridan comes upon the 
Field.—He attacks and routs Early,—Early’s Address to his Troops.—Results of the Campaign. 


ARLY in June, while, as has been narrated, Grant, after the battle of 
Cold Harbor, lay upon the Chickahominy, Hunter was successfully 
pressing down the great Valley of Virginia. Crossing the Blue Ridge, he 
emerged into the tide-water region, and on the 16th appeared before Lynch- 
burg, whither Lee had already sent the small command of Breckinridge. 
This, joined to the few troops scattered in that region, was altogether insuf- 
ficient to oppose the threatening movement of Hunter, and Early was hur- 
ried. thither by railroad, reaching Lynchburg just in advance of the Union 
force. Hunter had expended most of his ordnance stores in the long march 
through a hostile country. On the 17th and 18th, while the first battles 
were waged before Petersburg, Hunter made some demonstrations, but, find- 
ing the enemy strong in his front, and with constantly increasing force, he 
hastily recrossed the Blue Mountains; then, apprehending that his return 
would be intercepted, and thinking himself in no condition to risk a battle, 
he continued his retreat westward, crossing the Alleghanies into the mount- 
ain region of West Virginia, whence he could regain his position on the Po- 
tomac only by a wide detour, This retreat left Washington and the whole 
northern frontier almost bare of troops, for every effective regiment had 
been sent to re-enforce Grant. The operations before Petersburg had con- 
vinced Lee that he could still hold his lines with a portion of the force 
which he had; and he reasoned, also, that the threat of a renewed invasion 
of the North would compel his opponent to detach largely from the force at 
Petersburg, and most likely compel him to raise the siege. 

In the latter days of June, Early was therefore ordered to move down the 
Valley of the Shenandoah. The force with which this movement was made 
compared ill with the great armies which had twice before marched along 
this beaten track. Instead of the 100,000 men with which Lee had moved 
on the campaigns which closed at Antietam and Gettysburg, Early had not 
more than 20,000 men of all arms. But the force for the defense was still 
weaker in proportion, and it was within the limits of possibility that even 
the Federal capital might be seized by a sudden dash. Early moved with 


the rapidity which had always characterized the Confederate marches. In 
spite of the fierce summer heat, the troops made twenty miles a day, and on 
the 2d of July he was close upon Martinsburg. Sigel, who was there with 
a small force guarding a large quantity of stores, fell back toward Harper's 
Ferry, abandoning every thing which he could not carry off. Taught by 
the experience of the past, he was not entrapped into halting at Harper's 
Ferry, but, crossing the Potomac, took post upon Maryland Heights. Here 
he was safe from attack, but useless for obstructing the passage of the river, 
had his force been five times as great. Hunter was far away, making his 
toilsome circuit through the mountain wilds of Western Virginia. There 
was nothing to hinder Early from making a raid into Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania. Crossing the Potomac, he sent scouting-parties in every direction. 
One destroyed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for miles, and cut the em- 
bankments of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in various places; another 
pushed on to Hagerstown, where they levied a heavy contribution and went 
off. The main body pushed on toward Frederick City by the same route over 
which Lee had marched two years before, threatening both Baltimore and 
Washington. Wallace was at Baltimore in the command of a few disjoint- 
ed fragments of troops, but he knew that the veteran Sixth Corps was com- 
ing to his aid from the James. He therefore advanced and took position 
on the Monocacy River, where he covered the roads to both Baltimore and 
Washington, and hoped to hold the enemy in check until the arrival of 
Wright with the Sixth Corps, and Emory with the Nineteenth. This lat- 
ter had been brought from Louisiana, had opportunely arrived at Fortress 
Monroe, and, without disembarking there, was sent up the Potomac to 
Washington. Ricketts’s division of the Sixth Corps had joined him at Bal- 
timore, and the other divisions were on the point of embarking at City 
Point; two days would bring them up. 

On the morning of the 9th of July, Early, after some skirmishing, came 
upon Wallace at the Monocacy. The Confederates were more than two to 
one. Their first and second assaults were repelled; but the third, made in 
greater force, was successful. The Federals retreated, some in good order, 
toward Baltimore, but the greater part fled in utter confusion in every direc- 
tion. The Union loss was 1959; of them, 1282 were “missing,” of whom 
fully half were stragglers. The Confederate loss was vaguely reported at 
600. It was apparently somewhat greater, since two days after 400 of 
those too severely wounded to be removed were found in the hospitals at 
Frederick. 

The approach to Washington was now fairly opened, and Early moved 
the next day in that direction. He had with him about ten thousand men, 
for detachments had been sent in every direction to gather supplies and plun- 
der. Had he pushed straight on with even this small force, he might, in all 
likelihood, have entered the capital, and, after doing what damage he pleased, 


708 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JULY, 1864. 


Se 
A mn — 
i i ll 


PILLAGING AT HAGERSTOWN, 


have retired by the way he came. A delay of a single day forfeited an op- 
portunity for striking a blow which might have changed the current of his- 


SACKING A FLOUR MILL. 


tersburg, and the Federal commander proposed to recall the Sixth Corps to 
the Army of the Potomac. But Lee, who was aware of the importance of 


tory. On the evening of the 10th Karly’s whole force was within half a | maintaining a force in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and thus keeping up 


dozen miles of Washington. Between him and the Federal capital there 
were only a few isolated forts manned by militia, invalids, and convalescents 
from the hospitals. or one day it was not Richmond, but Washington that 
was in peril. Hew men in the Federal capital believed that it could be saved 
from capture. On the afternoon of the 12th Early made demonstrations 
looking toward an assault. He advanced his line close up to Fort Stevens, 
an isolated work half a dozen miles north of the city, covering one of the 
roads. But during the previous night the whole aspect of things had been 
changed. The Nineteenth Corps, and the two remaining divisions of the 
Sixth, had steamed up the Potomac, and were disembarked. A great weight 
was lifted from the heart of the man upon whose calm eourage rested more 
than even upon any general in the field the destiny of the nation. As 
the tried veterans stepped ashore, they saw upon the wharf the gaunt figure 
of Abraham Lincoln. He greeted them with kindly words and the winning 
smile which was wont to light up his homely features, munching at intervals 
a bit of army bread. No wonder that he had that day missed his dinner. 
As the foremost men filed swiftly through the streets, they were greeted 
with acclamation. “It is the old Sixth Corps, the men who took Marye’s 
Heights; the danger is over.” That night it was felt that the peril was over- 
past. ‘Toward evening of the 12th a brigade of the Sixth Corps moved out 
to dislodge the Confederates, who had all day kept up annoying demonstra- 
tions in front of Fort Stevens. A hot conflict ensued, for the combatants 
were veterans who had encountered each other on more than one stricken 
field. Hach side lost heavily in proportion to the numbers engaged. The 
Union brigade, a thousand strong, lost a quarter of its numbers. The Con- 
federates lost more, and were driven from the field. 

Early saw that his opportunity was past. The Federal capital was held 
by a force too strong in number and quality to be encountered by his little 
army. Under the cover of night he withdrew, recrossing the Potomac, and 


a constant menace of raids across the Potomac, had no thought of with- 
drawing Early. The Federals soon had reason to find to their cost that 
Karly was yet close at hand. On the 23d of July, Crook, who was in com- 
mand at Harper's Ferry, pushed up the-Valley, which he supposed had been 
abandoned by the enemy. At Kernstown, four miles beyond Winchester, 


hard by where Jackson had suffered his only defeat in the Valley, his small | 


force encountered Harly, was defeated, and driven back in rout to Martins- 
burg, losing 1200 men. It then recrossed the Potomac, leaving the way 
open for a raid across the river. Karly took prompt advantage of the op- 
portunity. His cavalry, 8000 strong, under McCausland, passed the Poto- 
mac, and, making a wide sweep so as to conceal their real destination, reach- 
ed Chambersburg on the 80th. The purpose of this raid was destruction. 
McCausland demanded $200,000 in gold as a ransom for the town. Com- 
pliance was out of the question, and orders were at once given to burn the 
town. The execution of this was committed to Gilmor, a Marylander, who 
had joined the Confederates, and in an hour two thirds of that flourishing 
town of 4000 inhabitants was in flames, This is the only instance during 
the war in which a town was wantonly, and by express order, destroyed, 
without any pretense of military advantage; for the destruction of Atlanta 
by Sherman was ordered as a military necessity, and the burning of Colum- 
bia was not by any order from the Union commander. The raiding party 
now made their way back across the Potomac, after several skirmishes, in 
which the losses were about equal upon either side. 
These annoying occurrences upon the frontier were owing quite as much 
to defective military arrangements on the Federal side as to skill on the 
part of the Confederates. It seemed as though this region was looked upon 
as a hospital for incapable commanders. 
and subdivided that no commander had any real authority or responsibili- 
ty. Thus Washington, Baltimore, and the adjacent region formed one de- 


thus closing the last invasion of the North. This attempt, however, had not | partment; parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland another; West Virginia an- 


been an entire failure. He had won one considerable battle, and swept back 
with him no inconsiderable booty, not the least valuable part of which was 
5000 horses and 2500 cattle. 

Having placed the Potomac between himself and the enemy, Early moved 
leisurely up the Valley of the Shenandoah. Wright, who was now placed 
at the head of the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps, followed by the same route 
and with the same undecided steps wherewith McClellan and Meade had be- 
fore gone after Lee. Passing through Snicker’s Gap, he came up on the 
19th of July with the retreating Confederate column at the crossing of the 
Shenandoah. When half way over, Early turned, repelled him, and then 
fell back leisurely to Winchester; while Wright, under orders from Grant, 
returned to Washington. 

It was supposed that Harly’s command was returning to join Lee at Pe- 


other; the region of the Shenandoah another. Grant saw clearly that the 
first thing to be done was to form all these into one military department. 
This was done, and Hunter, who had now got back from his long wander- 
ing, was placed in command. But Grant had fixed his eye upon another 


man for the position. Hunter intimated his willingness'to be relieved. The - 


intimation was promptly acted upon, and Sheridan, who had just been sent 
to Washington in anticipation of such a contingency, was placed in the com- 
mand of these departments, which were constituted the Middle Military Di- 
vision, the forces there being designated as the Army of the Shenandoah. 
Sheridan assumed command on the 7th of August. The Army of the 
Shenandoah consisted of the Sixth Corps, one division of the Nineteenth, 
two small divisions under Crook, known as the Eighth Corps, with Averill’s 
and Torbert’s divisions of cavalry, the latter having just come up from the 


EARLY REOROSSING THE POTOMAQ, 


The departments were so divided 


SEPTEMBER, 1864. | 


THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN.—EARLY AND 


SHERIDAN. 709 


James. In all it numbered 18,000 infantry and 8500 cavalry disposable 
for active operations. As many more were required for garrisons and to 
guard the railroad. The Confederates, with the addition of Anderson’s 
command, were in about equal force. To Sheridan were turned over the 
instructions just given to Hunter. He was to concentrate all his available 
force near Harper’s Ferry, whence he was to operate against Harly: pursue 
and fight him if he crossed the Potomac; follow him if he retreated south ; 
first or last he would have to pursue the enemy up the Valley of the Shen- 
andoah, where he must leave nothing which could invite the return of the 
Confederates. Dwellings were to be spared, but such provisions, forage, 
and stock as could not be used were to be destroyed. The people must 
be made to understand that, so long as a Confederate army could subsist 
among them, raids would be of continual occurrence, and these it was de: 
termined to stop at all hazards. This stern order was soon to be sternly 
executed. 

Sheridan at once moved up the Valley toward Winchester, where he ex- 
pected to find the enemy; but they had fallen back, Then, being notified 
from Grant that re-enforcements had been sent to Karly, raising his force to 
40,000 men, he drew back and took up a strong defensive position near Har- 
per’s Ferry, to await the development of the intentions of his opponent. 
For a month the outposts and cavalry parties of the armies were in almost 
daily collision, with no important results. Early having been re-enforced 
by Anderson, in command of Kershaw’s division of infantry and Fitzhugh 
Lee’s cavalry, and Sheridan by Grover’s division of the Nineteenth Corps 
and Wilson’s cavalry, the respective forces were not greatly disproportion- 
ate—the Confederates numbering about 22,000, and the Federals about 
27,000. There was some question as to the command between Karly and 
Anderson. Both had been made lieutenant generals on the same day ; 
but Anderson’s commission as major general was prior to that of Early, 
which gave him the military seniority ; but he had been’sent to Karly’s de- 


BRUINS OF OHAMBERS 


BURG.—THE MAIN STREET. 


partment. There was thus a question of rank, and the two commanders 
never cordially co-operated. 

At the middle of September the Confederates were concentrated around 
Winchester, and the Federals near Berryville, ten miles to the east, the Ope- 
quan running between. The armies were so posted that either could bring 
on an action; but neither commander was disposed to attack the other in a 
position of his choosing. Grant indeed for a while held Sheridan in check, 
for defeat would lay Maryland and Pennsylvania open to a renewed inya- 
sion. At length he left the James, and came to the Potomac to confer with 
Sheridan. At the very time of his arrival, Sheridan had learned that Ker- 
shaw’s division had been recalled. Lee was meditating an offensive opera- 
tion at Petersburg, and wished Kershaw to be at hand in case it should be 
undertaken. He was therefore directed to fall back as far as Culpepper, 
whence he could reach Richmond by rail in a few hours. This left Early 
with from 15,000 to 18,000.!. Sheridan had resolved to attack Karly, and, 
on submitting his plans to Grant, received the emphatic order to ‘go in.” 

Sheridan proposed to march upon Newtown, above Winchester, and thus 
throw himself upon the Confederate rear; but on the 18th of September, 
just as the movement was to have commenced, he learned that Early had 
sent two of his four divisions to Martinsburg, twenty-two miles from Win- 
chester, with the purpose of destroying the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at 
that point. He therefore changed his plan, and resolved to catch the two 
divisions left near Winchester, and, having routed them, to fall upon those 
sent to Martinsburg. .Thus ensued the action called by him the Battle of 


* Early indeed asserts that his effective force was only 8500 muskets—say 9000 infantry, and 
less than 3000 cavalry, with three battalions of artillery : not more than 13,000 men in all. But, 
as will be seen hereafter, this is evidently an under-statement ; for, taking into account his state~ 
ment of all the re-enforcements which he at any time received, Sheridan captured during this 
campaign nearly as many prisoners as the whole of Early’s alleged force. His losses in killed and 
wounded were also very heavy, and a considerable remnant of his army rejoined Lee at Peters- 
burg. Pollard (Lost Cause, p. 593) adopts Early’s statement; but Pollard’s own accounts else- 
where show that this must be erroneous, 


BRUINS OF CUAMBERSUURG.—THE TOWN WALL, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [SEPTEMBER, 1864. 


THE OONFEDERATE ROUT AT WINCHESTER, 


| 


the Opequan, by the Confederates that of Winchester. As it happened, how- 
ever, Karly marched only half way to Martinsburg, and was able to bring 
his whole force upon the field. Before dawn of the 19th Sheridan was in 
motion. ‘Torbert’s cavalry, in front, was to cross the Opequan, and clear 
the passage of the stream in one direction. Wilson, supported by the Sixth 
and Nineteenth Corps, was to move rapidly down the defile through which 
ran the direct road from Berryville, and thus fall upon the portion of the 
enemy lying directly in front of Winchester, Crooks’s corps being held in 
reserve. Wilson charged into the deep gorge, drove back the enemy’s 
pickets, and captured the earthworks at its mouth. Wright and Emory 
defiled through the narrow gorge, and emerged, under a heavy artillery fire, 
into an irregular undulating valley, dotted over with ledges of rock and 
patches of wood, sloping gradually up to the semicircular heights of Win- 
chester, Time was lost in making these movements, and it was nine o'clock 
before the order to advance was given. The attack and defense were alike 
obstinate, and, neither being sheltered except by the natural cover afforded 
by the formation of the ground, the loss on both sides was heavy, Ram- 
seur, upon whom the attack first fell, held his ground stoutly for two hours. 
But the whole of Wright’s and Emory’s corps having at length passed 
through the gorge, he began to give way. At this moment Rodes came 
back from the direction of Martinsburg and joined in the fight. Rodes 
was shot dead, the centre of Harly’s first line was broken, and the Federals 
rushed on. They now encountered Gordon, who had followed hard after 
Wharton. The advance was checked, and then Gordon made a counter- 
charge, which, striking Sheridan’s centre, where the Sixth and Nineteenth 
Corps joined, forced it back in confusion, which threatened to become a to- 
tal rout. Gordon pushed on in pursuit so fiercely that his flank was ex- 
posed to Russell’s brigade, of the Sixth, which was on the left. He was in 
turn driven back, and Sheridan’s line was soon re-established, most of the 
two or three thousand men who had gone to the rear being brought back, 
Still the battle hung in even scales, Breckinridge, with the last of the 
cavalry, the last of Harly’s absent men, now came up from the rear, and 
took position on the Confederate left. Now ensued the fiercest fighting of 
the day. arly sought to extend his left so as to outflank Sheridan’s right; 
then, sweeping round, to seize the mouth of the narrow gorge and cut off 
the retreat. Sheridan’s quick eye perceived that his opportunity had now 
come. Crook’s corps had not yet been brought into action. He had kept 
them in reserve upon his right, intending also to turn the enemy’s left and 
cut off his retreat. Crook was now directed to the left, turn the Confeder- 
ate right, strike it in flank and rear, and, as soon as it was broken, the Fed- 
eral left should swing round and strike on the other flank. Both movements 
were made with the utmost precision. On what was now the decisive point 
the Federals were in great preponderance. They fairly overlapped the 
Confederates, who were powerless to prevent the turning of their flank. 
Crook’s line swept steadily on over the open fields in the face of a fierce 
musketry fire, under which 900 men went down in a few minutes, Em- 
ory’s corps now sprung from the ground where they had been lying to 
shelter themselves from the artillery, by which they had for three hours 
been sorely pelted, poured in a fire so rapid that in five minutes their am- 
munition was exhausted, and then dashed straight upon a patch of wood- 
land where was the extreme left of the Confederate line, into the other side 
of which Crook was already pouring. _The enemy rushed out in utter rout, 
many of them in their flight throwing away their guns and accoutrements. 
The battle was irretrievably lost. To hold this wood Early had brought 
in his last two divisions, those of Breckinridge. ‘These divisions had all 
the morning, and until far in the afternoon, held in check Merritt’s and 
Torbert’s cavalry. These magnificent horsemen had then pressed up, sweep- 
ing before them the Confederate cavalry, and circling round to the Confed- 
erate flank and rear. They charged fiercely upon the disorganized mass, 
which broke and fled in confusion back to Winchester. The fragments of 
the routed army entered the town as night was falling. But here was no 
rest. In the darkness they kept on their flight, only halting until they 
reached Fisher’s Hill, a strong position eight miles south of Winchester, 
and twelve from the battle-field. It had been a well-fought action, and de- 
cisive, won indeed by superior force, but with equal bravery. Sheridan’s 
losses summed up 4990, of whom 653 were killed, 3719 wounded, and 618 
missing. The heaviest loss, 1956, fell upon Emory’s corps, among whom 
were 450 missing, captured when they were repulsed early in the day. In 
Wright’s corps there were 1637 killed and wounded, and 48 missing. In 
Crook’s corps, which struck the final decisive blow, out of a total loss of 
958, there were but 8 missing. The cavalry lost 441, of whom 109 were 
missing. The Confederate loss is not stated, but in all it could not have 
been less than 6000. Upon the field and in the pursuit 2500 prisoners 


were taken; 2000 wounded were found in the hospitals at Winchester, 


On the next morning Sheridan set out in pursuit, and soon came in 
front of the position which Early had taken up at Fisher’s Hill. Here the 
valley is split by an intervening ridge, the main branch contracting to the 
breadth of three and a half miles, overhung on each side by precipitous 
bluffs. Early had availed himself of the brief respite to throw up breast- 
works across the valley. Here he thought himself secure, for it was a posi- 
tion which could be held against a direct assault from a fivefold force. So: 
safe did Early think himself that his ammunition-boxes were taken from the 
caissons and placed behind the breastworks. Sheridan determined to drive 
him out of his position by turning his left. To do this, the turning force 
must gain the summit of the North Mountain, and, marching for a space 
along the crest, plunge down into the valley. The movement must be made 
by night, for from a signal station the enemy could observe every move- 
ment made by daylight. 


Serremser, 1864. ] 


GEORGE CROOK. 


Crook’s corps was at night placed in a mass of wood, where they lay hid- 
den all through the 21st, while Wright’s and Emory’s corps were drawn up 
in front of the Confederate centre, ready to join in the assault. Crook made 
his movement without being perceived. Noon had passed before he was 
in position, Sheridan then, posting Ricketts in front of the Confederate left, 
sent Averill, with his cavalry, to drive in the enemy’s skirmish line. The 
movement succeeded beyond expectation. It was reported from the Con- 
federate signal station that a turning column was moving against their left 
front. Early massed his force to check this. At that moment Crook burst 
in upon his rear. The Confederates broke and fled after some show of re- 
sistance in front, and Wright’s corps, swinging round, joined with Crook’s. 

‘The victory was complete, and won at little cost—not 800 in all, of whom 
237 were in Wright’s corps, and 60 in Emory’s. Crook, whose mere pres- 
ence in position won the fight, appears not to have lost a man. The Confed- 
erate loss in killed and wounded was not much greater; but they left behind 
them 1100 prisoners. Complete as was the success, Sheridan had expected 
to render it still more decisive. He had hoped to capture Early’s whole 
army. For this purpose he had sent Torbert down the parallel Luray Val- 
ley, whence it was to cross over into that of the Shenandoah, and intercept 
the enemy’s retreat. But Torbert was held in check at a narrow gorge by 
the Confederate cavalry and a small body of infantry until the fugitives had 
passed the point. 

It was almost dark when the fight at Fisher’s Hill was begun. The 
remnants of Harly’s broken divisions fled rapidly down the Valley, hardly a 
company preserving its organization. Sheridan pushed on the pursuit for a 
day and night as rapidly as possible, but the fugitives were too fleet for the 
infantry, and there was present of cavalry only Devins’s small division, for 
Torbert was in Luray Valley, on the opposite side of the dividing range, and 
Averill had unaccountably gone into camp immediately after the fight. On 
the morning of the 23d Devins came up with the enemy’s rear at Mount 
Jackson, twenty-five miles from Fisher’s Hill. Here, not in sufficient force to 
attack, he waited for Averill, who arrived late in the afternoon, and then fell 
back again. Averill was here superseded by Powell. Larly’s divisions kept 
on their flight by different routes until they reached New Market, where sev- 
eral roads converge. Here the shattered force got itself partly reorganized, 
but kept on its retreat, now presenting a line of battle too strong for the cav- 
alry to assail. The Federal infantry pushed on in columns, but were unable 
to bring on an action. Torbert, in the mean time, had beaten the enemy in 
Luray Valley ; and on the 25th Wright’s and Emory’s corps had reached 
Harrisburg, Crook’s having been left a little behind until the movements of 
Early were ascertained. Kershaw, with his fresh division, now rejoined 
Early, and the Confederates, nearly as strong as they had been at the Ope- 
quan, made a show of advancing. 

Sheridan was now in doubt what course to pursue—whether to again as- 
sault or to fall back. He finally decided on the latter course. He was lit- 
tle, if any, superior to the enemy; his transportation would not keep him in 
supplies for a much farther advance; and, moreover, it was by no means 
sure that Grant would be able to hold the entire Confederate force in the 
lines at Petersburg. Lee might secretly detach a sufficient number, which, 
moving rapidly by rail, could overwhelm him, and then return before their 
absence should be perceived. He had, moreover, in a week, accomplished 
more than he had dared to count upon. He had destroyed or captured half 


THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN.—EARLY AND SHERIDAN. 


711 


of Early’s army, and driven the remainder so far to the south that it no 
longer threatened Maryland and Pennsylvania. He therefore determined to 
terminate the active campaign and return northward. But on the way back 
he was to carry out his original instructions to devastate the valley which 
had so long served as a granary for the Confederate army and an avenue for 
an invading force. This done, he could give back to Grant at Petersburg the 
bulk of the infantry which had been sent to check the diversion made by 
Lee. The plan was carried out, but not for three weeks, and after Early had 
once more staked all in a desperate venture and lost. 

On the 6th of October Sheridan commenced his return march. The cav- 
alry swept across the whole breadth of the Valley of the Shenandoah from 
the Blue Ridge to the eastern slope of the Alleghanies. The order to trans- 
form the Valley into a barren waste, with nothing which should tempt the 
enemy to return, was carried cut with unsparing severity. Before the army 
was a fertile region filled with the stores of an abundant harvest just gath- 
ered in; behind was a desert and devastated region. Sheridan himself 
shall describe his work of destruction: “In moving back to Woodstock, the 
whole country from the Blue Ridge to the North Mountain has been ren- 
dered untenable for a rebel army. I have destroyed over two thousand 
barns filled with wheat, and hay, and farming implements; over seventy 
mills filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of the army over 
four thousand head of stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not 
less than three thousand sheep, This destruction embraces the Luray Val- 
ley and the Little Fort Valley, as well as the main Valley; a large number 
of horses has also been obtained.” This was the work of but two days. 
Dwelling-houses were indeed spared save in a single retributive case. One 
of the Union engineer officers was murdered, and for this act all the houses 
within an area of five miles were burned. 

It is hard, in the midst of peace, to decide where the military right of de- 
struction and retribution begins and ends, arly, in retreating from Mary- 
land, had seized more cattle and horses than Sheridan took in the Valley. 
The numerous guerrilla parties who had made the Valley their lair plunder- 
ed at will. “Since I came in the Valley,” continues Sheridan, “every train, 
every small party has been bushwhacked by the people, many of whom have 
protection papers from commanders who have hitherto been in the Valley.” 
Sheridan spared dwellings, although the ruins of Chambersburg, fired with- 
out pretense of military necessity, had hardly ceased to smoke. But this 
devastation only partly accomplished its purpose. The Valley was not ren- 
dered untenable to a Confederate force until a fortnight later, when the army 
there ceased to exist. 

The Confederate cavalry followed Sheridan’s return at a distance, and at 
length came into conflict with Torbert’s division, by whom they were defeat- 
ed; and when, four days after the commencement of the return march, Sher- 
idan, passing Fisher’s Mountain, took up his post four miles beyond, Early, 
strengthened by Kershaw, was close behind. Here he suffered the final 
crushing defeat which put an end to the war in the Valley of the Shenan- 
doah. 

On the 15th of October, Sheridan, having posted his army at Cedar Creek, 
set out for Washington to consult with the Secretary of War as to the route 
by which Wright’s corps should be sent back to Petersburg. He had just 
started on the journey when he received a message from Wright, who was 
left in command, inclosing a dispatch deciphered from the enemy’s signal- 
flag. It purported to be from Longstreet to Karly, and read, “Be ready to 
move as soon as my forces join you, and we will crush Sheridan.” Suspect- 
ing it to be, as it undoubtedly was, a ruse, Sheridan sent back word to Wright, 
“Tf Longstreet’s dispatch be true, he is under the impression that we have 
largely detached. Ifthe enemy should make an advance, I know that you 
will defeat him. Look well to your ground, and be well prepared.” 

On the night of the 18th of October the Federal army lay encamped in 
a position apparently unassailable. It was disposed upon three parallel 
ridges of no great height, facing southward. To the west, four miles away, 
lay Early in unknown force at the wooded base of Fisher’s Hill. The left 
of the Union army—the corps farthest from the Confederate position—was 
occupied by Crook. At the foot of this crest ran a deep valley. Next, and 
half a mile in the rear, across the turnpike, and to the right, was Emory. 
Then, somewhat farther to the right, and considerably in the rear of all, was 
Wright. From the extreme right to the extreme left was a space of three 
miles, and still farther to the right was Torbert’s cavalry. The fronts and 
flanks of Crook and Wright were protected by breastworks and batteries, 
The position, unless turned by surprise and taken in the rear, was impreg- 
nable to any force which the enemy could by any possibility have. Early 
resolved to turn both flanks by surprise. The march toward Emory upon 
the right flank presented no great natural difficulty; but to reach the left 
flank the assailants had to descend a rugged gorge so steep that a man must 
here and there support himself by holding fast upon the bushes, then wade 
the Shenandoah, recross it again, enter the Valley, skirting Crook’s front, and 
go up it for three miles, moving scarcely four hundred yards from the pick- 
et line. If we may credit Early’s express averment, he had an effective 
force of less than 10,000 men of all arms. This was hardly half the num- 
ber that was to be opposed to him; of this, however, he was not aware; for 
he supposed that a considerable portion of Sheridan’s army was miles away, 
at Front Royal, where he knew them to have been a few days before, or still 
farther away on the way to Washington. 

Early commenced his march at midnight. His left column, with the ar- 
tillery and cavalry, moved over easy ground, and at dawn began to demon- 
strate against Emory. Meanwhile the other column, consisting of the divi- 
sions of Gordon, Ramseur, Pegram, Kershaw, and Wharton, the remnants of 
those who had just a month before fled in rout from the Opequan and Fish- 


712 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


ALFRED TORBERT, 


er’s Hill, moved silently down the mountain slope, forded the Rappahannock, 
and crept stealthily along Crook’s front. So imperative was the necessity 
for silence that they had left their canteens behind, lest their rattling should 
betray them. Before dawn they had pursued their dark-long march of seven 
miles. These three divisions passed beyond Crook’s left flank, and turned it 
without having been perceived, and were fairly within striking distance of 
its rear, while the other two crouched in his front. Once, indeed, the pickets 
reported that they had heard a suspicious rustling, and a part of the front 
line was sent into the trenches; but, so little was danger apprehended, that 
many went in with unloaded muskets. The gaps left in the line were not 
filled, and no reconnoissance was made. There was just then a slight stir in 
Emory’s camp, for he was to send out a reconnoissance at daybreak toward 
Fisher's Hill. His aid was in the saddle, ready to report the exact time 
when the troops moved. The gray dawn was just breaking through a dense 
mist which shrouded mountain and valley when this impatient aid heard far 
to the left a sudden sharp rattle of musketry, and the fierce yell which de- 
noted a Confederate charge.’ The five divisions had broken on front, flank, 
and rear, through the lines of the sleeping Highth Corps. In fifteen minutes 
it was perfectly routed and streaming back in confusion upon the Nineteenth, 
its guns being captured and turned upon the fugitives. Simultaneously a 
brisk artillery fire, with demonstrations of cavalry, was opened upon Emory’s 
right; while his front and left flank were assailed as Crook’s had been, and 
the enemy were already sweeping around his rear. The Nineteenth Corps 
was now fighting the whole Confederate force. Desperate, but brief and un- 
availing efforts were made to hold their lines until the Sixth Corps could 
come up; but from point to point they were driven back before the furious 
rush of Kershaw in front, while Gordon and Ramseur poured in a fire upon 
their left flank. The camps of the Highth and Nineteenth Corps were now 
in possession of the Confederates, and what remained of these corps were 
pushed back upon the Sixth, which alone maintained the fight. This also 
fell back, but slowly and in order, from one position to another, until at 
length, after three miles of retreat, it had fairly outstripped Gordon, and stood 
with its left flank free from his pertinacious assault. Here at last they held 
fast, and awaited the attack. The assailants had now exhausted their im- 
pulse. Most of them, weary and hungry, scattered through the captured 
camps, eager for food and plunder; only a distant artillery fire was kept up. 
Wright fell back undisturbed a little farther to a position where he could 
cover the high road to Winchester, and began, at nine o'clock, to form his 
broken lines. He had been beaten, but was not routed, and now stood pre- 
pared to repel any farther attack. 

Sheridan, in the mean while, was on his way back from Washington. He 
had slept that night at Winchester. At seven in the morning a picket 
there reported that he had heard artillery firing; but Sheridan, supposing 
that it proceeded from the reconnoissance which he had ordered that morn- 
ing, gave little heed. He rode leisurely on until nine o'clock, when, a mile 
and a half beyond the town, the head of the foremost fugitives appeared in 


sight—men and trains rushing to the rear with a rapidity which betokened 
= ta SEES A ae LE APC SS ET YS Mat SOAS eS oe 


* A graphic account of this battle, by Captain De Forest, the aid in question, is given in Harper’s 
Magazine for February, 1865, 


[OcToBER, 1864. 


a great disaster. ‘There happened to be a brigade at Winchester. Stopping 
briefly to halt the trains and draw out this brigade to stem the flight, Sheri- 
dan pushed rapidly on, and soon approached the front. His very presence 
stayed the flight of the fugitives, who were running from they knew not 
what. ‘Face about!” he shouted; ‘“‘we’re going back to our camps! We're 
going to lick them out of their boots!” Hundreds turned and followed his 
black steed. He found Getty—the same who had held the road in the Wil. 
derness—far in front of the remainder of the line of the Sixth Corps, con. 
fronting the enemy, and momentarily expecting an attack. The other divi 
sions of Wright and Emory were brought forward, and soon were ready for 
the enemy. 

‘Two hours and more passed. Then Early pushed a column toward Em- 
ory. No sooner was it within range than a single volley sent it whirling 
back, and Sheridan was about to order an advance, when word came to him 
from the cavalry far off to the left that a fresh infantry column of Confeder- 
ates were pressing toward Winchester to gain his rear. The report was 
erroneous, but it delayed the order to advance. At four o’clock the order 
came. Karly had now thrown up breastworks and taken strong positions 
under cover of stone fences. For a space he fought bravely, and gave way 
slowly and sullenly, but surely. Once, indeed, by a flank movement, he 
wheeled Gordon’s division around Emory’s right, and threw it into some 
confusion; but the movement was a fatal one. McMillan’s brigade dashed 
into the angle thus formed in the Confederate line, pressed through, and cut 
off the turning column, upon which Custer’s cavalry charged. At the same 
moment the whole Union line rushed forward, and swept the enemy before 
them. Gordon first broke, then Kershaw, then Ramseur, and all rushed in 
wild tumult down the turnpike which led to their position at Fisher’s Hill, 
charged by cavalry on both flanks, and pressed by infantry in the centre. 
The fugitives outran their foot-pursuers, who, weary and thirsty, toiled after 
them. But the swift cavalry were on their heels. At the crossing of Cedar 
Creek Custer and Devin charged the train without provoking a shot. A lit- 
tle farther on was another bridge; this broke down, and the whole train, 
guns and wagons, was abandoned. At length, once more behind the lines 
at Fisher’s Hill, which cavalry could not pass, Early had a brief respite; 
but in the darkness the whole crowd rushed on, never halting for thirty 
miles. There was no need for pursuit the next day. So utterly destroyed 
was Harly’s army that there was nothing worth chasing. 

With this battle ended the fighting in the Valley of the Shenandoah. 
The remnant of EKarly’s force rejoined Lee, by swift marches, at Petersburg, 
only enough of his own three divisions being left in the Valley to form one 
small division. Early put forth a bitter address to his troops. After re- 
counting the brilliant success of the morning, he added: “TI have the mor- 
tification of announcing to you that, by your subsequent misconduct, all the 
benefits of that victory were lost, and a serious disaster incurred. Many of 
you, including some commissioned officers, yielding to a disgraceful propen- 
sity to plunder, deserted your colors to appropriate the abandoned property 
of the enemy; and subsequently those who had previously remained at 
their posts, seeing their ranks thinned by the absence of the plunderers, 
when the enemy, late in the afternoon, with his shattered columns, made 
but a feeble effort to retrieve the failures of the day, yielded to a needless 
panic, and fled the field in confusion.” 

The defeat was indeed as total as ‘‘ Lee’s bad old man” represented it; but 
the reproach was undeserved. ‘The troops had fought themselves out in the 
morning. The victory was won by surprise against superior numbers. The 
surprise was over in the afternoon, and the numbers were still largely against 
them,! while the advantage of position was not great. Early appears once 
more for a moment in the history of the war, when, four months after, a 
little band of 1500 men whom he had gathered was rode over and captured 
almost to a man by a single division of Sheridan’s cavalry. 

The Federal victory was complete and absolute, but it was purchased at 
a heavy cost. The losses numbered 5990, of whom 1890 were missing, 
mostly prisoners, more than a third of them from Crook’s corps, captured in 
the surprise. This corps lost but 65 killed, while it had 654 missing. 
Karly’s loss was barely half as great. There were 1500 prisoners, and prob. 
ably about as many killed and wounded, nearly all in the final fight in the 
afternoon. He lost also 30 guns, all that he brought into action, besides 16 
which he had captured in the morning. 

Sheridan’s decisive campaign in the Valley was comprised within just a 
month, counting from the time when he commenced direct offensive opera- 
tions. In that month he completely annihilated his opponent, capturing ful- 
ly 18,000 prisoners, and killing and wounding quite 10,000. His own losses 
in killed and wounded indeed were greater. Including the three great bat- 
tles and about thirty skirmishes, which mainly took place in the six weeks 
while he was watching the enemy, preparatory to striking, they amounted 
to 13,831; the missing 3121—a total loss of 16,952; of whom 11,827 were 
in the great battles, and 5625 in minor engagements.” 


1T accept Early’s statement of his force as an approximation to the truth. Ido not think it 
possible that his force exceeded 12,000 infantry, although many endeavor to make it twice as great. 
To do this, they speak of a re-enforcement of 12,000 or 16,000 of Longstreet’s corps, received the 
day before the battle. Of these I can find no credible information. I find with Early only that 
half of his army which had escaped from the Opequan and Fisher’s Hill—say not more than 
8000 men, and Kershaw’s one division of probably 4000. Pollard says definitely 2750 muskets— 
say 3000 men, 4 ; , 4h 

? The following is a summary of the losses of Sheridan during his whole campaign in the Shen- 
andoah Valley, from August 7 to October 19: 


Battle of the Opequan....,....seseeeeee 5,035 | Battle of Cedar Creek..........sceceseeee 5,995 
Battle of Fisher's Hill...........essee00 297 | Minor Engagements. ..........e.scsecsece 5,625 
6,952 


The Confederate loss in prisoners is officially given. Of the killed and wounded we can only 
conjecture. 


= 


DECEMBER, 1864. ] 


SCALE OF MILES 


APPROACHES TO SAVANNAIL 


CHAPTER LI. 


SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE CAROLINA MARCH. 


Correspondence between Grant and Sherman.—The Idea of transporting Sherman’s Army to Vir- 
ginia by Sea abandoned.—Sherman’s Preparations for a March through the Carolinas. —Civil 
Adninistration at Savannah.—Trade Regulations. —Sherman’s Orders respecting Freedmen.— 
Regulations for the Government of Savannah.—Cotton taken as a Prize of War.—Howard’s 
Movement on Pocotaligo.—A Flood in the Savannah River impedes Slocum’s Operations. — 
Comparison of the Carolina March with that from Atlanta to Savannah.—Sherman’s Acquaint- 
ance with the Country.—Feint Movement on Charleston.—Crossing of the Salkehatchie.—De- 
struction of the Railroad connecting Augusta with Charleston.—Crossing of the South Edisto. 
—Sherman declines Wheeler’s Cotton Compromise.—Union of the two Wings south of the Con- 
garee.—Capture of Columbia.—Explanation of the Burning of Columbia.—Occupation of 
Winnsborough.—Crossing of the Catawba.—Sherman retaliates for the Murder of his Fora- 
gers.—Correspondence with Wheeler on this Subject.—Occupation of Cheraw.—Charleston 
Evacuated.— Affair between Kilpatrick and Wade Hampton.—Sherman’s Army at Fayetteville, 
on the Cape Fear River.—Concentratiou of the Enemy’s Forces under Johnston.—Sherman 
communicates with Terry and Schofield.—Crossing of the Cape Fear.—Battle of Averys- 
borough.—Battle of Bentonville. —Sherman, re-enforced by Terry and Schofield, concentrates 
his Army at Goldsborough, and establishes Communications with Newbern and Morehead City. 


HEN General Sherman, after the capture of Fort McAllister, passed 
down the Ogeechee into Ossibaw Sound, and to the flag-ship of Ad- 
miral Dahlgren, he found two communications waiting him from Lieutenant 
General Grant. When these were written Sherman was still marching 
through Georgia, and had not struck bottom.” But they express no fear 
as to the ultimate success of the extraordinary campaign which Sherman 
had undertaken. The second of these communications, of date December 
6th, indicated Grant’s intention to transport Sherman’s army, after it had 
established a base on the coast, to the James River, to co-operate in the cam- 
paign against Lee.? 

Sherman, although his original plan had contemplated a continuation of 
his march through the Carolinas to Virginia,? immediately set out to obey 
General Grant’s instructions. In the delay incident to the transportation 
of his army he determined to capture Savannah. As we haye seen, he ac- 


' The following are copies of both these letters. 
ber 3, reads thus: 

‘* The little information gleaned from the Southern press indicating no great obstacle to your 
progress, I have directed your mails, which previously had been collected in Baltimore by Colonel 
Markland, special agent of the Post-office Department, to be sent as far as the blockading squadron 
off Savannah, to be forwarded to you as soon as heard from on the coast. Not liking to rejoice 
before the victory is assured, I abstain from congratulating you and those under your command 
until bottom has been struck. Ihave never had a fear, however, as to the result. 

“* Since you left Atlanta no great progress has been madehere. ‘The enemy has been closely watch- 
ed, though, and prevented from detaching against you. I think not one man has gone from here 
except some 1200 or 1500 dismounted cavalry. Bragg has gone from Wilmington. I am trying 
to take advantage of his absence to get possession of that place. Owing to some preparations Ad- 
miral Porter and General Butler are making to blow up Fort Fisher, and which, while I hope for 
the best, do not believe a particle in, there is a delay in getting this expedition off. I hope they 
will be ready to start by the 7th, and that Bragg will not have started back by that time. 

“In this letter I do not intend to give you any thing like directions for future action, but will 
state a general idea I have, and will get your views after you have established yourself on the sea- 
coast.. With your veteran army I hope to get control of the only two through routes, from east to 
west, possessed by the enemy, before the fall of Atlanta. This condition will be filled by holding 
Savannah and Augusta, or by holding any other post to the east of Savannah and Branchville, If 
Wilmington falls, a force from there can co-operate with you. 

“Thomas has got back into the defenses of N ashville, with Hood close upon him. Decatur has 
been abandoned, and so have all the roads, except the main one leading to Chattanooga. I hope 
Hood will be badly crippled or destroyed. After all becomes quiet, and the roads up here are so 
bad that there is likely to be a week or two that nothing can be done, I will run down the coast 
and see you.” 

On the 6th he writes again : 

“On reflection, since sending my letter by Lieutenant Dunn, I have concluded that the most 
important operation toward closing out the rebellion will be to close out Lee and his army. You 
have now destroyed the roads of the South so that it will probably take them months, without in- 
terruption, to establish a through line from east to west. In that time, I think, the job here will 
be effectually completed. My idea now is, that you establish a base on the coast, fortify, and leave 
in it all your artillery and cavalry, and enough infantry to protect them, and, at the same time, so 
threaten the interior that the militia of the South will have to be kept at home. With the balance 
of your command, come here with all dispatch. Select yourself the officer to leave in command, 
but you I want in person. Unless you see objections to this plan which I can not see, use every 
vessel going to you for the purpose of transportation.” 

* In reply to Grant’s communications of the 3d and 6th, Sherman incidentally remarks that with 
his army he “‘ had expected, after reducing Savannah, instantly to march to Columbia, South Car- 
olina, thence to Raleigh,” etc. 

On the 18th he again writes to Grant, as a sort of postcript to a letter dealing with other mat- 
ters: ‘I do sincerely believe that the whole United States, North and South, would rejoice to have 
this army turned loose on South Carolina, to devastate that state in the manner we have done in 
Georgia, and it would have a direct and immediate bearing on your campaign in Virginia,” 

Again, on the 22d, at the close of his letter announcing the capture of Savannah, he says: *T 
have now completed my first step, and should like to go on to you via Columbia and Raleigh, but 
will prepare to embark as soon as vessels come. Colonel Babcock will have told you all, and you 
know better than any body else how much better troops arrive by a land march than when carried 
by transports, . . .. The capture of Savannah, with the incidental use of the rivers, gives us a 
magnificent position in this quarter, and if you can hold Lee, and if Thomas can continue as he 
did on the 18th, I could go on and smash South Carolina all to pieces, and also break up roads as 
far as the Roanoke. But, as I before remarked, I will now look to coming to you as soon as trans- 
ports are ready.” 8S 


The first, from City Point, Virginia, Decem- 


i 


SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE CAROLINA MARCH. 


713 


complished that object on the 21st, 
to the lieutenant general. 

In the mean time General Sherman had heard of Hood’s defeat at Nash- 
ville, which was at once a vindication of his march and the indispensable 
seal of its success. ‘The tidings of the capture of Savannah following close 
upon Hood’s defeat illustrated to the outside world what had all along been 
present to the prophetic eye of Sherman—the tremendous significance of 
the March to the Sea. Ina twinkling, the doubts of the loyal, and the rash 
confidence of the rebellious and of their sympathizers, were dispersed. It 
was to the Northern people the breaking of a glorious dawn after terribly 
dark hours of anxiety and apprehension. A period of suspense had passed, 
during which few opened their mouths to judge General Sherman or to pre- 
dict the issue of a movement which was almost universally believed too 
bold to rank among the legitimate ventures of war; and now, suddenly, out 
of this ominous silence arose a universal shout at once of triumph and of 
praise to the victor, who had been no less signally crowned by his own suc- 
cess at Savannah than by that of his subordinate at Nashville, 657 miles 
away.’ General Grant, even before the capture of Savannah, congratulated 
General Sherman and his army upon the successful termination of his “bril- 
ant campaign.” It is true, he had heard of Hood’s defeat; but he says, 
“T never had a doubt of the result. When apprehensions for your safety 
were expressed by the President, I assured him, with the army you had, and 
you in command of it, there was no danger but you would strike bottom on 
salt water some place; that I would not feel the same security, in fact would 
not have intrusted the expedition to any other living commander.” On the 
26th, in answer to Sherman’s note presenting him with Savannah as a 
Christmas gift, President Lincoln replied : 

“MY DEAR GENERAL SHERMAN,—Man y, many thanks for your Christmas 
gift. When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was 
anxious, if not fearful; but, feeling that you were the better judge, and re- 
membering that ‘nothing risked, nothing gained,’ I did not interfere. Now, 
the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none 
of us went farther than to acquiesce. And, taking the work of General 
Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. 
Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages, but, 
in showing the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger 
part to an immediate new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the 
old opposing force of the whole—Hood’s army—it brings those who sat in 
darkness to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer 
to leave General Grant and yourself to decide.”? 

General Grant, after Thomas's victory at Nashville, was shaken in his de- 
termination to transport Sherman’s army by sea to the James River. It 
would be impossible to effect this in less than two months, and in that time 
Sherman could make the march by land, and in doing so strike the enemy 
a far heavier blow. He writes on the 18th of December: “If you capture 
the garrison of Savannah, it will certainly compel Lee to detach from Rich- 
mond, or give us nearly the whole South. My own opinion is, Lee is averse 
to going out of Virginia; and, if the cause of the South is lost, he wants 
Richmond to be the last place surrendered. If he has such views, it may 
be well to indulge him until we get every thing else in our hands.” Gen- 
eral Sherman was delighted at the modification of Grant’s plan, as he would 
thus be permitted to carry out his original scheme of a march through the 
Carolinas.’ 


The next day he announced his success 


* That General Sherman looked upon the defeat of Hood by Thomas as necessary to justify his 
march is evident from the following letter, written by him to General J. D. Webster (at Nash- 
ville), December 23 : 

** Major Dixon arrived last night, bringing your letter of the 10th of December, for which I am 
very much obliged, as it gives me a clear and distinct view of the situation of affairs at Nashville 
up to that date. Ihave also from the War Department a copy of General Thomas’s dispatch, 
giving an account of the attack on Hood on the 15th, which was successful, but not complete, I 
await farther accounts with anxiety, as Thomas’s complete success is necessary to vindicate my 
plans for this campaign, and I have no doubt that my calculations that Thomas had in hand (in- 
cluding A. J. Smith’s troops) a force large enough to whip Hood in fair fight were correct. 1 
approve of Thomas’s allowing Hood to come north far enough to enable him to concentrate his 
own men, though I would have preferred that Hood should have been checked about Columbi«. 
Still, if Thomas followed up his success on the 15th, and gave Hood a good whaling, and is at this 
moment following him closely, the whole campaign in my division will be even more perfect than 
the Atlanta campaign, for at this end of the line I have realized all I had reason to hope for e) - 
cept in the release of our prisoners, which was simply an impossibility.” 

* General Sherman's reply to this is equally characteristic. Writing J. anuary 6th, he says; ‘{ 
am gratified at the receipt of your letter of December 26th at the hands of General Logan, espe- 
cially to observe that you appreciate the division I made of my army, and that each part was duly 
proportioned to its work. : ; 

‘The motto, ‘ Nothing venture, nothing win,’ which you refer to, is appropriate; and, should [ 
venture too much and happen to lose, I shall bespeak your charitable inference, 

“*T am ready for the ‘great next’ as soon as I can complete certain preliminaries, and learn of 
General Grant his and your preferences of intermediate ‘ objectives.’ ” 

* He replies to General Grant, December 24: ‘‘I am gratified that you have modified your for- 
mer orders, as I feared that the transportation by sea woul] very much disturb the unity and 
morale of my army, now so perfect. 

“The occupation of Savannah . . . . completes the first part of our game, and fulfills a great 
part of your instructions; and I am now engaged in dismantling the rebel forts which bear upon 
the sea and channels, and transporting the heavy ordnance and ammunition to Fort Pulaski and 
Hilton Head, where they can be more easily guarded than if left in the city. 

“The rebel inner lines are well adapted to our purpose, and, with slight modifications, can be 
held by a comparatively small force, and in about ten days expect to be ready to sally forth again. 
I feel no doubt whatever as to our future plans. I have thought them over so long and well that 
they appear as clear as daylight. I left Augusta untouched on purpose, because the enemy will 
be in doubt as to my objective point after crossing the Savannah River, whether it be Augusta and 
Charleston, and will naturally divide his forces. I will then move either on Branchville or Colum- 
bia by any curved line that gives me the best supplies, breaking up in my course as much railroad 
as possible, then ignoring Charleston and Augusta both. I would occupy Columbia and Camden, 
pausing there long enough to observe the effect. I would then strike for the Charleston and Wil 
mington Railroad, somewhere between the Santee and Cape Fear Rivers, and, if possible, commu- 
nicate with the fleet under Admiral Dahlgren (whom I find a most agreeable gentleman, in every 
way accommodating himself to our wishes and plans). Then I would favor Wilmington, in the 
belief that Porter and Butler will fail in their present undertaking. Charleston is now a mere 
desolated wreck, and is hardly worth the time it would take to starve it out, Still I am awaié 
that historically and politically, much importance is attached to the place, and it may be that, 
apart from its military importance, both you and the administration would prefer I should give it 
more attention; and it would be well for you to give me some general idea on that subject, ag 
otherwise I would treat it, as I have expressed, as a point of little importance, after all its railroads 
leading into the interior are destroyed or occupied by us. But on the hypothesis of ignoring 


714 


General Grant fully sanctioned Sherman’s scheme before the close of 1864. 
There was nearly a month’s delay at Savannah, This time was occupied in 
gathering supplies, in disposing of captured property, and in local adminis- 
tration. The march through Georgia had already led to some important 
political results in that state. In Liberty and Tatnall counties, south of 
Savannah, Union meetings were held by the citizens, and patriotic resolu- 
tions were adopted. Sherman recognized the movement, and promised his 
aid, encouragement, and defense to all citizens who would “stay quietly 
at home, and call back their sons and neighbors to resume their peaceful 
pursuits.” He invited all such to bring their produce to Savannah, to be 
sold to the highest bidder or to his commissary. Merchants and attorneys 
in Savannah were required to acknowledge the national supremacy in order 
to the continuance of their avocations. But, in Sherman’s judgment, all 
matters relating to reconstruction in Georgia were of secondary importance 
until the final victory of the nation should be secured. 

Sherman caused a thorough examination to be made of the defenses of 
Savannah, which city was now to become an important dépdt of supplies. 
New lines of fortification were constructed, “embracing the city proper, 
Forts Jackson, Thunderbolt, and Pulaski, with slight modifications in their 


FORT THUNDERBOLT, SAVANNAH. 


armament and rear defenses.” The other forts were dismantled, and their 
heavy ordnance transferred to Hilton Head. The obstructions in the river 
were with great difficulty removed, as also the torpedoes in the channels 


Charleston and taking Wilmington, I would then favor a movement direct on Raleigh. The 
game is then up with Lee, unless he comes out of Richmond, avoids you and fights me, in which 
case I should reckon on your being on his heels. 

‘* Now that Hood is used up by Thomas, I feel disposed to bring the matter to an issue as quick 
as possible. I feel confident that I can break up the whole railroad system of South Carolina and 
North Carolina, and be on the Roanoke, either at Raleigh or Weldon, by the time spring fairly 
opens; and if you feel confident that you can whip Lee outside of his intrenchments, I feel equally 
confident that I can handle him in the open country. 

‘*One reason why I should ignore Charleston is this: That I believe they will reduce the garri- 
son to a small force, with plenty of provisions, and I know that the neck back of Charleston can be 
made impregnable to assault, and we will hardly have time for siege operations. 

‘*T will haye to leave in Savannah a garrison, and, if Thomas can spare them, I would like to 
have all detachments, convalescents, etc., belonging to these four corps, sent forward at once. I 
don’t want to cripple Thomas, because I regard his operations as all-important, and I haye ordered 
him to pursue Hood down into Alabama, trusting to the country for supplies. 

‘*T reviewed one of my corps to-day, and shall continue to review the whole army. I don’t like 
to boast, but I believe this army has a confidence in itself that makes it almost invincible.” 

Grant replied on the 27th of December, giving Sherman permission to follow out his plan, and 
making some suggestions. He says: 

**Your confidence in being able to march up and join this army pleases me, and I believe it can 
be done. The effect of such a campaign will be to disorganize the South, and prevent the organi- 
zation of new armies from their broken fragments. Hood is now retreating, with his army broken 
and demoralized. His loss in men has probably not been far from 20,000, besides deserters. If 
time is given, the fragments may be collected together, and many of the deserters reassembled. 
If we can we should act to prevent this. Your spare army, as it were, moving as proposed, will 
do this. 

‘*In addition to holding Savannah, it looks to me that an intrenched camp ought to be held on 
the railroad between Savannah and Charleston. Your movements toward Branchville will probably 
enable Foster to reach this with his own force. ‘This will give us a position in the South from 
which we can threaten the interior without marching over long, narrow causeways, easily defended, 
as we have heretofore been compelled to do. Could not such a camp be established about Poca- 
taligo or Coosawatchie ? 

“‘Thaye thought that, Hood being so completely wiped out for all present harm, I might bring 
A.J, Smith with from 10,000 to 15,000. With this increase I could hold my lines, and move 
out with greater force than Lee has. It would compel him to retain all his present force in the 
defenses of Richmond, or abandon them entirely. The latter contingency is probably the only 
danger to the easy success of your expedition. In the event you should meet Lee’s army, you 
would be compelled to beat it or find the sea-coast. Of course I shall not let Lee’s army escape 
if I can help it, and will not let it go without following it to the best of my ability. 

“* Without waiting farther directions, then, you may make preparations to start on your Northern 
expedition without delay. Break up the railroads in South and North Carolina, and join the 
armies operating against Richmond as soon as you can. 

“*T will leave out all suggestions about the route you should take, knowing that your informa- 
tion, gained daily in the progress of events, will be better than any that can be obtained now. It 
may not be possible for you to march to the rear of Petersburg; but, failing in this, you could 
strike either of the sea-coast ports in North Carolina held by us. From there you could easily take 
shipping. It would be decidedly preferable, however, if you could march the whole distance. 
From the best information I have, you will find no difficulty in supplying your army until you cross 
the Roanoke. From there here is but a few days’ march, and supplies could be collected south of 
the river to bring you through. I shall establish communication with you there by steam-boat and 
gun-boat, By this means your wants can be partially supplied.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ DECEMBER, 1864. 


below the city. General Geary was assigned to the command of the city. 
His policy, just but conciliatory, had a good effect upon the citizens. Mayor 
R. D. Arnold, continued in the exercise of his functions, advised the citizens 
to yield a ready obedience to the Federal government and its military rep- 
resentative. A public meeting was held, in which the mayor’s views were 
adopted, and Governor Brown was called upon to take measures for the res- 
toration of Georgia to the Union. A national bank was established, and the 
city enjoyed undisturbed tranquillity. On the 14th of January, 1865, Gen- 
eral Sherman issued orders regulating the internal trade of the state, inviting 
the citizens to bring their produce to Savannah, and to hold meetings for the 
discussion of their present situation, and promising them the protection of 
the national army.? 

Nor did General Sherman forget the freedmen. With the approval of 
Secretary Stanton, who visited Savannah shortly after its capture, he issued 
orders devoting the abandoned sea islands south of Charleston, and rice- 
fields along the rivers of Georgia for thirty miles back from the sea, to their 
exclusive use and management, subject only to the United States military 
authority and the acts of Congress.2. He had, on the 26th of December, 
promulgated regulations for the military control of Savannah.* In his or- 


1 The following is a copy of these orders : 

‘Tt being represented that the Confederate army and armed bands of robbers, acting professedly 
under the authority of the Confederate government, are harassing the people of Georgia and en- 
deavoring to intimidate them in the efforts they are making to secure themselves provisions, cloth- 
ing, security to life and property, and the restoration of law and good government in the state, it 
is hereby ordered and made public: 

‘*T. That the farmers of Georgia may bring into Savannah, Fernandina or Jacksonville, Florida, 
marketing, such as beef, pork, mutton, vegetables of any kind, fish, etc., as well as cotton in small 
quantities, and sell the same in open market, except the cotton, which must be sold by or through 
the treasury agents, and may invest the proceeds in family stores, such as bacon and flour, in any 
reasonable quantities, groceries, shoes, and clothing, and articles not contraband of war, and carry 
the same back to their families. No trade-stores will be attempted in the interior, or stocks of 
goods sold for them, but families may club together for mutual assistance and protection in coming 
and going. 

‘IT’ 'The people are encouraged to meet together in peaceful assemblages to discuss measures 
looking to their safety and good government, and the restoration of state and national authority, 
and will be protected by the national army when so doing; and all peaceable inhabitants who sat- 
isfy the commanding officers that they are earnestly laboring to that end must not only be left 
undisturbed in property and person, but must be protected as far as possible consistent with the 
military operations. If any farmer or peaceful inhabitant is molested by the enemy, viz., the Con- 
federate army of guerrillas, because of his friendship to the national government, the perpetrator, 
if caught, will be summarily punished, or his family made to suffer for the outrage; but if the 
crime can not be traced to the actual party, then retaliation will be made on the adherents to the 
cause of the rebellion. Should a Union man be murdered, then a rebel selected by lot will be shot; 
or if a Union family be persecuted on account of the cause, a rebel family will be banished to a 
foreign land. In aggravated cases, retaliation will extend as high as five for one. All command- 
ing officers will act promptly in such cases, and report their action after the retaliation is done.” 

2 The following are the orders: 

“*T. The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice-fields along the rivers for thirty 
miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. John’s River, Florida, are reserved and 
set apart for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation 
of the President of the United States. 

‘“‘II. At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, St. Augustine, and Jacksonyille, the 
blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations ; but on the islands, and in the settle- 
ments hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers 
detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside, and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will 
be left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military authority and the 
acts of Congress. By the laws of war and orders of the President of the United States, the negro 
is free, and must be dealt with as such. He can not be subjected to conscription, or forced into 
military service, save by the written orders of the highest military authority of the department, 
under such regulations as the President or Congress may prescribe; domestic servants, black- 
smiths, carpenters, and other mechanics will be free to select their own work and residence; but 
the young and able-bodied negroes must be encouraged to enlist as soldiers in the service of the 
United States, to contribute their share toward maintaining their own freedom, and securing their 
rights as citizens of the United States. 

‘* Negroes so enlisted will be organized into companies, battalions, and regiments, under the or- 
ders of the United States military authorities, and will be paid, fed, and clothed according to law. 
The bounties paid on enlistment may, with the consent of the recruit, go to assist his family and 
settlement in procuring agricultural implements, seed, tools, boats, clothing, and other articles nec- 
essary for their livelihood. 

‘*TTI. Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on lands, and 
shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality clearly defined within the limits above 
designated, the inspector of settlements and plantations will himself, or by such subordinate officer 
as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assist- 
ance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement. The three parties 
named will subdivide the land, under the supervision of the inspector, among themselves and such 
others as may choose to settle near them, so that each family shall have a plot of not more than 
forty acres of tillable ground, and, when it borders on some water-channel, with not more than 
etght hundred feet water-front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford 
them protection until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate 
their title. 

“*The quartermaster may, on the requisition of the inspector of settlements and plantations, 
place at the disposal of the inspector one or more of the captured steamers to ply between the set- 
tlements and one or more of the commercial points heretofore named in orders, to afford the set- 
tlers the opportunity to supply their necessary wants, and to sell the products of their land and 
labor. 

‘*TV. Whenever a negro has enlisted in the military service of the United States, he may locate 
his family in any one of the settlements at pleasure, and acquire a homestead and all other rights 
and privileges of a settler as though present in person. 

‘Tn like manner, negroes may settle their families and engage on board the gun-boats, or in 
fishing, or in the navigation of the inland waters, without losing any claim to land or other advan- 
tages derived from this system. But no one, unless an actual settler as above defined, or unless 
absent on government service, will be entitled to claim any right to land or property in any settle- 
ment by virtue of these orders. 

‘*V. In order to carry out this system of settlement, a general officer will be detailed as inspect- 
or of settlements and plantations, whose duty it shall be to visit the settlements to regulate their 
police and general management, and who will furnish personally to each head of a family, subject 
to the approval of the President of the United States, a possessory title in writing, giving, as near 
as possible, the description of boundaries, and who shall adjust all claims or conflicts that may 
arise under the same, subject to the like approval, treating such titles altogether as possessory. 
The same general officer will also be charged with the enlistment and organization of the negro re- 
cruits, and protecting their interests while absent from their settlements, and will be governed by 
the rules and regulations prescribed by the War Department for such purposes.” 

° Of which the following is a copy: 

‘“‘The city of Savannah and surrounding country will be held as a military post and adapted to 
future military uses, but, as it contains a population of some twenty thousand people who must be 
provided for, and as other citizens may come, it is proper to lay down certain general principles, 
that all within its military jurisdiction may understand their relative duties and obligations. 

‘“‘T. During war, the military is superior to civil authority, and where interests clash the civil 
must give way; yet, where there is no conflict, every encouragement should be given to well-dis- 
posed and peaceful inhabitants to resume their usual pursuits. Families should be disturbed as 
little as possible in their residences, and tradesmen allowed the full use of their shops, tools, ete. 
Churches, schools, all places of amusement and recreation, should be encouraged, and streets and 
roads made perfectly safe to persons in their usual pursuits. Passes should not be exacted within 
the line of outer pickets ; but if any person shall abuse these privileges by communicating with the 
enemy, or doing any act of hostility to the government of the United States, he or she will be pun- 
ished with the utmost rigor of the law. 

‘Commerce with the outer world will be resumed to an extent commensurate with the wants of 
the citizens, governed by the restrictions and rules of the Treasury Department. 

“TI. The chief quartermaster and commissary of the army may give suitable employment to the 
people, white and black, or transport them to such points as they choose, where employment may 


—? ben 


January, 1865. ] 


ders regulating trade he had excluded cotton from ordinary commerce, hold- 
ing this staple to be a legitimate prize of war, and the property of the United 
States.'. These trade regulations included within their scope the whole De- 
partment of the South, which, though still under the immediate command of 
General Foster, was now subordinate to General Sherman. 

By the 19th of January Sherman was ready to move. Grover’s division 
of the Nineteenth Corps had been withdrawn from Sheridan’s Army of the 
Shenandoah to Savannah, relieving Geary’s division, and forming thereafter 
a part of General Foster’s command. General Schofield, with the Twenty- 
third Corps, had been transferred from the West to re-enforce Generals Terry 


be had, and may extend temporary relief in the way of provisions and vacant houses to the worthy 
and needy, until such time as they can help themselves. ‘They will select, first, the buildings for 
the necéssary uses of the army; next, a sufficient number of stores to be turned over to the treas- 
ury agent for trade-stores. All vacant store-houses or dwellings, and all buildings belonging to ab- 
sent rebels, will be construed and used as belonging to the United States until such times as their 
titles can be settled by the courts of the United States. 


“If. The mayor and city council of Savannah will continue and exercise their functions as | 
such, and will, in concert with the commanding officer of the post and chief quartermaster, see | 


that the fire-companies are kept in organization, the streets cleaned and lighted, and keep up a good 
understanding between the citizens and soldiers. They will ascertain and report to the chief com- 
missary of subsistence, as soon as possible, the names and number of worthy families that need as- 
sistance and support. 

“The mayor will forthwith give public notice that the time has come when all must choose their 
course, namely, to remain within our lines and conduct themselves as good citizens, or depart in 
peace. He will ascertain the names of all who choose to leave Savannah, and report their names 
and residence to the chief quartermaster, that measures may be taken to transport them beyond 
the lines. 

‘TV. Not more than two newspapers will be published in Savannah, and their editors and pro- 
prietors will be held to the strictest accountability, and will be punished severely, in person and 
property, for any libelous publication, mischievous matter, premature news, exaggerated state- 
ments, or any comments whatever upon the acts of the constituted authorities: they will be held 
accountable even for such articles though copied from other papers.” 

* This led to some dissatisfaction on the part of the citizens of Savannah and of foreign consuls. 
On the 2d of January Sherman writes to Secretary Stanton in regard to this matter as follows: 

“T have just received from Lieutenant General Grant a copy of that part of your telegram to 
him of 26th December relating to cotton, a copy of which has been immediately furnished to Gen- 
eral Eaton, my chief quartermaster, who will be strictly governed by it. 

“Thad already been approached by all the consuls and half the people of Savannah on this cot- 
tun question, and my invariable answer has been that all the cotton in Savannah was prize of war, 
and belonged to the United States, and nobody should recover a bale of it with my consent; and 
that as cotton had been one of the chief causes of this war, it should help pay its expenses ; that all 
cotton became tainted with treason from the hour the first act of hostility was committed against 
the United States, some time in December, 1860, and that no bill of sale subsequent to that date 
could convey title. 

** My orders were that an officer of the quartermaster’s department, United States army, might 
furnish the holder, agent, or attorney a mere certificate of the fact of seizure, with description of 
the bales, marks, etc.; the cotton then to be turned over to the agent of the ‘Treasury Department, 
to be shipped to New York for sale. But since the receipt of your dispatch I have ordered Gen- 
eral Eaton to make the shipment himself to the quartermaster at New York, where you can dispose 
of it at pleasure. Ido not think the Treasury Department ought to bother itself with the prizes or 
captures of war. 

** Mr. Barclay, former consul at New York—representing Mr. Molyneux, former consul, but ab- 
sent since a long time—called on me in person with reference to cotton claims by English subjects. 
He seemed amazed when I told him I should pay no respect to consular certificates, and that in no 
event would I treat an English subject with more favor than one of our own deluded citizens; and 
that, for my part, I was unwilling to fight for cotton for the benefit of Englishmen openly engaged 
in smuggling arms and munitions of war to kill us; that, on the contrary, it would afford me great 
satisfaction to conduct my army to Nassau and wipe out that nest of pirates. I explained to him, 
however, that I was not a diplomatic agent of the general government of the United States ; but 
that my opinion, so frankly expressed, was that of a soldier, which it would be well for him to heed. 
It appeared also that he owned a plantation on the line of investment to Savannah, which, of course, 
is destroyed, and for which he expected me to give him some certificate entitling him to indemnifi- 
cation, which I declined emphatically. 

“Ihave adopted in Savannah rules concerning property, severe but just, founded upon the laws 
of nations and the practice of civilized governments; and am clearly of opinion that we should 
claim all the belligerent rights over conquered countries, that the people may realize the truth that 
war is no child’s play.” 


SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE CAROLINA MARCH. 


~~! 
— 
Pr 


SLOCUM'S ARMY CROSSING THE SAVANNAIL AT SISTER'S FERRY. 


and Palmer, who were operating on the coast of North Carolina, and prepar- 
ing the way for General Sherman’s arrival. On the 24th of December an 
unsuccessful attack had been made on Fort Fisher, at the mouth of Cape 
Fear River, by Admiral Porter. The failure of the expedition was due to 
a want of proper management on the part of General Butler, the military 
commander, On the 15th of January the attack was renewed, General But- 
ler being replaced by General Terry, and was successful. The remaining 
works of the enemy at the mouth of the Cape Fear soon followed the fate 
of Fort Fisher. This victory was auspicious for Sherman, who was‘ then 
setting out upon his northward march. 

General Howard was ordered to effect a lodgment on the Savannah and 
Charleston Railroad, at Pocotaligo. He embarked with the Seventeenth 
Corps at Thunderbolt, and proceeded to Beaufort, and there landing his 
troops, succeeded in reaching Pocotaligo Station. Leggett’s division dis- 
lodged the enemy, and a secure dépét for supplies was established at the 
mouth of Pocotaligo Creek, within easy communication by Broad River with 
Hilton Head. Three divisions of Logan’s corps (the Fifteenth) followed 
Blair; but Corse’s division was cut off by the freshets, and compelled to 
move with the left wing. 

Slocum, with the left wing and Kilpatrick’s cavalry, was ordered to move 
directly across the Savannah River up to Coosawatchie, on the Charleston 
Road, and to Robertsville, on the road to Columbia. He had established 
a good pontoon bridge across the river opposite the city, and the Union 
causeway, over which Hardee had retreated a month before, had been re- 
paired and corduroyed; but before the time appointed for his march the 
heavy rains of January had swollen the river, swept away the bridge, and 
overflowed the whole bottom, so that the causeway was four feet under 


POVOTALIGO DEPOT. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JANUARY, 1865. 


water. Driven thus from the route originally determined upon, Slocum, on 
the 26th of January, ascended the river to Sister’s Ferry. But even there 
the river was three miles wide, and his command was prevented from cross- 
ing until the 7th of February. Two divisions of the Twentieth Corps— 
Jackson’s and Geary’s—had crossed the river at Pureysburg, and, proceed- 
ing to Hardeeville, on the Charleston Road, secured communication with 
Howard at Pocotaligo. 

Sherman, in the mean time, on the 22d, embarked for Hilton Head, where 
he conferred with Admiral Dahlgren and General Foster in regard to. their 
co-operative movements. General Foster was to follow Sherman’s army in- 
land, and occupy in succession Charleston and such other points on the sea- 
coast as would be of any military value. Thus Sherman’s army was free to 
move directly upon Goldsborough. 

In all its general features, the march through the Carolinas was a repeti- 
tion of that through Georgia, already accomplished. No important strong- 
hold of the enemy was attacked. As Sherman in the Georgia promenade 
had feigned on Macon and Augusta, and passed between without striking 
either, so now he purposed to demonstrate against Augusta and Charleston, 
avoiding both, and make the quickest possible march to Goldsborough. In 
boldness, his present scheme exceeded the one already executed. The coun- 
try to be traversed was more difficult, and the enemy had been given time 
to concentrate his fragmentary forces in Sherman’s front. But Sherman had 


ENTERING BLACKVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA, 


MARCHING THROUGH THE SWAMPS. 


no doubts. “I think,” he says,! ‘the time has come now when we should 
attempt the boldest moves, and my experience is that they are easier of ex- 
ecution than more timid ones, because the enemy is disconcerted by them.’”? 
He was as familiar with the country over which he was about to march as 
with Georgia. “TI have hunted it over many a time,” he says, “ from Santee 


Letter to General Halleck, December 24th, 1864. 

° He adds in the same letter: ‘‘I also doubt the wisdom of concentration beyond a certain 
point, as the roads of this country limit the amount of men that can be brought to bear in any one 
battle ; and I don’t believe that any one general can handle more than 60,000 men in battle. I 
think any campaign of the last month, as well as every step I take from this point northward, is as 
much a direct attack upon Lee’s army as though I were operating within the sound of his artil- 
lery. . . . . . I attach more importance to these deep incisions into the enemy’s country, be- 
cause this war differs from European wars in this particular—we are not only fighting hostile ar- 
mies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, 
as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has 
had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying papers 
into the belief that we were being whipped all the time, realized the truth, and haye no appetite for 
a repetition of the same experience. ‘To be sure Jeff. Davis has his people under a pretty good 
shape of discipline, but I think faith in him is much shaken in Georgia, and I think before we are 
done South Carolina will not be so tempestuous. . . . . I felt somewhat disappointed at Hardee’s 
escape from me. . . . Still, I know that the men that were in Savannah will be lost, in a measure, 
to Jeff. Davis, for the Georgia troops, under G. W. Smith, declared they would not fight in South 
Carolina, and they have gone north en route for Augusta; and I have reason to believe the North 
Carolina troops haye gone to Wilmington.” 


CROSSING THE SOUTH EDISTO. 


Fesrvary, 1865. ] 


SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE CAROLINA MARCH. 


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to Mount Pleasant.” His army did not lack enthusiasm, and the prospect 
of a march through South Carolina was one which it relished exceedingly. 
The general feeling of the North toward Charleston may be inferred from 
General Halleck’s suggestion to Sherman: “Should you capture Charleston, 
Thope that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little salt 
should be sown upon its site, it may prevent the growth of future crops of 
nullification and secession.” Poor South Carolina! she was sandwiched 
between two states who looked upon her as the original source of their past 
madness and their present woes. 

Perhaps if Sherman had had Johnston as an antagonist in his immediate 
front he would not have been so confident. He calculated on the same Con- 
federate scheme for the defense of the Carolinas which he had baffled in 
Georgia. He knew that they would hold on to Augusta and Charleston as 
they had, six weeks before, to Augusta and Macon, leaving him the route 
between, molested only by Wheeler's cavalry and a mob of disorganized 
militia, which would be swept like chaff before his march. 

General Sherman accompanied the right wing of his army. On the 25th 
of January, with a small force, he demonstrated against the Combahee Fer- 
ry and the railroad bridge across the Salkehatchie, which river the enemy 
had adopted as his line of defense covering Charleston. After amusing the 
enemy at this point for nearly a week, the real march of Howard's army be- 

“gan on the Ist of February. Still keeping up the feint on Charleston, the 
main body of the army moved westward up the Salkehatchie. All the 
roads northward had been held for weeks by Wheeler's cavalry ; the bridges 


* Sherman, in the letter already quoted, replies to this: ‘I will bear in mind your suggestion as 
to Charleston, and don’t think ‘ salt” will be N@Ccessary, . . . » « The whole army is burning with 
I almost tremble at her fate, but feel 
Many and many a person in Georgia asked me 
why we did not go to South Carolina, and when I answered that I was en route for that state, the 
invariable reply was, ‘ Well, if you will make those people feel the severities of war, we will pardon 


oly 


SHERMAN'S ARMY ENTERING COLUMBIA, SOUTIT CAROLINA. 


had been burned and trees had been felled to obstruct Sherman’s move- 
ments. But the pioneer battalions soon cleared the way and rebuilt the 
bridges. On the 2d the Fifteenth Corps was well advanced at Loper’s 
Cross-roads, while the Seventeenth had reached River’s Bridge, and was 
ready to cross the Salkehatchie. 

Slocum’s army in the mean time, as we have seen, was still struggling 
with the Savannah floods. Kilpatrick, however, and two of Williams’s 
divisions, had crossed on pontoons. The latter were ordered to Beaufort’s 
Bridge, and Kilpatrick to Blackville. Howard crossed the Salkehatchie in 
the face of the enemy at River's and Beaufort’s bridges. The position of 
the enemy at River’s Bridge was on the 8d carried by Mower’s and G. A. 
Smith’s divisions of the Seventeenth Corps, who crossed the swamp, nearly 
three miles wide, through water reaching from knee to shoulder, and in bit- 
ter cold weather, and making a lodgment below the bridge, turned on the 
Confederate brigade posted there, driving it in confusion toward Branchville. 
The Confederate killed and wounded, numbering eighty-eight, were sent 
back to Pocotaligo. The Fifteenth Corps, with less resistance, but with 
equal success, effected the crossing at Beaufort’s Bridge, a short distance 
above. 

The line of the Salkehatchie being broken, the enemy fell back behind the 
Edisto River to Branchville, and Sherman occupied the South Carolina Rail- 
road connecting Augusta with Charleston. While waiting for the remain- 
der of Slocum’s army, this road was thoroughly destroyed from the Edisto 
to Blackville, Kilpatrick in the mean time being dispatched eastward to 
Aiken to threaten Augusta. Slocum reached Blackville on the 10th. The 
destruction of the railroad was continued to Windon. The whole army was 
on the 11th well concentrated about midway between Augusta and Charles- 
ton, thus dividing the forces of the enemy covering those two points. 

Crossing the South Edisto, the right wing appeared in front of Orange- 
burg on the 12th, swept away a detachment of the enemy intrenched at that 


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point, and followed, pushing him across the north branch of the Hdisto, 
where he took refuge behind a rampart, supported by a battery, and, having 
partially burned the bridge, threatened to dispute the crossing. From this 
position he was soon flanked, and Blair’s corps, having crossed, began the de- 


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STATE CAPITOL ano PALMETTO MEMORIAL 
| To tHe S.CAROLINA REGS in tHE MEXICAN WAR. 


PLAN OF COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


SOM VISSaLG 


cr 


[ FEBRUARY, 1865, 


struction of the railroad to Columbia. Slocum’s army moved by roads 
farther to the west, covered by Kilpatrick on its left. On the morning 
of February 16th the advance of Sherman’s army beheld Columbia from 
the south bank of the Congaree. 

In the mean time Sherman had received a communication from 
Wheeler, in which the latter promised not to burn cotton if Sherman 
would not burn houses. Sherman replied, “I hope you will burn all 
the cotton and save us the trouble. We don’t want it, and it has proved 
a curse to our country. All you don’t burn I will. As to private 
houses occupied by peaceful families, my orders are not to molest or 
disturb them, and I think my orders are obeyed. Vacant houses, being 
of no use to any body, I care little about, as the owners have thought 
them of no use to themselves.” 

On the south bank of the Congaree the two wings of the army were 
again united, but forthwith began to diverge again. Slocum was or- 
dered to cross the Saluda at Zion Church, above Columbia, and pro- 
ceed direct to Winnsborough, destroying the bridges and railroads 
about Alston. Howard crossed at the same time a little below the 
point selected for Slocum, and, turning the enemy’s position at Colum- 
bia, moved upon the town from the north. The next morning, Feb- 
ruary 17th, under cover of Stone’s brigade of Wood’s division (Logan’s 
corps), a pontoon bridge was thrown across Broad River, and, while the 
remainder of the corps was crossing, the Mayor of Columbia rode out 
and formally surrendered the city to General Stone, who marched his 
brigade directly into the town. Sherman, crossing the pontoon bridge 
accompanied by General Howard, rode into the capital of South Caro- 
lina. They found perfect quiet in the city, the citizens and soldiers 
mingling together in the streets. General Wade Hampton, command- 
ing the rear guard of the Confederate cavalry, had, before leaving, or- 
dered all the cotton in the town to be burned. The bales had been 
piled in the streets, the ropes and bagging cut, and tufts of cotton were 
thrown about by the wind, which was blowing a perfect gale, lodging 
in the trees and upon the houses. As this threatened the destruction 
of the entire town, the soldiers assisted the citizens in putting out the 
flames. Sherman had ordered the destruction of the arsenals, of all 
public property not needed for the use of the army, and of the rail- 
roads, dépéts, and such machinery as could assist the enemy in carrying 
on war. But, before this order began to be executed, the smouldering 
fires of the morning had been rekindled by the wind and communicated 
to the surrounding buildings. By night they had spread into a confla- 
gration that baffled the efforts of both citizens and soldiers to allay its 
fury. It was not until about 4 A.M. on the 18th that the fire was got 
under control. It was due to the assistance of Sherman’s soldiers that 
any portion of the city was left standing. After this matter had been 
attended to, during the 18th and 19th, Sherman’s orders for the destruction 
of the arsenals, railroads, ete., were properly carried out.’ 


1 The origin of the destructive conflagration in Columbia has been the subject of much discus- 
sion, which we can not give here in full. ‘The statements of General Sherman, Major G, W. 
Nichols, a member of Sherman’s staff, General Wade Hampton, and James McCarter (a Confed- 
erate citizen who was in Columbia when the event took place), form the body of evidence so far as 

published, ‘The statements made in Confederate journals at the time are of no value, except 
in their details as to the exact time the conflagration commenced, the direction of the wind, 
etc. In regard to the four principal authorities above mentioned, it is assumed that each is 
reliable so far as he states facts within the scope of his own personal observation. 

Sherman, in his official report, says: ‘* Without hesitation, I charge General Wade Hamp- 
ton with haying burned his own city of Columbia, not with a malicious intent, or as the mani- 
festation of a silly ‘Roman stoicism,’ but from folly and want of sense in filling it with lint, cot- 
ton, and tinder. Our officers and men on duty worked well to extinguish the flames ; but oth- 
ers not on duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned there, rescued by us, may 


IWAN A \\ 
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WAC 


Ss 


WADE HAMVTON. 


SHERMAN'S 


Feprvuary, 1865. ] 


CAMPAIGN.— 


THE CAROLINA MARCH. 719 
same night, and then demonstrating against Charlotte, in 
North Carolina, to which place Beauregard and the Con- 
federate cavalry had retreated. There also might soon 
be expected Cheatham’s corps, of Hood’s old army, which 
had been cut off by Sherman’s rapid movement on Co- 
lumbia and Winnsborough. On the 26th the Twentieth 
Corps reached Hanging Rock, where it waited for the 
Fourteenth to cross the Catawba, now swollen by recent 
heavy rains. As soon as Davis came up with the Four- 
teenth Corps, Slocum moved direct to Cheraw, North Car- 
olina, nearly 70 miles south of west from Charlotte. 

On the 22d Kilpatrick reported to Sherman that 18 
of his men had been murdered by Wade Hampton’s cay- 
alry, and left in the road with labels upon them threaten- 
ing a similar fate to all foragers. Sherman replied that 
this conduct left Kilpatrick no alternative; he must re- 
taliate man for man. “Let it be done at once,” ordered 
Sherman. “ We have a perfect war right to the products 
of the country we overrun, and may collect them by fora- 
gers or otherwise. Let the whole people know the war 
is now against them because their armies flee before us, 
and do not defend their country or frontier as they should. 


COLUMLLA ON FIRE, 


Slocum reached Winnsborough on the 21st of February, and the Twen- 
tieth Corps crossed the Catawba River on the 23d, Kilpatrick following the 


have assisted in spreading the fire after it once had begun, and have indulged in unconcealed joy to 
see the ruin of the capital of South Carolina.” In regard to the origin and progress of the flames 
he says, ‘‘ Before one single public building had been fired by [my] order, the smouldering fires 
set by Hampton’s order were rekindled by the wind, and communicated to the buildings around. 
About dark they began to spread, and got beyond the control of the brigade on duty within the 
city. The whole of Wood’s division was brought in, but it was found impossible to check the 
flames, which by midnight had become unmanageable, and raged until about 4 A.M., when, the 
wind subsiding, they were got under control. J was up nearly all night, and saw Generals Howard, 
Logan, and Wood, and others laboring to save the houses, and to protect families thus suddenly 
deprived of shelter, and of bedding and wearing apparel. I disclaim on the part of my army any 
agency in this fire, but, on the contrary, claim that we saved what of Columbia remains uncon- 
sumed.” It must be remembered in this connection that the only soldiers of Sherman’s army in 
Columbia were those of Wood’s division, 

General Wade Hampton, in a letter to Hon. Reverdy Johnson, of Georgia, says: ‘* I pledge my- 
self to prove . . . that he [General Sherman] promised protection to the city, and that, in spite of 
his solemn promise, he burned the city to the ground, deliberately, systematically, and atrociously.” 
He also asserts in the same letter, ‘I gave a positive order, by direction of General Beauregard, 
that no cotton should be fired.” Of course Hampton’s testimony in regard to Sherman’s conduct 
is unreliable, as he had no means of knowing that which he affirmed. We accept his statement 
that he gave the order against the destruction of cotton; but the only mode of reconciling this 
statement with the fact that his soldiers really did set the cotton on fire, is to suppose either that 
the order against the burning came too late, and subsequent to a former order directing the cotton 
to be burned, or that the burning was against orders. 

Major Nichols came with Sherman into Columbia about noon on the 17th. 
prevalence of a strong wind, and that it came from the south. It was in the southern portion of 
the city that the cotton was burning. ‘‘ It seemed to me,” he says, ‘I had never experienced a 
more powerful gale of wind.” Both he and Sherman testify that the air was filled with smoking 
tufts of cotton, catching in trees and falling on the shingled roofs of houses. Nichols admits that, 
apart from the fires occasioned by the burning cotton, ‘‘ there were fires which must have started 
independent of the above-mentioned cause. ‘The source of these is ascribed to the desire for re- 
venge from some 200 of our prisoners who had escaped from the cars as they were being conveyed 
from this city to Charlotte. Again it is said that the soldiers who first entered the town, intoxi- 
cated with bad liquor, which was freely distributed among them by designing citizens, in an insan- 
ity of exhilaration, set fire to unoccupied houses.” Nichols testifies to the efforts made by officers 
and soldiers to put out the fire which broke out in the afternoon. He says: ‘*T saw Sherman, 
Howard, Logan, Woods, and other general officers, with their staffs, working with heart and hand 
to stay the progress of the flames. . . . . During the progress of the fire, and afterward, while the 
army was in the city, every effort was made for the relief of the sufferers. They were furnished 
with bedding and food, and were quartered in the houses which had been deserted by their owners 
who had fled the city the day befare. General Sherman gave up his own quarters to a family of 
ladies, with their children, who were fed from his table; I know from personal observation that 
he and the officers and men of his army could not have made greater exertions to alleviate the suf- 
ferings of these homeless ones if they had been their own kith and kin,” 

Mr. James McCarter entirely exonerates General Sherman from any responsibility for the con- 
flagration, and states his belief that ‘‘ Sherman intended to protect the persons and private property 
of the citizens.” Still, he charges the burning and plundering of Columbia upon the soldiers of 
Sherman’s army. He adduces as an argument leading to this conclusion that the wind was from 
the north. Here Mr. McCarter not only contradicts Major Nichols’s testimony, but that of the 
Columbia Daily Phenix, which asserts that the wind throughout the day ‘‘ had steadily prevailed 
from southwest by west, and bore the flames eastward.” ‘This is the main argument adduced by 
McCarter to prove his sweeping assertion ; and this, as we have seen, is based upon false premises. 
The only other argument presented by him is the fact that Wade Hampton’s men left Columbia ten 
hours before the conflagration which so desolated tho city. This is true; but it is also true that 
Sherman’s soldiers, on entering the city, found the cotton burning, and assisted the soldiers in put- 
ting out the flames. But, as Sherman states in his report, the fire which had been subdued still 


He notices the 


smouldered in the cotton, and was rekindled by the wind in the afternoon, battling every effort 
made by his army to resist its progress. 


— WINNSBOROUGH, SOUTH CAROLINA, 


It is pretty nonsense for Wheeler and Beauregard, and 
such vain heroes, to talk of our warring against women 
and children. If they claim to be men they should defend their women and 
children, and prevent us reaching their homes. Instead of maintaining their 
armies, let them turn their attention to their families, or we will follow them 
to the death ; they should know that we will use the produce of the country 
as we please. I want the foragers to be regulated and systematized, so as 
not to degenerate into common robbers; but foragers, as such, to collect corn, 
bacon, beef, and such other products as we need, are as much entitled to our 
protection as skirmishers and flankers. .... If our foragers commit ex- 
cesses, punish them yourself, but never let an enemy judge between our men 
and the law.”! 


The above is the testimony bearing upon the case, from which it is clear, 

First, that the burning of Columbia was due to two causes, the carelessness of Hampton’s men in 
their mamner of destroying the cotton, and the incendiarism of a number of prisoners burning with 
a desire to wreak vengeance upon the people whom they held responsible for the cruelties which 
they had experienced in confinement. 

Secondly, that Sherman and his army proper not only had no agency in producing the confla- 
gration, but worked heartily and persistently to subdue it, and made every exertion to alleviate the 
sufferings which followed it. 

We have given this matter of the burning of Columbia so much space simply for the purpose of 
presenting the facts of the case before the reader. We are making no apology—that is not the 
business of the historian. It is worthy of note, however, that, though Sherman and his army felt 
that South Carolina deserved destruction, after they entered that state they marched through it like 
an army, and not like a mob of marauders and incendiaries. Although Sherman, in his letter of 
December 24th, 1864, had said to General Halleck, ‘‘I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as 
Charleston, and I doubt if we shall spare the public buildings there as we did at Milledgeville,” 
still, upon entering Columbia, he found his pity larger than his wrath, and did his best to protect 
the citizens against a destruction of their property for which he was in no way responsible ; just as 
at Savannah, notwithstanding his menace of punishment in case the city was not surrendered, when 
he entered the city he saved it from devastation by a mob of its own citizens. 

’ Sherman writes thus to Wade Hampton in regard to this matter, F ebruary 24: 

**Tt is officially reported to me that our foraging parties are murdered after being captured, 
and labeled ‘death to all foragers ;’ one instance of a lieutenant and seven men near Chester- 
field, and another of twenty ‘near a ravine eighty rods from the main road,’ about three miles 
from Feasterville, I have ordered a similar number of prisoners in our hands to be disposed of 
in like manner, 

**I hold about 1000 prisoners captured in various ways, and can stand it about as long as you, 
but I hardly think these murders are committed with your knowledge, and would suggest that you 
give notice to the people at large that every life taken by them results in the death of one of your 
confederates. 

“Of course you can not question my right to ‘ forage on the country.’ It is a war right as old 
as history. The manner of exercising it varies with circumstances, and if the civil authorities will 
supply my requisitions, I will forbid all foraging. But I find no civil authorities who can respond 
to calls for forage and provisions, therefore must collect directly from the people. I have no doubt 
this is the occasion of much misbehavior on the part of our men, but I can not permit an enemy to 
judge, and punish with wholesale murder. 

** Personally I regret the bitter feelings engendered by this war, but they are to be expected, 
and I simply allege that those who struck the first blow and made war inevitable, ought not in 


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HANGING BOOK, SOUTH CAROLINA. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE 


CIVIL WAR. [ MARCH, 1865. 


The right wing, after destroying the railroad to Winnsborough, crossed 
the Catawba at Peay’s Ferry. Detachments were sent from the Fifteenth 
Corps to Camden to burn the bridge over the Wateree, a tributary of the 
Santee River, and to break up the railroad between Florence and Charles- 
ton. The latter object was not accomplished, as Captain Duncan, command- 
ing the expedition, met Butler's division of Confederate cavalry, and was 
forced to return. 

On the 8d of March Sherman’s army had reached Cheraw. Charleston 


fairness to reproach us for the natural consequences. I merely assert our ‘war right’ to forage, 
and my resolve to protect my foragers to the extent of life for life.” 


oe 


FORAGERS RETURNING TO OAMP, 


had in the mean time been evacuated by the Confederates, and at Cheraw 
were found many of the guns which had been brought from that city. 
From this point the weather was unfavorable and the roads bad ; but, cross- 
ing the Great Pedee, the Fourteenth and Seventeenth corps entered Fayette- 
ville on the 11th. During the night of the 9th, Kilpatrick’s three brigades 
guarding the roads east of the Pedee were divided. General Wade Hamp- 
ton, detecting this, dashed in at daylight, got possession of the camp of Col- 
onel Spencer’s brigade, and the house in which Kilpatrick and Spencer had 
their quarters. Nothwithstanding the completeness of the surprise and the 
temporary confusion which followed, Kilpatrick succeeded in rallying his 


i 


ial 


it 


AT 


UNITED STATES ARSENAL AT FAYETTEVILLE. 


Marcu, 1865.] 


THE TUG-BOAT DONALDSON MOVING UP THE CAPR FEAR. 


men, and by a prompt attack regained the artillery which he had lost and 
the camp from which he had been so suddenly ousted. 

The 12th, 13th, and 14th of March were passed by Sherman’s army at 
Fayetteville. The Arsenal and the machinery which had formerly belonged 
to the Harper's Ferry Arsenal were completely destroyed. ‘“ Every building 
was knocked down and burned,” General Sherman reports, “and every 
piece of machinery utterly broken up and ruined.” 

Sherman’s army was now on the Cape Fear River. Up to this point he 
had, by admirable strategy, succeeded in dividing the enemy’s forces. But 
now Cheatham’s corps had joined Beauregard, and Hardee had got across 
Cape Fear River in advance of Sherman; and these forces were all on their 
way to join the Confederate troops in North Carolina, and were under the 
command of General Joseph E. Johnston, Sherman’s old antagonist. In cay- 
alry Johnston’s command had somewhat the advantage of Sherman’s, and, 
taking into consideration the military genius of its leader, its artillery and 
infantry were sufficiently formidable to justify extreme caution on the part 
of the Federal commander. Before reaching Fayetteville, Sherman had dis- 
patched from Laurel Hill to Wilmington—then in possession of the nation- 
al troops—two of his besi scouts. These men succeeded in their somewhat 
difficult adventure, and on the morning of the 12th of March Sherman be- 
held the army tug Donaldson approaching Fayetteville, “ bringing me,” he 
says, “full intelligence of the outer world.” This tug-boat returned the 
same day, conveying to General Terry at Wilmington, and to General Scho- 
field at Newbern, intelligence that on the 15th Sherman would move upon 
Goldsborough. Both Terry and Schofield were ordered to the same point. 

In the mean time pontoon bridges had been thrown across the Cape Fear 
River. Kilpatrick was ordered to move to Averysborough and beyond, in 
advance of the left wing. Four of Slocum’s divisions were to follow, while 
his two remaining divisions moved as an escort to the trains. Howard 
moved by a more eastward route to Goldsborough. The idea of this march 
was to feign on Raleigh and make Goldsborough. But four of Howard’s 
divisions were to preserve communication with Slocum, ready to support 
the latter in the event of a battle. These movements commenced on the 
15th of March. General Sherman went with Slocum’s army. 

Before reaching Averysborough, Slocum encountered General Hardee's 
force’ on the 16th, at a point where the road branches off toward Goldsbor- 
ough through Bentonville. The enemy must be dislodged both in order to 
gain the Goldsborough Road and to continue the feint on Raleigh. Har- 
dee’s position was difficult to carry, not by reason of its intrinsic strength, 
but on account of the difficult nature of the ground, which was so soft as 
to swamp the horses, and even the infantry could scarcely make its way 
over the pine barren. The Twentieth Corps had the lead, Ward’s division 
in the advance. The latter was deployed, and a skirmish developed the po- 
sition of a brigade of Charleston heavy artillery, armed as infantry, and com- 
manded by Rhett, posted across the road behind a light parapet, enfilading 
the approach across a cleared field. Williams dispatched Casey’s brigade 
to the left, turning this position, and Rhett’s line was broken, and three guns 
were captured, with 217 prisoners. Besides these, 108 Confederate dead 
were afterward buried by Sherman’s men. 

Ward’s division, advancing, developed a second and stronger line, and 
Jackson’s came up on his right, and the Fourteenth Corps on his left, well 
toward Cape Fear River. Kilpatrick at the same time was ordered to mass 
his cavalry on the right, and to feel forward for the road to Goldsborough, 
A brigade of the cavalry gained this road, but was driven back by McLaws’s 
Confederate division. 
vanced, drove the enemy within his intrenchments, from which, during the 
stormy night of the 16th, he retreated over the wretched road in his rear. 
Ward’s division followed the next day, beyond Averysborough, and found 
that Hardee had fallen back on Smithfield. General Slocum’s loss in the 
action at Averysborough was 12 officers and 65 men killed, and 477 
wounded, 

The Goldsborough Road was now open to the left wing, which, on the 
night of the 18th, encamped five miles from Bentonville and 27 from Golds- 


oe — 


* Sherman reports this force as 20,000, but this is an exaggeration, 


8 U 


SHERMAN’S CAMPAIGN.—THE CAROLINA MARCI. 


Late in the afternoon the whole Federal line ad- 


721 


borough. Howard was two miles farther south, and as no farther resistance 
was expected from the enemy, was directed to move to Goldsborough via 
Tulling Creek Church. Sherman joined this wing of the army. But he 
had not got six miles away from Slocum when he heard artillery to the left. 
His apprehensions were aroused, but were soon quieted by information con- 
veyed through Slocum’s staff officers that the leading division (Carlin’s) had 
encountered Dibbrell’s cavalry, which he was driving easily. Shortly after 
this pleasant intelligence, other staff officers from Slocum reported that the 
latter had developed the whole of Johnston’s army near Bentonville. 

Turning, therefore, to the left wing, we find that it has been attacked by 
the enemy, who has gained a temporary advantage, capturing three of Car- 
lin’s guns and driving back his two advanced brigades. General Williams, 
however, is aware of the danger which threatens him in its full extent, and 
promptly brings up his whole force, with which, behind hastily-constructed 
barricades, he assumes the defensive, knowing that Sherman will bring the 
whole right wing, if necessary, to his assistance. 

While Hardee had been fighting Sherman near Averysborough, Johnston 


was concentrating his medley army at Smithfield, and immediately after 


that action moved forward with great rapidity, intending to strike and over- 
whelm Slocum’s army before it could be relieved by re-enforcements from 
Howard. ‘“ But,” says Sherman, “he ‘reckoned without his host.’ I had 
expected just such a movement all the way from Fayetteville, and was pre- 
pared for it.” During the night of the 19th Slocum got up his wagon train, 
with the two divisions guarding it, and Hazen’s division of the Fifteenth 
Corps, and made his position impregnable. Johnston could only effect his 
purpose by placing his whole army between Sherman’s two wings, which 
would, under the circumstances, have proved his ruin. His cavalry, of 
course, was unable to cut off communication with Howard. Logan’s corps, 
therefore, approached Bentonville without serious resistance, compelling 
Johnston to refuse his left flank and intrench. Thus the Confederate army 
was put upon the defensive on the 20th, having three corps of Sherman’s 
army in his front, and unassailable, Johnston’s flanks were well protected 
by swamps, and as it was not Sherman’s purpose to fight a battle here, un- 
less forced to do so, the Federal army simply continued to hold its position 
in the enemy’s front. The next day, March 21st, Schofield entered Golds- 
borough with little opposition, and Terry connected with Blair’s corps at 
Cox’s Bridge, on the Neuse, so that, stretching from Goldsborough around 
to Bentonville, Sherman had now under his command an army of 100,000 
men in an impregnable position. Johnston very sensibly, therefore, re- 
treated to Smithfield before his retreat could be cut off by a portion of this 
immense army. The Federal loss at Bentonville amounted in the aggregate 
to 1646, Johnston’s loss must have been at least 3000 men, including the 
prisoners which he left to be captured when he abandoned his intrench- 
ments. 

The objects of the Carolina campaign had been accomplished in the full 
possession of Goldsborough, with its two railroads leading to Beaufort and 
Wilmington. By the 25th of March Sherman’s army was concentrated at 
Goldsborough, and his line of communication with Newbern and Morehead 
City was firmly established. The co-operative movements which had been 
conducted while Sherman was marching, by Generals Terry, Foster, and 
Schofield, next invite our attention. 


* Johnston’s army had not yet been joined by Hoke’s command, some 9000 strong. The Con- 
federate force at Bentonville consisted of Stewart’s and Cheatham’s corps from Hood’s old army, 
together amounting to about 10,000 men; of Hardee’s force from Charleston, 9000 strong, and of 
Wade Hampton’s cavalry, numbering about 5000, This made up an army of about 24,000 men. 


A, 8 WILLIAMS, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL 


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WILMINGTON AND 1IT8 APPROAOIILS. 


CHAPTER LIL 
RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST. 
I. WILMINGTON. 


Capture of Plymouth.—Lieutenant Cushing’s Expedition for the Destruction of the Albemarle.— 
Naval Actions in North Carolina Sounds.—Organization of the First Expedition for the Capture 
of Wilmington.—Delays.—Butler’s Powder-boat Strategy. —His Connection with the Expedi- 
tion.—Explosion of the Powder-boat.—Bombardment of Fort Fisher.—Re-enforcements re- 
ceived by the Enemy.—Landing of Butler’s Forces. —Weitzel advises against an Assault.—Re- 
embarkation and Withdrawal of the Troops. —Causes of Failure.—Butler relieved of Command. 
—The Second Expedition.—Terry in Command.—Plan of Attack.—Assault and Capture of Fort 
Fisher.—Explosion of the Magazine.—Schofield comes East with the Twenty-third Corps. — 
Assumes command of the North Carolina Department.—Operations against Wilmington.— 
Capture of the City. 


T the beginning of 1865 only three important positions on the Atlantic 
and Gulf coasts east of the Mississippi were retained by the Confeder- 
ates— Wilmington, Charleston, and Mobile. Of these, Wilmington alone af- 
forded an outlet for even a partial and restricted commerce with Europe. 
On the last day of October, 1864, Plymouth, near the mouth of the Roan- 
oke River—a town which had been captured from the Federals early in the 
year—had been surrendered. ‘Though the possession of this place was of 
no vital importance, yet the gallant exploit of Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, 


HISTORY 


OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[OCTOBER, 1864. 


W. B. CUSHING, 


which led to its surrender, is so memorable as an instance both of a heroism 
which has never been surpassed, and of a success which, gained as it was by 
a single hand, stands unparalleled in the annals of war, that it can not here 
be forgotten. 

In the spring of 1864, the Federal forces had met with several reverses on 
the North Carolina coast. On the 1st of February, the Confederate General 
G, EK. Pickett captured the Federal outpost at Bachelor’s Creek, eight miles 
from Newbern, with a considerable number of prisoners. During the fol- 
lowing night, a party of the enemy in barges captured the United States 
steamer Underwriter, lying in the Neuse River, and covering the Newbern 
fortifications, Surprising the garrison at Plymouth on the 17th of April, 
the Confederates, after a severe struggle, captured that town on the 20th, 
This was accompanied by the co-operation of the Confederate irou-clad ram 
Albemarle, which, descending the river, sunk the Federal gun-boat South- 
field. The Miami, the only other national gun-boat off Plymouth, with- 


THE CONFEDERATE BAM ALBEMARLE ATTAOKING THE FEDERAL GUN-BOATS OFF PLYMOUTH. 


Ocrozer, 1864, | 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—WILMINGTON. 7 


bo 
Ge 


THE SASSACUS RAMMING THE ALBEMARLE, 


drew. General Wessels, thus cut off from communication with the fleet in 
Albemarle Sound, surrendered the town, with 1600 men and 25 guns, to 
General Hoke. Washington, at the head of Pamlico River, was evacuated 
by the Federals in the latter part of the same month, the town having been 
previously burned by some soldiers of the Seventeenth Massachusetts and 
Fifteenth Connecticut Regiments. 

Albemarle Sound was still held by the national gun-boats. But besides 
the Albemarle, other Confederate rams were being prepared to recover the 
naval supremacy of the North Carolina sounds. Captain Melancthon Smith 
was accordingly sent to assume command in these sounds, with several 
double-enders. On the afternoon of May 5th the Albemarle came out of 
the Roanoke, followed by the Bombshell, a small armed tender, and engaged 
the national fleet collected together off the mouth of the river. A brisk 
little fight followed. The gun-boats succeeded in dodging the ram, but 
their guns made no impression. About five o’clock the Sassacus, watching 
her opportunity, struck the enemy behind her starboard beam, causing her 
to careen until her deck was washed by the waves. In this position the 
two vessels remained for some time, and prompt assistance on the part of 
one of the larger gun-boats might have accomplished the destruction of 
the Albemarle. Before this was effected the ram swung clear of the Sas- 
sacus, and, maintaining the fight until dark, retreated up the river, leaving 
her tender, the Bombshell, behind in the hands of the Federals. She ap- 
peared again on the 24th, but did not venture to renew the contest. The 
next day a bold attempt was made by a party of five volunteers from the 
gun-boat Wyalusing to destroy the Albemarle by means of a torpedo, but 
proved unsuccessful. Thus the affair rested, so far as the Albemarle was 
concerned, through the summer of 1864. 

Notwithstanding the failure of the expedition to blow up the Albemarle 
in May, Lieutenant Cushing thought the thing practicable, and formed a 
scheme for accomplishing this object, which, having been submitted to Ad- 


miral Lee, he was permitted to carry out. He had formed his plan in June, 
at which time he was commanding the Monticello. Proceeding to New 
York, he, in conjunction with Admiral Gregory, Captain Boggs, and Chief 
Engineer W. W. Wood, applied to one of the new steam pickets a torpedo 
arrangement, which had been invented by Wood, and then returned to the 
Sound. The Albemarle was lying off Plymouth at its moorings, and formed 
the defense of that town. On the night of October 27th, with a select crew 
of 13 men, six of whom were officers, he proceeded up the river with his 
engine of destruction. The distance to Plymouth was eight miles. Passing 
the Confederate picket stationed on the wreck of the Southfield, a mile be- 
low the town, without causing alarm, he found the ram protected with a 
boom of pine logs 30 feet from her side. As the party approached, it en- 
countered a fire from the enemy’s infantry on shore, to which the howitzer 
from Cushing’s boat replied. Almost at the same moment the boat ran its 
bows against the logs guarding the ram. With his own hands Lieutenant 
Cushing fixed the torpedo in its proper position. ‘The torpedo boom,” 
says Cushing, “was then lowered, and I succeeded in diving the torpedo 
under the overhang, and exploding it at the same time that the Albemarle’s 
gun was fired. A shot seemed to go crashing through my boat, and a dense 
mass of water rushed in from the torpedo, filling the launch and completely 
disabling her. The enemy then continued his fire at 15 feet range, and de- 
manded our surrender, which I twice refused, ordering the men to save 
themselves, and removing my overcoat and shoes. Springing into the river, 
I swam, with others, into the middle of the stream, the rebels failing to hit 
us.” The ram had been destroyed by the torpedo, but the necessity of im- 
mediate flight had prevented Cushing from observing the extent and effi- 
ciency of his work. All but one of the party accompanying him met death 
or capture. Cushing escaped, with a bullet in his wrist, by floating down 
the river, hid himself among the woods on the bank, and finally found a 
skiff, in which, after eight hours paddling, he reached the Valley City on the 


DESTRUCTION OF THE ALUEMABLE, 


Decemser, 1864. ] 


night of the 80th. The next day Plymouth was surrendered to the naval 
squadron. 

The capture of Wilmington would have been undertaken in the earlier 
stages of the war if it could have been accomplished by a naval force alone. 
But military co-operation was indispensable, and the instant, ever-pressing 
need of the military forces on more important fields caused the expedition 
to be postponed until the autumn of 1864. In September—after the cap- 
ture of Atlanta, and while the Federal army under Meade was besieging 
Petersburg, waiting its own opportunity and the accomplishment of Sher- 
man’s plans in the West—it was thought forces could be spared from But- 
ler’s Army of the James to co-operate with the Navy Department in the re- 
duction of Fort Fisher and the capture of Wilmington. 

The naval preparations were promptly made, and it was intended that 
Vice-Admiral Farragut, then operating on the Gulf Coast, should have com- 
mand of this branch of the expedition. This was impossible on account of 
the impaired health of that distinguished officer, and the command was as- 
signed to Rear Admiral Porter, who had been identified with the most im- 
portant naval victories of the West. After considering the subject, Porter 
offered to take Fort Fisher in three days if he could have all the heaviest 
frigates, with 800 guns, and a co-operative military force of 13,000 men.' 
Upon consultation with Grant, the latter said he could not then detach so 
large a force, but could raise it within 24 hours after Porter had assembled 
his fleet. No definite time was fixed for the expedition, but it was expected 
to move by the middle of October. In the mean time Grant collected what 
information he could about Cape Fear River, with maps and charts, and 
placed this in the hands of General Weitzel, commanding the Eighteenth 
Corps, to whom, with General Butler’s knowledge, the command of the mili- 
tary force was assigned. As the enemy had in some way been informed of 
the expedition, it was postponed, but the preparations for it were continued. 
The small force which Grant could detach rendered it necessary that the 
attack should be a surprise. The War Department had proposed General 
Gillmore as the military commander, but to this Grant objected on the 
ground that he had shown timidity on a former occasion, and appointed 
Weitzel. 

General Butler took a great interest in this affair. It was to be carried 
out by his own troops, and within the limits of his own department. Gen- 
eral Grant preferred that he should not participate in the expedition, but 
did not choose to interfere, though strict military propriety would have dic- 
tated Butler’s remaining with the larger portion of his army instead of fol- 
lowing a detachment which had been already assigned to an able com- 
mander, General Butler’s chief interest in the affair was connected with a 
novel experiment which he had suggested for blowing up Fort Fisher by 
the explosion near it of 200 or 800 tons of powder. He had heard of the 
destruction caused by the explosion of a large quantity of gunpowder at 
Erith, England. The remarkable effect of this explosion for many miles 
around led him to speculate as to the possibility of destroying military for- 
tifications by similar means. He had first proposed this matter to General 
Grant in connection with Charleston, which he wanted to blow up with a 
vessel loaded with 1000 tons of powder. But Grant was skeptical as to the 
effect of such an experiment. About the time the Fort Fisher expedition 
was ready to start, Butler again broached his gunpowder plot. Some high 
authorities had come to his support. Grant referred the matter to Colonel 
Comstock, of his staff, who reported that the explosion of 300 or 400 tons 
of powder out at sea would do no damage. General Delafield, Chief En- 
gineer, said the explosion would have about the same effect on the fort that 
firing feathers from muskets would have on the enemy. The N avy Depart- 
ment and Admiral Porter looked upon the scheme with more favor. Gen- 
eral Butler himself was perfectly confident of success. Grant therefore con- 
sented to the experiment, but would have no waiting for the powder-boat. 

Sherman was at this time in the heart of Georgia, and the enemy, having 
nearly recovered from his apprehensions of an attack on Wilmington, had 
left a very small force at Fort Fisher in order to assist in impeding Sher- 
man’s march. This was the time to strike. Butler having determined to 
join the expedition to see that the powder-boat was properly exploded, 
General Grant ordered him to get off with 6500 men, General Weitzel to 
have the immediate command. Still Grant had no idea that Butler would 
go with the expedition until the latter passed his headquarters on the way 
to Fortress Monroe.? Of course, as a matter of* military courtesy, all orders 


— 


* “T think it was about the 20th of September last that I was on my way to Cairo to resume 
my command of the Mississippi squadron. Secretary Welles sent me word to meet him that even- 
ing at Mr. Blair’s. I had arranged to leave for the West the next morning. I went to Mr. Blair’s, 
and found Secretary Welles and Assistant Secretary Fox, who had a number of charts of Cape Fear 
River, which were spread out for examination. Secretary Welles said that he thought it most im- 
portant that some attempt shou'd be made to get possession of Cape Fear River ; that he had al- 
ways been in favor of making the attempt, and had, time and time again, invited the co-operation 
of the army for that purpose, but had received no encouragement. He said he thought there was 
then a prospect of getting troops for that purpose, and asked me what was my opinion about the 
matter. I told him I had neyer seen Cape Fear River, and knew nothing about the defenses the 
rebels had erected there. He said he would put me in possession of all the papers he had from 
Admiral Farragut, Admiral Lee, and others who had investigated the subject, and then let me give 
my opinion about it. I read over carefully all the papers, and examined the charts. Admiral Lee 
decided most positively that the place could not be taken with 50,000 men, it was so strong; and 
Admiral Farragut decided that we had not ships in the navy to do any thing with it. Under these 
circumstances, I told the secretary that I should require time to consider this matter. I went back 
to the secretary the next morning, and told him that if he would give me the force I named, I 
would promise to take the fort in three days. ‘That was encouraging to him, for his whole heart 
was bent upon the matter. ... . I told him I wanted 300 guns on board ship, and all the heay- 
iest frigates that it would require 13,000 men to land with intrenching tools.” —Porter’s 
Testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War: Fort Fisher, p. 88. 

® At City Point Butler met Grant, and explained his presence with the expedition. He said: 
“This expedition is a matter of very grave responsibility. (I had known Admiral Porter somewhat 
in the Mississippi River. General Weitzel and himself, I had understood, had some little differ- 
ence upon the report as to the damage done by Admiral Porter’s bombardment to Fort Jackson 
and St. Philip.) General Weitzel is a very able general, but a very young man. I am anxious to 
see this powder experiment go on and succeed, for it is a very grave one; and I think I had better 
go with the expedition, to take the ‘cer off General Weitzel, being an older officer,”— 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—WILMINGTON. 


725 


for Weitzel had passed through General Butler. On the 4th of December 
Grant had telegraphed to the latter to get the expedition off without delay, 
with or without the powder-boat. Instead of moving directly, Butler open- 
ed a telegraphic correspondence with Porter about their “ little experiment.” 
He issued his orders for the movement to General Weitzel on the 6th. The 
next day thirteen of the transports were read y. Four—and those the largest 
—were yet to arrive. On the 10th Butler had reached Fortress Monroe, 
and telegraphed to General Grant that he was waiting for the navy. Porter 
was waiting at Norfolk for the powder-boat. He left Hampton Roads on 
the 18th. The powder-boat had on board 200 tons of powder, and was to 
receive 90 tons more at Beaufort. “She has delayed us a little,” writes 
Porter to Butler before starting, “and our movements had to depend on 
her.” Butler’s transports arrived off Masonborough Inlet, eighteen miles 
from Fort Fisher, on the 15th. The next day Porter reached Beaufort, and 
off that point wrote to Butler that he would start for the rendezvous (twenty- 
five miles east of Cape Fear River) the next day, and, in case of fair weather, 
would be able to blow up the powder-boat on the night of the 18th. Butler 
was not ready to land, and the weather did not promise favorably; it was 
therefore agreed to postpone the explosion. In the mean time, Butler re- 
turned to Beaufort for a fresh supply of coal and provisions. Porter re- 
mained with the fleet at the appointed rendezvous, and rode out the gale, 
which was one of unusual viotence. His vessels, however, seem to have got 
in sight of Fort Fisher, for on the 20th their presence was reported to Gen- 
eral Hoke. But for the delay occasioned by the powder-boat, the three days 
of fine weather (the 16th, 17th, and 18th) would have been improved, the 


troops would have been landed without difficulty, the enemy surprised, and 
Fort Fisher captured. 


THE POW DER-BOAT LOUISIANA, 


Finally, the mountain gave birth to the mouse. On the night of the 23d 
the powder-boat was exploded at a distance from Fort Fisher of 830 yards. 
Not a Federal gun-boat or transport dared venture an approach nearer than 
to a point twelve miles from the scene, and even at a much greater distance 
the steam in the boilers was lowered to prevent disaster. But, after all, the 
effect was insignificant. It is true, the explosion was heard at the fort, but 
it was there supposed that some unfortunate gun-boat had got aground, and 
been blown up to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. The 
Louisiana had been chosen for this experiment, and had on board, at the 
time of the explosion, 235 tons of powder. Commander A.C. Rhind had 
charge of the affair, and associated with him in this perilous service were 
Lieutenant Assistant Engineer A. T. Mullan, of the Agawam, Paul Boyden, 
acting master’s mate, and seven men. Undoubtedly the effect of the explo- 
sion would have been very great if the powder had been properly confined, 
and if the fuses could have been so arranged that the ignition of the whole 
mass of powder would be instantaneous. As it was, there were four distinct 
explosions, and a large amount of the powder was blown away before it ig- 
nited.’ But, in any case, the experiment ought to have been incidental; and 
Butler and Porter, in making it so prominent a matter, disregarded General 
Grant’s instructions. 

It was designed that the troops should be ready to land as soon as pos- 
sible after the powder-boat explosion. But General Butler was delayed in 
collecting water, coals, and other supplies, and did not come up until the 
evening of the 24th, and then with only a few of his transports. Admiral 
Porter had that morning (11 30 A.M.) commenced the bombardment of 
Fort Fisher from a fleet of naval vessels, surpassing in numbers and equip- 
ments any which had assembled during the war. The attack was made 


Butler before Committee, p. 11. This explanation would never have been given if Butler had not 
felt its necessity to account for his presence with the expedition. It is a conclusive corroboration 
of Grant’s statement that he was surprised to see Butler on the way to Fort Fisher. 

1 See General Butler’s and A.C. Rhind’s testimony before the Committee. 

? Porter’s haste in exploding the powder vessel, and in commencing the bombardment on the 
morning of the 24th, before the land force was ready to co-operate, gave rise to considerable feel- 


ing. On the night of the 23d Butler sent his staff officer, Captain Clarke, to visit Porter, and in- 
form the latter that the transports would arrive the next day. General Weitzel, in his testimony, 
says: ‘‘ Captain Clarke returned just before we left the harbor, and reported that the admiral had 
said he would explode the powder vessel during the night of Friday, and commence the attack as 
soon thereafter as possible. It was a question of discussion between us, while sailing toward New 
Tnlet, whether the admiral would commence the attack before we were there to co-operate with 
him. Several—I think General Butler among the number—doubted that he would do so. I did 
not doubt it, having been with the admiral on two or three previous expeditions. . . . . I know 


the opinion expressed on board our vessel by several officers when it was found that the navy had 

made the attack as they did. There was one officer who particularly surprised me by expressing 

the opinion he did. He said that he believed Admiral Porter made the attack in the way he did 

because he believed he could knock the fort all to pieces, and would thus get all the credit of tak- 
« ing it to himself. This officer is generally very quiet in the way of expressing his ovinions.” 


726 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ DECEMBER, 1864. 


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Decemser, 1864. ] RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—WILMINGTON, 727 


with thirty-seven vessels, five of which were 
iron-clads; and, besides these, there was a re- 
serve force of nineteen vessels.!’ The main at- 
tack was made with the iron-clads and seven 
other vessels on the land face of the fort. 
The fleet had upward of 500 guns. 

Fort Fisher is situated on Federal Point, 
on the north bank and at the mouth of Cape 
Fear River, 20 miles below Wilmington. The 
original plan of the expedition, as proposed 
in September, 1864, contemplated the passage 
of the fleet by the fort up the Cape Fear River. 
This had been abandoned on account of its im- 
practicability. The channel was intricate, and 
was commanded by strong forts. It was also 
full of torpedoes. It was extremely difficult 
to cross the bar except at high tide, and even 
when this was accomplished it was unsafe for 
the vessels to enter without good pilots, or 
until the channel had been buoyed and the 
torpedoes removed. The only way in which 
the fort could be reduced was to land troops 
north of the work, and then either assault or 
lay siege to it. It was an earth-work mount- 
ing over 40 guns, and though the latter might 
be dismounted or silenced, the work itself 
could not be materially injured by a bom- 
bardment.? This fort, probably the strongest 
which had been attacked during the war, was 
manned on the 18th of December by a garri- 
son of 677 men, under General W. H.C. Whi- 
ting; Colonel Lamb, who had himself erected 
the greater portion of the work, being second 
in command. Within five miles of the fort, 
at Sugar Loaf, was a reserve force of 800 men.3 
On the 20th the alarm had been given, and 
on the 22d the advance of General Hoke’s di- 
vision reached Wilmington, and re-enforce- 
ments were rapidly sent to Sugar Loaf. Thus, 
on the 23d, the garrison of the fort was in- 
ereased to 1087 men.* 

- Very little damage was done to Fort Fisher 
by the bombardment on the 24th. Twenty- 
three of the garrison were wounded, all but 
three ouly slightly. Five gun-carriages were 


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The distance between Fort Fisher and Beaufort Harbor 
was about seventy miles. Porter’s explanation of his prompt 
attack is this: ‘* Captain Clarke said he could make four- 
teen miles an hour. This would bring him in five hours 
to Beaufort, with information. to General Butler as to the 
precise time of the explosion of the powder-boat (1 30 A.M. 
on the 24th). Butler would therefore have plenty of time 
to reach Fort Fisher before the commencement of his at- 
tack, at 1130 A.M.” But it seems Butler, although start-- 
ing from Beaufort when Clarke returned, did not reach the 
fleet until night. It is clear, therefore, that Admiral Por- 
ter took too much for granted. If he had waited till the 
night of the 24th for the explosion of the powder-boat, and 
given Butler prompt notice of this—as he could haye done 
through Captain Clarke—then Butler would have been on 
hand with the transports, and the attack, taking place on 
the 25th, would have been a combined one of the navy and 
army. The reader, however, should understand that, as the 
affair turned out, this lack of combination on the 24th had 
nothing whatever to do with the failure of the expedition. 

' The five iron-clads were the New Ironsides, Canoni- 
cus, Monadnock, Saugus, and Mahopac. ‘The four last 
were turreted monitors. 

* The following description of the fort is given by Gen- 
eral Grant’s engineer, Colonel Comstock : 

**'The land front consists of a half bastion on the left or 
Cape Fear River side, connected by a curtain with a bas- 
tion on the ocean side. The parapet is 25 feet thick, aver- 
ages 20 feet in height, with traverses rising 10 feet above it 
and running back on their tops, which are from 8 to 12 feet 
in thickness, to a distance of from 30 to 40 feet from the 
interior crest. The traverses on the left half bastion are 
about 25 feet in length on top. The earth for this heayy 
parapet and the enormous traverses at their inner ends, 
more than 30 feet in height, was obtained partly from a 
shallow exterior ditch, but mainly from the interior of the 
work. Between each pair of traverses there was one or 
two guns. ‘The traverses on the right of this front were 
only partially completed. A palisade, which is loop-holed 
and has a banquette, runs in front of this face, at a distance 
of 50 feet in front of the exterior slope, from the Cape Fear 
River to the ocean, with a position for a gun between the 
left of the front and the river, and another between the right 
of the front and the ocean. Through the middle traverse 
on the curtain is a bomb-proof postern, whose exterior open- 
mg is covered by a small redan for two field-pieces, to give 
flank-fire along the curtain. ‘The traverses are generally 
bomb-proofed for men or magazines. The slopes of the 
work appear to have been reveted with marsh sods or coy- 
ered with grass, and have an inclination of 45 degrees or 
a little less. . . . There were originally on this front 21 


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series of batteries, mounting in all 24 guns, the different 
batteries being connected by a strong infantry parapet, so 
as to form a continuous line. The same system of heavy 
traverses for the protection of guns is used as on the land 
front, and these traverses are also generally bomb-proofed.” 

* The Confederate Department of North Carolina was 
under the command of General Bragg, as it had been since 
October, 

“ These facts were stated by General Whiting after his | 
capture, 


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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ DECEMBER, 1864. 


TRANSPORT FLEET OFF FEDERAL POLNT, 


THE MONITORS IN A GALE, 


| disabled, but this and every other injury done to the work was repaired 


during the night. 

The next day, the 25th, was at once Sabbath and Christmas. The bom- 
bardment was renewed in the morning, and was more eflective. The casual: 
ties in the fort were 46, three men being killed and nine mortally wounded, 
Four gun-carriages and one 10-inch gun were disabled. While the bom: 
bardment was going on, and under cover of the fleet, the landing of the 
troops began about noon. About this time Admiral Porter’s flag-ship came 
alongside Butler’s. After an exchanged greeting, the admiral hallooed 
through his speaking-trumpet, “‘ There is not a rebel within five miles of 
the fort. You have nothing to do but to land and take possession of it.” 

The military force was 6500 strong, consisting of General Ames’s division 
of the Twenty-fourth Corps, and General Paine’s division of the Twenty: 
fifth. Paine’s division consisted of colored troops. Between 2100 and 2300 
men were landed. General Weitzel went with the first 500 (General Cur- 
tis’s brigade of Ames’s division) to reconnoitre. In advancing upon the 
fort about 800 prisoners were captured by the reconnoitring column. The 
skirmishers were pushed up by General Curtis to within 150 yards of the 
fort. Weitzel mounted an artificial knoll, and took a view of the fort. As 
a defensive work, it did not appear to be injured by the terrific bombard- 
ment which it had sustained, and which was still going on. He counted 16 
guns, all in proper position, on the land face. Even the grass slopes of the 
traverses and parapet remained unbroken, and their regular shapes undis- 
turbed. The row of palisades in front of the ditch presented no opening. 
“Tt was a stronger work,” he says, ‘‘than I had ever seen or heard of being 
assailed during this war.” Weitzel remembered Fort Wagner; he recalled 
his experience in regard to assaults upon works not nearly so strong as this, 
and which had all proved failures; he remembered, also, that he had been 
appointed by General Grant to command the expedition instead of Gillmore 
on the ground that the latter had once shown timidity; that he himself 
had just been appointed to a major generalship, and that his confirmation 
depended largely upon his present conduct. He had every possible motive 
for boldness. Yet he considered that it would be murder to assail the fort, 
which, if skillfully defended (as he must assume it would be, knowing noth- 
ing to the contrary), ought to repulse any attack which he could make; and 
he advised General Butler against an assault. In the mean time another 
brigade had landed, and Curtis's skirmishers advanced boldly up to the par- 


SF 


| 
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Decemper, 1864. ] 


apet. One man crept through the palisade and brought off the flag of the 
fort, which had been shot down and fallen outside the parapet. But this 
exploit did not change Weitzel’s opinion. He knew that a portion of an 
assaulting column might even enter a fort, and yet the main body be re- 
pulsed. Curtis’s advance had not been resisted, but this might be due either 
to the severity of the bombardment or to a deliberate design on the part of 
the garrison to tempt an assault. Even if it was due to the bombardment, 
the latter must cease at the moment of assault, and the garrison would 
spring again to its guns. General Curtis thought that, if allowed to advance, 
he could capture the fort. But as there was no well understood and skill- 
fully arranged plan of attack, and no feint to cover his operations, it is very 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—WILMINGTON. 


729 


General Butler thereupon proceeded to re-embark his troops. He gives 
two reasons for taking this step. In the first place, a storm was approach- 
ing, and he feared that it would be impossible to supply his troops on the 
shore. In the second place, a considerable force of the enemy was on his 
right flank at Sugar Loaf, and he thought that, under these circumstances, 
the position was untenable. There was nothing in the way of his landing 
the remainder of his force, and nothing prevented the landing of supplies 
until midnight... The fleet would probably outride the gale, and would see 
to it that his force was supplied and protected against attack. Besides, Gen- 
eral Butler had been ordered by General Grant to remain if he effected a 
landing. The question of immediate assault was left to his discretion ; but, 


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FORT. FISHER 


MAP OF FORT FISHER. 


probable that, if General Curtis’s force had even entered the fort, every man 
of it would have been captured.' 


= i ae ee ee 

* The statement made by General Whiting, who was captured in the second attack on Fort 
Fisher, certainly confirms the wisdom of General Weitzel’s opinion. He says that ‘‘the garrison 
Was in no instance driven from its guns, and fired in return, according to orders, slowly and delib- 
erately, 662 shot and shells ;” that on the land front 19 guns were in position, and the palisade was 
in perfect order; and that, while it was possible that 3000 or 6000 men might have carried the 
work by assault, such an event was not probable. ‘‘ The work,” he adds, ‘‘ was very strong, the 
garrison in good spirits, and ready; and the fire on the approaches (the assaulting column having 
no cover) would have been extraordinarily heavy. In addition to the heavy guns, I had a battery 
of Napoleons, on which I placed great reliance. The palisade alone would haye been a most for- 
midable obstacle.” 

Tn his official report he says: ‘During the day [the 25th] the enemy landed a large force, and 
at half past four advanced a line of skirmishers on the left flank of the second curtain, the fleet at the 


8Y 


giving due weight to the reasons alleged by Butler for the re-embarkation 
of his troops, it was clearly a disobedience of orders, It is a curious fact 
that, although Weitzel was understood to have the immediate command of 
the expedition, he never saw the orders issued by General Grant for its con- 
duct, and was not aware, until some time afterward, of Grant’s intention that 
the land force should maintain its position after landing.? 

same time making a concentrated and tremendous enfilading fire upon the curtain. The garrison, 
however, at the proper moment, when the fire slackened to allow the approach of the enemy’s land 
force, drove them off with grape and musketry; at dark the enemy withdrew. 

* See Captain Alden’s testimony.—Committee Report, p. 60. 


* See General Weitzel’s testimony. He says (Committee Report, p. 79): ‘‘The order of Gen- 
eral Grant to General Butler, which I saw published in the papers—I never saw the original of the 


[ JANUARY, 1865. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


730 


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JANnvARY, 1865.] 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—WILMINGTON, 


731 


Thus the expedition failed, and the failure was due to mismanagement. 
It had been delayed, in the first place, until the enemy had gained time for 
re-enforcement. There was no well-arranged plan of attack. And there 
was no attempt made to maintain the position secured by the military force 
on Federal Point.’ The loss in life, however, had been slight. Upward of 
forty casualties occurred in the navy from the bursting of 100-Ib. Parrott 
guns on several of the vessels. The loss thus caused was greater than that 
inflicted by the enemy. 

The popular disappointment which followed the failure of an expedition 
from which, chiefly on account of the extent of the naval force, so much had 
been expected, was diversified with the mutual recriminations between the 
army and navy commanders. But these find no proper place in history. 
The Committee on the Conduct of the War (Benjamin F. Wade, chairman) 
investigated the affair, and acquitted General Butler of blame. But General 


a an eau nrnieameeseresescecrcrsmee rece 


order—stated that in certain cases he was to intrench and hold his position, and co-operate with 
the navy in the reduction of the fort. General Grant said to me the other night that when he 
ordered the expedition to sail he knew that Wilmington and the works there were nearly devoid 
of troops, and he thought if we moved down there and landed quickly, the mere effect of landing 
the troops, together with the presence of such a fleet, would be to compel them to surrender. But 
in consequence of the delay the enemy got troops down there. But he said that his intention was, 
after we had made a landing there, finding that it was not possible to assault, that General Butler 
should intrench there.” 

Question. ‘‘ What was there to prevent compliance with such an order ?” 

Answer. *‘ There was nothing to prevent a compliance with it. There would have been diffi- 
culties to contend with at that season of the year. The landing of supplies would have been one 
difficulty ; the annoyance from the rebel gun-boats in the river would have been another. But 
they might, and probably would have been driven off by our artillery... .. If I had had the 
instructions that General Grant gave to General Butler. ... . I would have intrenched and re- 
mained there... .. No matter what the difficulties were, that order would have covered him from 
any consequences.” 

General Grant testifies (ibidem, p. 54): ‘‘There is no question that General Butler could have 
remained, in obedience to my instructions ; but I do not think he was guided by them ; I do not 
think he paid any particular attention to them.” 

* The following correspondence passed between General Butler and Admiral Porter just after 
the re-embarkation : 

General Butler writes: ‘‘ Upon landing the troops and making a thorough reconnoissance of 
Fort Fisher, both General Weitzel and myself are fully of the opinion that the place could not be 
carried by assault, as it was left substantially uninjured as a defensive work by the navy fire. We 
found seventeen guns protected by traverses, two only of which were dismounted, bearing up the 
beach and covering a strip of land, the only practicable route, not more than wide enough for a 
thousand men in line of battle. 

“‘ Having captured Flag-pond Hill Battery, the garrison of which, sixty-five men and two com- 
missioned officers, were taken off by the navy, we also captured Half-moon Battery and seven offi- 
cers and 218 men of the Third North Carolina Junior Reserves, including its commander, from 
whom I learned that a portion of Hoke’s division, consisting of Kirkland’s and Haygood’s brigades, 
had been sent from the lines before Richmond on Tuesday last, arriving at Wilmington Friday 
night. 

“General Weitzel advanced his skirmish line within fifty yards of the fort, while the garrison 
was kept in their bomb-proofs by the fire of the navy, and so closely that three or four of the men 
of the picket line ventured upon the parapet and through the sally-port of the work, capturing a 
horse, which they brought off, killing the orderly, who was the bearer of a dispatch from the chief 
of artillery of General Whiting to bring a light battery within the fort, and also brought away from 
the parapet the flag of the fort. 

““This was done while the shells of the navy were falling about the heads of the daring men 
who entered the work, and it was evident, as soon as the fire of the navy ceased because of the 
darkness, that the fort was fully manned again, and opened with grape and canister upon our picket 
line. 

“Finding that nothing but the operations of a regular siege, which did not come within my in- 
structions, would reduce the fort, and in view of the threatening aspect of the weather, wind rising 
from the southeast, rendering it impossible to make farther landing through the surf, I caused the 
troops, with their prisoners, to re-embark, and see nothing farther that can be done by the land 
forces. I shall therefore sail for Hampton Roads as soon as the transport fleet can be got in order. 

ee engineers and officers report Fort Fisher to me as substantially uninjured as a defensive 
work. 

To this Porter replies : 

““T beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date, the substance of which was 
communicated to me by General Weitzel last night. 

“I have ordered the largest vessels to proceed off Beaufort and fill up with ammunition, to be 
ready for another attack, in case it is decided to proceed with this matter by making other ar- 
rangements. 

““We have not commenced firing rapidly yet, and could keep any rebels inside from showing 
their heads until an assaulting column was within twenty yards of the works. 

“I wish some more of your gallant fellows had followeil the officer who took the flag from the 
parapet, and the brave fellow who brought the horse out from the fort. I think they would have 
found it an easier conquest than is supposed, 

“TI do not, however, pretend to place my opinion in opposition to General Weitzel, whom I 
know to be an accomplished soldier and engineer, and whose opinion has great weight with me. 

“*T will look out that the troops are all off in safety. We will have a west wind presently, and 
a smooth beach about three o’clock, when sufficient boats will be sent for them. 

** The prisoners now on board the Santiago de Cuba will be delivered to the provost-marshal at 
Fortress Monroe, unless you wish to take them on board one of the transports, which would be in- 
sonvenient just now.” 


LANDING OF TROOPS ABOVE FORT FISHER. 


Grant gave his own decision in another way by relieving General Butler of 
his command of the Army of the James. 

Admiral Porter determined to remain until a more efficient military com- 
mander should be sent to co-operate with him. He even proposed to take 
the fort with his sailors. 

While the altercation occasioned by the first attack on Fort Fisher was 
going on, a second expedition was organized, in which the command of the 
military force was assigned to Major General Alfred H, Terry, who, after 
the death of General D. B. Birney, stood next to Weitzel in the Army of the 
James. His command was the same as that with which Butler had sailed, 
with a single brigade added, bringing its number up to about 8000 men. 
General Terry, though not a graduate of West Point, had carefully studied 
the art of war theoretically and practically. 

Porter, after experimenting on Fort Fisher for two or three days subse- 
quent to Butler’s departure, had returned to Fortress Monroe, where he was 
joined by Terry before the middle of January. On the 12th of that month 
the combined expedition reached New Inlet, and the next day the troops 
were landed. General Whiting and Colonel Lamb still commanded the gar- 
rison, which now numbered 2500 men, more than double the force which 
had confronted Butler. At 2 P.M.on the 13th the debarkation was com- 
pleted, and the bombardment commenced again, and was more precise and 
effective than in the first attack. The garrison were driven from their guns, 
which were soon silenced, and many of them disabled. All night the bom- 


ALFRED H, TERRY, 


732 


bardment went on, giving the enemy no opportunity to repair injuries. On 
the 14th the fleet continued the battle with the silent fort, its efforts being 
chiefly directed to dismount the guns. In the mean time preparations were 
made for the assault, which was to take place on the afternoon of the 15th. 
Up to this time shot and shell from 500 guns had been beating upon the 
earth-work, doing the work itself little damage, but breaking the palisade 
and dismounting its guns. About 1400 sailors and marines had landed, and 
were to participate in the assault, the plan of which had been most skillfully 
arranged. The marines and sailors were to attack the sea-face of the fort, 
while Terry’s three brigades should carry the land front. The assault by 
the sailors was to be covered by an intrenched party on the beach. A per- 
fect system of signals was agreed upon between the military commander and 
the admiral. No precaution was neglected, no measure overlooked which 
would assist in securing success. 

At 3 P.M. the preconcerted signal was given for the commencement of the 
assault, and the admiral turned his guns from the parapet and against the 
upper batteries (on the centre mound). ‘The attack by the marines appears 
to have been mistaken by the garrison for the main assault. The intrench- 
ed party of sharp-shooters did not well cover the advance of the sailors, and 
the latter were repulsed, losing Lieutenants Preston and Porter, who were 
bravest among the brave.! In the mean while the soldiers had gained the 
northeastern rampart. The guns of the fleet were turned upon the tray- 
erses, while the brave men of Terry’s command fought their way from trav- 
erse to traverse,? overpowering the garrison, and driving it back to the Mound 
Battery. Both Generals Whiting and Lamb had been wounded. _ Dispirit- 
ed by the loss of their leaders, the Confederates were easily driven from their 
last refuge, and the entire command surrendered, with 75 guns. The fight- 
ing had been desperate, and had lasted from 3 o'clock till 10 P.M. The 


1 K. R. Breese thus alludes to the death of these gallant officers in a special report: 

‘“North Atlantic Squadron, U.S, Flag Ship Malvern, off Fort Fisher, January 18, 1865. 

‘* ApMIRAL,—In my report of the assault on Fort Fisher I have scarcely mentioned the names 
and services of Lieutenant 8. W. Preston, your flag-lieutenant, and Lieutenant B. H. Porter, your 
flag-captain, thinking that by a little delay I might the more do justice, yet I seem to feel that im- 
possible in me. Preston, after accomplishing most splendidly the work assigned him by you, which 
was both dangerous and laborious, under constant fire, came to me, as my aid, for orders, showing 
no flagging of spirit or body, and returning from the rear, whither he had been sent, fell among the 
foremost at the front, as he had lived the thorough embodiment of a United States naval officer. 
Porter, conspicuous by his figure and uniform, as well as by his great gallantry, claimed the right 
to lead the headmost column with the Malvern’s men he had taken with him, carrying your flag, 
and fell at its very head. Two more noble spirits the world never saw, nor had the navy ever two 
more intrepid men. Young, talented, and handsome, the bravest of the brave, pure in their lives, 
surely their names deserve something more than a passing mention, and are worthy to be handed 
down to posterity with the greatest and best of naval heroes. 

““ Were you not so well acquainted with their characters I should deem it my duty to speak of 
their high merits; but as chief of your staff, to which they belonged, I must speak of their won- 
derful singleness of purpose to do their whole duty; always most cheerful and willing, desirous of 
undertaking any thing which might redound to the credit of the service, giving me at all times the 
most ready assistance in my duties, combining with their intelligence a ready perception as to the 
best mode of accomplishing their orders, the country has lost two such servants as could illy be 
spared, and your staff its brightest ornaments. 

“*Very respectfully, your obedient servant, K. R. Breese, 

‘* Fleet Captain, North Atlantic Squadron. 

“*Rear-Admiral Davip D. Porter, Commanding North Atlantic Squadron.” 

* “These traverses,” says Admiral Porter, ‘‘are immense bomb-proofs, about sixty feet long, 
fifty feet wide, and twenty feet high—seventeen of them in all, being on the northeast face. Be- 
tween each traverse, or bomb-proof, are one or two heavy guns. The fighting lasted until ten 
o'clock at night, the Jronsides and Monitors firing through the traverses in advance of our troops, 
and the level strip of land called Federal Point being enfiladed by the ships to prevent re-enforce- 
ments reaching the rebels.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ JANUARY, 1865. 


Federal loss in Terry’s command was 110 killed and 5386 wounded, includ- 
ing among the latter all three of the brigade commanders engaged in the 
assault—Generals Curtis, Bell, and Pennybacker. The casualties in the 
fleet amounted to 3809, making a total loss of nearly 1000 men. 

In a great degree this success had been due to surprise, or rather to an 
attack made in an unexpected quarter with the main column. This col- 
unin, advancing out of the woods, suddenly approached the western extrem- 
ity of the land front, and one brigade (Bell’s) charged along a narrow cause- 
way in the face of four guns.1_ Nothing, however, was accomplished by the 
second expedition which might not, under good management, have been as 
well accomplished by the first. 

The next morning a sad event occurred, which to some extent marred the 
cheer of victory. By some culpable negligence, the soldiers were allowed 
to approach the magazine with lighted candles. In this way an explosion 
was occasioned, resulting in the loss of about 200 men. Among the severe- 
ly wounded was Colonel Alonzo Alden, of the One Hundred and Sixty-ninth 
New York regiment. 

As a result of the fall of Fort Fisher, the surrounding work—Fort Cas- 
well, a large work at the West Inlet, mounting 29 guns, all the works on 
Smith’s Island, those between Caswell and Smithville up to the battery on 
Reeves’s Point, on the west side of the river, were abandoned. Including 
the guns taken at Fort Fisher, 169 were captured in all. 

The same day that Fort Fisher was assaulted and carried by Terry’s troops, 
Major General Schofield, with the Twenty-third Corps, 21,000 strong, left 
Thomas’s army for the Hast. In February Schofield was appointed com- 
mander of the Department of North Carolina, just created. He then com- 
menced a campaign, the ultimate object of which was the occupation of 
Goldsborough, in order to prepare for the arrival of Sherman’s army by 
opening railway communication from that point with the sea-coast, and ac- 
cumulating supplies. Wilmington was to be captured first, because it would 
be a valuable auxiliary base to Morehead City if Sherman should reach 
Goldsborough, and absolutely necessary in the event of Sherman’s concen- 
trating his army farther south. 

Schofield, with the Third division (J. D. Cox’s) of his corps, reached the 
mouth of Cape Fear River on the 9th of February, landing near Fort Fisher. 
Terry and Porter had already made the port of Wilmington useless to block- 
ade runners. The former, still retaining his command, and having the co- 
operation of the North Atlantic Squadron, held a line across the peninsula 
two miles above Fort Fisher, and occupied Smithville and Fort Caswell. 
The Cape Fear had been entered by a portion of the fleet, so that both of 
Terry’s flanks were secure. The enemy, under General Hoke, still covered 
Fort Anderson on the west bank, and the immediate defenses of Wilming: 
ton, in position impregnable against a direct attack. The Confederate line 
must be turned either on its left by the fleet passing above Masonborough 
Inlet, or by a march of the army around the swamp covering its right. The 


* Admiral Porter says in his report: 

‘*T have since visited Fort Fisher and its adjoining works, and find their strength greatly beyond 
what I had conceived. An engineer might be excusable in saying they could not be captured ex- 
cept by regular siege. I wonder even now how it was done. The work, as I said before, is really 
stronger than the Malakoff Tower, which defied so long the combine@ powers of France and Ein. 
gland ; and yet it is captured by a handful of men, under the fire of the guns of the fleet, and in 
seven hours after the attack commenced in earnest.” 


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PORTER'S FLEET CELEBRATING THE OAPTURE OF FORT FISHER, 


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May, 1862.] RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—CHARLESTON. 733 


latter movement was adopted. The result was successful. On the 19th of 
February Fort Anderson was abandoned, and the enemy retreated behind 
Town Creek, where he again intrenched. Terry meanwhile occupied the 
force on the peninsula. The next day, the 20th, General Cox crossed Town 
Creek, gained the enemy’s flank, attacked and routed him, taking two guns 
and 875 prisoners. Cox continued his advance, and threatened to cross the 
Cape Fear above Wilmington. General Hoke then gave up the struggle, 
set fire to his steamers, cotton, and other stores, and abandoned Wilmington 
on the night of the 21st. The next morning Cox entered the town without 
opposition. In these operations the Federal loss was very slight, amounting 
to about 200 in killed and wounded. That of the enemy is estimated at 
1000 men, besides 30 guns. Goldsborough was occupied by General Scho- 
field on the 21st of March, where he effected a junction with Sherman’s army. 


FORT SUMTER. 


CHAPTER LII. 
RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST. 


If. CHARLESTON. 

Defenses of Charleston.—Its Approaches.—The Department of the South.—Hunter’s Operations 
against Charleston.—Federal Repulse at Secessionville, May, 1862.—Attack on the Blockading 
Fleet by the Palmetto State and Chicora.—Beauregard’s Ruse de Guerre.—Admiral Dupont’s 
Bombardment, April, 1863.—The Obstructions in the Harbor defeat the Undertaking. —Results 
of the Bombardment.—Sinking of the Keokuk.—How the Monitors came out of the Fight.— 
Dupont succeeded by Dahlgren, and Hunter by Gillmore.—The Situation when Gillmore assumed 
Command.— Capture of Morris’s Island.—Terry’s co-operative Movement on James’s Island. 
—The First Assault on Fort Wagner.—Second Assault.—Death of Strong and Shaw.—Siege 
of the Fort.— Operations of the Fleet.—The ‘‘ Swamp Angel.”—Correspondence between Gill- 
more and Beauregard.—Demolition of Fort Sumter.—Dahlgren’s Error in not immediately ad- 
vancing upon Charleston.—Fort Johnson strengthened by the Confederates during the delay.-—— 
Confederate Evacuation of Forts Wagner and Gregg.—Williams’s Night Attack on Fort Sumter. 
—Result of the Conquest of Morris’s Island.—General Foster’s Operations in 1865.—He is re- 
lieved by Gillmore.—Charleston is turned by Sherman’s Movement.—Capture of the City by Gill- 
more.—Raising of the old Flag over Fort Sumter. 

ORT Sumter was captured by the Confederates on the 18th of April, 
1861. The defenses of Charleston at that time consisted of the follow- 
ing works, which had been constructed by the United States government: 

1. Fort Sumter, a strong casemated brick work of five faces, with three 
tiers of guns, two in embrasure and one en barbette. This fort is distant a 
little more than three miles from the city, and is on the south side of the 
channel, about midway between Morris’s Island on the south, and Sullivan’s 
Island on the north. Its full armament would comprise 135 guns. At the 
time of its capture by the Confederates the fort mounted 78 guns. 

2. Fort Moultrie, 1700 yards from Fort Sumter, on Sullivan’s Island. 
This also is a brick work, with one tier of guns en barbette. In 1860 it 
mounted 52 guns. ; 

3. Castle Pinckney, a brick work on Shute’s Folly Island, distant one mile 
east of the lower end of the city, and mounting, at the beginning of the war, 
28 guns, 

The city of Charleston is situated at the head of Charleston Harbor, on 
the point of the narrow peninsula formed by Ashley and Cooper Rivers. 
Across the entrance of the harbor—between Sullivan’s and Morris’s Islands 
—stretches a bar, seven miles below the city. The islands on either side 
are each about three and a half miles in length, low, narrow, and sandy, and 
separated from the main land by deep and impenetrable marshes, which are 
submerged by the spring tides. The distance from their nearest point to 
Charleston is between three and four miles. Charleston Harbor itself is 
bounded by James’s Island on the south, and on the north by the main land. 
Its entrance is 2700 yards in width. James’s Island, south of the city, is 
limited on the west by Stono River, which separates it from John’s Island. 
Stono River is connected with the Ashley, south of Charleston, by Wappoo 
Creek. South of James's Island is Cole’s Island, which is for the most part 
marsh, with Folly River on the south separating it from Folly Island. Light: 
house Inlet, at its mouth, separates Morris’s and Folly Islands. The forma- 
tion of all these islands is thin quartz sand. 

The fortifications of Charleston at the opening of the war were only 
adapted to resist a naval attack. To these, other works were rapidly added. 
On Sullivan’s Island were erected, in addition to Fort Moultrie, the follow- 
ing works: Marion, Beauregard, Marshall, and Battery Bee: On Morris’s 

8Z 


Island a battery had been constructed at Cummings’s Point, and a mile far- 
ther south Fort Wagner. Forts Sumter and Moultrie were strengthened, 
and their armament increased. Old Fort Johnson, on James’s Island, was re- 
built and armed with heavy guns, and north of it was constructed Fort Rip- 
ley. The preparations against a land attack were formidable. On the 
James a line of works was built fronting Stone River, with Fort Pemberton 
near its northern extremity. An inclosed work on Cole’s Island covered 
the Stono Inlet and harbor. Heavy guns were mounted on the wharves 
of Charleston, and in the rear of the city formidable works were erected. 
Such and so extensive were the defenses of Charleston under the command 
of the Confederate General Beauregard. 

On the 15th of March, 1862, the Department of the South was created, 
embracing South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and was assigned to Gen- 
eral Hunter. Port Royal had been occupied by a military force under Gen- 
eral T, W. Sherman and Dupont’s squadron late in 1861. Edisto Island, far- 
ther north, was taken possession of by Sherman in February, 1862. The 
expeditionary force commanded by General Sherman in March became sub- 
ject to General Hunter’s control. During the month which followed, Gen- 
eral Q. A. Gillmore captured Fort Pulaski. 

In December, 1861, a Federal fleet of sixteen vessels, heavily laden with 
granite, was sunk on the bar in Charleston Harbor to obstruct the channel} 
and obviate the necessity of a blockade. This operation excited a great de- 
gree of indignation on the part of foreign governments. The elements of 
nature expressed their dissent in a more quiet way, but with much more 
effect. In a few weeks the Ashley and Cooper Rivers made for themselves 
a new channel, better than the previous one. 

Shortly after General Hunter assumed command of the Department of the 
South, operations were commenced against Charleston by way of Stono 
River and James’s Island. The Confederates had made a great mistake in 
abandoning Cole’s Island, which commanded the entrance of the Stono. 
Admiral Dupont, with three gun-boats—the Unadilla, Pembina, and Ottawa 
—entered the river on the 29th of May, 1862. At the approach of the gun- 
boats all the works of the enemy along the Stono up to the Wappoo were 
abandoned. Early in June Generals Hunter and Benham arrived with a 
considerable detachment of troops—too weak, however, for operations on 
James’s Island, where the enemy was not only strongly intrenched from 
Secessionville to Fort Johnson, but had an easy and open communication 
with the rear, and could bring up re-enforcements at his pleasure. On the 
16th of June an attack was madé on Secessionville by General I. I. Stevens’s 
and General H.G. Wright’s divisions of General Benham’s command—some 
6000 strong—but was repulsed by the enemy, the Federal loss amounting to 
over 500 men. 

After this action for nearly a year the operations against Charleston were 
suspended. The Charleston campaign from the beginning of 1868 till the 
close of the war may be treated under three heads: 

I. Admiral Dupont’s bombardment, April 7, 1863. 
II. General Gillmore’s operations on Morris’s Island during the suminer 
of 1863. 

III. General Foster’s and Gillmore’s movements co-operative with Sher- 
man’s Carolina campaign, resulting in the occupation of Charleston, Febru- 
ary 21, 1865. 

I. Admiral Dupont’s expedition was an experiment, in which the offen- 
sive and defensive power of monitors was to be put to the severest test. The 
original Monitor—whose name came to be applied to all iron-clads of simi- 
lar construction—had been lost on her way to join Dupont’s squadron (the 
South Atlantic) in the autumn of 1862.1. The popular expectation as to the 
omnipotence of the monitors was extravagant and unfounded. The Merri- 
mac had been beaten by the original Monitor, and the Nashville had been 
sunk by another vessel of the same class. Fort Pulaski had fallen, not be- 
fore the gun-boats of Dupont’s fleet, but from the effect of batteries on shore. 
It is true, Dupont had at that time no monitors, but the presence of these 
could scarcely have affected the result. The monitors, however, had under- 
gone a pretty fair trial in the attack on Fort McAllister. The only vessel 
of this class engaged in the assault was the Montauk. The result seemed 
to prove the invulnerability of the monitor, but its offensive power as 


See Chapter XIII., p. 258. * Gillmore’s Operations against Charleston, p. 240. 


OITY OF CHARLESTON, 


734 


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HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


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[ JANUARY, 1863. 


DUPONT, 


SAMUEL F. 


against forts was not s0 well established. A visible impression was made 
upon McAllister, but not of such a character as to destroy either its offen- 
sive or defensive power. It was still a question whether a large number 
of monitors might not do what one alone had failed to accomplish. Indeed, 
it was confidently expected that the monitor fleet which Dupont command- 
ed in April, 1863, would batter down Fort Fisher and ride up to Charleston, 
while a military force about 10,000 strong, under General Hunter, would 
occupy and hold that city under the guns of the fleet. 

Previous to the attack on Charleston an event occurred which showed 
the insufficiency of blockading vessels against rams, Karly on the morning 
of January 29th, 1863, the Princess Royal was captured while attempting 
to pass through the blockading squadron into Charleston Harbor. Her car- 
go would have been of great value to the enemy, consisting of two engines 
intended for iron-clads, with rifled guns, arms, ammunition, and medicines. 
Her loss was a severe blow to the Confederates, who, ascertaining that she 
was still at anchor off the harbor, organized an expedition for her recapture. 
Before light on the morning of the 31st two Confederate iron-clad steam 
rams—the Palmetto State, commanded by Lieutenant Rutledge, and the 
Chicora, Commander Tucker—ran out by the main ship channel from 
Charleston, and attacked the blockading squadron with great vigor. The 
latter consisted of 10 vessels—the Housatonic, Mercedita, Ottawa, Unadilla, 


Keystone State, Quaker City, Memphis, Augusta, Stettin, and Flag—most 
of them being light vessels, and incompetent to resist such an onslaught. 
The iron-clads and two of the heaviest men of war, the Powhatan and Ca- 
nandaigua, were off at Port Royal. The Palmetto State, with Flag-officer 
D. N. Ingraham on board, almost immediately disabled the Mercedita with a 
7-inch shell, which entered her side, exploded in one of her boilers, and in 
its exit killed and wounded several men. One blow from the ram settled 
the case of this ship, which, as it seemed to be sinking, was surrendered. 
Both the Palmetto and Chicora then attacked the Keystone State. The lat- 
ter bore down rapidly upon the Palmetto, intending to sink her. But a shot 
from the ram passed through both her steam chests; 10 rifle shells struck 
her near and below water mark, and almost simultaneously a fire broke out 
in her forehold. Commander Le Roy hauled down his flag. The enemy 
still continued to fire, and the flag was again hoisted and the battle renewed 
The Augusta, Memphis, and Quaker City came up and relieved the suffer 
ing vessel, one fourth of whose crew had been killed or wounded. Togeth 
er with the Mercedita, whose leak had been stopped and who had not been 
secured by the enemy, the Keystone State went to Port Royal. The other 
vessels of the squadron kept at a prudent distance from the rams. Soon, 
however, the Housatonic came up, and the rams, refusing battle, fled back 
into the harbor. 


January, 1863. ] RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—CHARLESTON. 


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Aprit, 1863. ] RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—CHARLESTON. 737 


and tries the left channel, between Fort Sumter and Cummings’s Point. This 
also is blockaded, and more effectually than the other, by a row of piles 
stretching across the channel. Beyond is seen another row extending be- 
tween Forts Johnson and Ripley, and more careful scrutiny discloses a third 
row, beyond which lie three Confederate ‘rams. 

Thus the original design of reaching Fort Sumter’s weakest face is frus- 
trated at the outset. And there is no help for it. The fort could probably 
be reduced but for these obstructions which cover its weakness: the obstruc- 
tions might be removed but for the thundering guns of the fort. 

To make matters worse, the New Ironsides—the flag-ship—caught by the 
tide, refuses to obey her rudder, and becomes unmanageable. The Catskilt 
and the Nantucket fall foul of her, and thus remain a full quarter of an 
hour. While, in the midst of these difficulties, the vessels are taking such 
positions as they can gain, they are in a circle of fire, which concentrates 
upon them from Cummings’s Point Battery, Battery Bee, and Forts Beaure- 
gard, Moultrie, and Sumter. The range is less than 800 yards, and the fire 
is from guns of the heaviest calibre that could be obtained from the Trede- 
gar works of Richmond or from the armories of Europe. This fire has 
been going on from the time of its first opening by Sumter; but now for 
thirty minutes it pours upon the fleet the white heat of its fury. One hund- 
red and sixty shots are counted in a single minute; they strike the iron 
plates of the monitors as rapidly as the ticking of a watch. It is estimated 
that from all the forts, in this brief engagement, not less than 8500 rounds 
have been fired. In reply, only 139 shots have been delivered by the fleet. 

And what is the result to the fort? What to the fleet? A few marks 
are visible on Fort Sumter, and the parapet near the eastern angle shows a 
huge crater.!. If the monitors could remain where they are, time would 
solve the problem of the reduction of the fort. But they can not. Apart 
from the embarrassments under which they are working as regards effective 
offense—their confined space; their tendency to drift against the obstruc- 
tions or upon submerged batteries; and the clouds of smoke which hang 
over the water, obscuring their range—they have sustained injuries which 
compel their withdrawal, and at 5 P.M. the signal is given for their retreat. 
Already the Keokuk, which advanced to within 570 yards of Fort Sumter, 
has left the field in a sinking condition, having been completely riddled with 
shots. It is her last fight. The Ironsides also has lost one of her port- 
shutters, her gun-deck is thus exposed, and her bows have been penetrated 
with red-hot shot. But these are not monitors. How is it with the latter? 
The Nahant has received thirty wounds, her turret has been jammed so that 
it will not turn, and her pilot-house is in such a rickety condition that every 
bolt in it flies about when it is struck, killing and wounding its tenants. 
The turret of the Passaic is broken and unmanageable. The Nantucket’s 
turret is jarred so that the cover of the port can not be opened, and conse- 
quently her 15-inch gun can not be used. The other four monitors are es- 
sentially uninjured.? 

After the withdrawal of the fleet, Admiral Dupont having been informed 
as to the conditions of his vessels, decided not to renew the conflict, and the 
next day returned to Port Royal. The Keokuk sank on the morning of 
the 8th abreast of Morris’s Island, and her armament was thus left in the 
hands of the enemy. In the action of the 7th only one man was mortally 
wounded. The entire casualties were twenty-six. 

Within the short space of about two hours had been decided the question 
of monitors against forts. The result was decisive on two points: first, that 
the defensive powers of these vessels was not sufficient to withstand the con- 
centrated fire of half a dozen forts heavily armed; and, secondly, that while 
the reduction of brick forts might result from a long-continued bombard- 
ment, yet the limits of endurance on the part of the monitors were such as 
to render this impracticable.° 

II. The War Department was not satisfied with the result of the experiment, 
and determined to renew the attack, but upon a somewhat different plan. 
Admiral Dupont was relieved of the command, and would have been suc- 
ceeded by Admiral Foote but for the death of the latter on the way to Port 
Royal. The command of the South Atlantic squadron was therefore, on the 


Upon the return of his rams a bright idea occurred to Beauregard. He 
knew that the reports of Admiral Dupont could not reach the North for 
some three days at least. His own communication by telegraph with Rich- 
mond was uninterrupted, and the Richmond papers soon found their way to 
New York. Here, then, was a splendid opportunity for a ruse de guerre, 
which, if it involved considerable lying, might—so thought the chivalrous, 
honor-loving general—be excused on the maxim that “all is fair in war.” 
Accordingly, over his own signature and that of Flag-officer Ingraham, he 
dispatched to Richmond an official proclamation, stating that the Confeder- 
ate naval force at Charleston had attacked the blockading fleet off the har- 
bor, and had sunk, dispersed, and drove off the same, and declaring the block- 
ade of Charleston to be raised from and after the 81st of January, 1863. 
This proclamation, with Beauregard’s account of the affair, asserting that, as 
a result of the naval engagement on the 31st, two Federal vessels were sunk, 
four set on fire, and the rest driven away, was published in the Richmond 
papers of February 2d. As if this were not enough in the way of falsification, 
another dispatch was added, declaring that on the afternoon of the 31st the 
British consul, on board the British war steamer Petrel, had gone five miles 
beyond the usual anchorage of the blockaders, and could see nothing of them 
with glasses, 

Now, without characterizing these declarations by the plain English term 
that is applicable to them, it is sufficient to say that they are false in every 
particular. And they were recognized as false by every European govern- 
ment. The raid with the rams had not succeeded in the object for which 
it was undertaken—the recovery of the Princess Royal; they had retreated 
on the appearance of the Housatonie, and did not venture out again. Not 
a single Federal steamer was sunk, not one was burned, and only two were 
in any way disabled. The position of the blockading squadron was not 
shifted, and no vessel advanced from Charleston, after the affair, beyond the 
bar of the harbor.! 

By the 7th of April the preparations for the bombardment of Fort Sum- 
ter were completed. At noon of that day the vessels of Dupont’s fleet, hay- 
ing crossed the bar by the new channel formed since the sinking of the stone 
fleet, proceeded to the attack. The attacking fleet consisted of nine vessels, 
all of which were monitors except the New Ironsides and Keokuk, which 
were iron-clad and turreted. The five strongest vessels of the blockading 
squadron were held in reserve.? The orders issued by the admiral were 
that the fleet should pass up the main ship channel, open fire upon Fort 
Sumter when within range of that work, disregarding the batteries on Mor- 
ris’s Island, advance to a position northwest of Sumter in order to attack its 
weakest face, fire upon the work with precision rather than rapidity, and, 
having reduced the fort, turn against the Morris’s Island batteries. The ad- 
vance had been delayed till noon, waiting for the tide, and from the fleet, in 
the mean while, could be seen the steeples and roofs of Charleston crowded 
with spectators, just as they had been two years before, when Fort Sumter 
was attacked by its present defender. It is a novel conflict whose specta- 
cle is now anxiously awaited—that of a fleet mounting 32 guns arrayed 
against forts which mount 300. The forts know little of the monitors, but 
stand defiant. The monitors know little of the forts, or the obstructions to 
their progress, but defiantly they advance. 

The reserve fleet lies outside the bar, while the monitors approach Sum- 
ter. The Weehawken has the lead, and as she advances, a raft attached to 
her prow looks out for torpedoes. Scarcely has she started, however, before 
the grappling irons attached to this raft become fouled in the anchor cable, 
and an hour’s delay is occasioned. Then the movement is resumed. The 
entire fleet passes Morris’s Island, but no gun opens upon her. Now (8 P.M.) 
she rounds to enter the harbor, and comes within range of Fort Sumter and 
the batteries on Sullivan’s Island. A broadside from the upper tier of guns 
(en barbette) greets the Weehawken, who is seeking, according to orders, to 
reach the left face of the fort. Suddenly she halts midway between Sumter 
and Moultrie. Her progress has been stopped by an unforeseen obstacle— 
a stout hawser stretches between the two forts, strung with torpedoes. The 
fleet has been proceeding along the right channel thus far, and, meeting this 
obstruction in the way of reaching its desired position, it changes its course, 


* Mr. William Swinton gives the following graphic description of the inside of a monitor during 
the engagement : 

‘*Could you look through the smoke, and through the flame-lit ports, into one of those reyoly- 
ing towers, a spectacle would meet your eye such as Vulcan’s stithy might present. Here are the 
two huge guns which form the armament of each monitor—the one eleven, and the other fifteen 
inches in diameter of bore. The gunners, begrimed with powder and stripped to the waist, are 
loading the gun. The charge of powder—thirty-five pounds to each charge—is passed up rapidly 
from below; the shot, weighing four hundred and twenty pounds, is hoisted up by mechanical 
appliances to the muzzle of the gun, and rammed home, the gun is run out to the port, and tightly 
‘* compressed ;” the port is open for an instant, the captain of the gun stands behind, lanyard in 
hand—“‘ Ready, fire!” and the enormous projectile rushes through its huge parabola, with the 
weight of 10,000 tons, home to its mark.” 

* The following estimate was made of the shots received by each vessel : 


* Beauregard’s statements are fully refuted by that subsequently made by Admiral Dupont, and 
signed by nearly all the commanding officers of the fleet lying off Charleston Harbor on the 31st. 
We make the following extract from this statement: 

‘We deem it our duty to state that the so-called results are false in every particular—no ves- 
sels were sunk, none were set on fire seriously. . . . . So hasty was the retreat of the rams that, 
although they might have perceived that the Keystone State had received serious damage, no at- 
tempt was ever made to approach her. ‘The Stettin and Ottawa, at the extreme end of the line, 
did not get under way from their position till after the firing had ceased, and the Stettin merely saw 
the black smoke as the rams disappeared over the bar. The rams withdrew hastily toward the 
harbor, and on their way were fired at by the Housatonic and Augusta until both had got beyond 
reach of their guns. They anchored under the protection of their forts, and remained there. No 
vessel, iron-clad or other, passed out over the bar after the return of the rams inshore. The Una- 


° ° g . New I MLO rescieee vies sisie efector 65 Nantucket... ccessseccsseccceccs 51 
dilla was not aware of the attack until the Housatonic commenced firing, when she moved out to- Sooke Le ee Sie Sy be ae adel 90 recy epee deat Beet stated. 51 
ward that vessel from her anchorage. The Housatonic was never beyond the usual line of the Weehawken .......seecsesccecsce 60 Patapboosig oace/sees chee anna 45 
blockade. We do not hesitate to state that no vessel came out beyond the bar after the return of Montauk ........seeeeeeseereeees 20 Nahant.......seeeceeeseeeeeeeeee 80 

POSBBIC. 6 cen vcieses cesessccsicecces 53 Tobalots kh foe ee Bib 


the rams, at between 7 and 8 A.M., to the cover of the forts. We believe the statement that any 
vessel came any where near the usual anchorage of any of the blockaders, or up to the bar, after 
the withdrawal of the rams, to be deliberately and knowingly false. If the statement from the pa- 
pers, as now before us, has the sanction of the capfain of the Petrel and the foreign consuls, we 
can only deplore that foreign officers can lend their official positions to the spreading before the 
world, for unworthy objects, untruths patent to every officer of this squadron.” 
* The vessels of the monitor fleet, including the New Ironsides and Keokuk, advanced in the 
following order : 
1. Weehawken, Captain John Rodgers. 
2. Passaic, Captain Percival Drayton. 
. Montauk, Commander John L. Worden. 
. Patapsco, Commander Daniel Ammen. 
. New Ironsides, Commodore Thomas Turner. 
. Catskill, Commander George W. Rodgers. 
. Nantucket, Commander Daniel MeN. Fairfax. 
Nahant, Commander John Downes. 
9. Keokuk, Lieutenant Commander A. C. Rhind. 
The reserye squadron consisted of the Canandaigua, Unadilla, Housatonic, Wissahickon, and 
| Huron, under the command of Captain Joseph H. Green. 


r 9A 


° A year after the attack on Charleston Admiral Dupont thus alludes to the affair : 

‘*T am well aware,” he says, ‘‘ that the results at Charleston were not all that were wished for, 
and I quite agree with the department that there was, nevertheless, much in them that was gratifying, 
particularly that the loss of life was so small, and that the capacity of the iron-clads for enduring 
the hot and heavy fire brought to bear upon them, which would have destroyed any vessels of wood 
heretofore used in warfare, was made so evident. But I must take leave to remind the depart- 
ment that ability to endure is not a sufficient element wherewith to gain victories; that endurance 
must be accompanied with a corresponding power to inflict injury on the enemy; and I will im- 
prove the present occasion to repeat the expression of a conviction which I have already conveyed 
to the department in former letters, that the weakness of the monitor class of vessels, in this im- 
portant particular, is fatal to their attempts against fortifications haying outlying obstructions, as 
at the Ogeechee and at Charleston, or against other fortifications upon elevations, as at Fort Dar- 
ling, or against any modern fortifications before which they must anchor or lie at rest, and receive 
much more than they can return. With even their dismantled surface they are not invulnerable, 
and their various mechanical contrivances for working their turrets and guns are so liable to im- 
mediate derangement, that, in the brief though fierce engagement at Charleston, five out of eight 
were disabled, and, as I mentioned in my detailed report to the department, half an hour more 
fighting would, in my judgment, have placed them all hors de combat.” 


DAG 


738 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 


THE CIVIL WAR. [ JULY, 1863, 


Soe 
lly \\ iN 


ill; 


6th of July, assigned to Admiral Dahlgren, and General Q. A. Gillmore suc- 
ceeded Hunter in the command of the Department of the South. Toward 
the close of May, 1863, Gillmore had received orders to repair to Washing- 
ton, to consult with General Halleck and Secretary Welles as to future oper- 
ations against Charleston. No more troops could be spared for the Depart- 
ment of the South. Gillmore did not ask for more, although he knew that 
his operations must, on account of his small military force, be restricted to 
Morris’s Island. With this force he proposed to occupy that island, capture 
Forts Wagner and Gregg, and demolish Fort Sumter by means of shore bat- 
teries. The way would thus be open for Dahlgren to advance with his fleet, 
remove the obstructions in the harbor, and command Charleston. Even if 
the city was not captured, the full possession of Morris’s Island would effec- 
tually blockade the harbor. 

General Gillmore assumed command of the department on the 12th of 
June. At that time the coast from Light-house Inlet to St. Augustine, 
Florida—a distance of 250 miles—was in possession of the national forces. 
The positions actually occupied by troops were Folly Island, Seabrook Isl- 
and, on the North Edisto, St. Helena Island, Port Royal Island, Hilton Head 
Island, the Tybee Islands, Fort Pulaski, Ossibaw Island, Fort Clinch and 
Amelia Island, and the city of St, Augustine. Off or inside the principal 
inlets lay the blockading squadron.} 

Folly Island was occupied by a brigade under General Vogdes, strongly 
intrenched, with heavy guns mounted on the south end of the island to con- 
trol the entrance of the Stono River. Vogdes had also constructed a road, 
practicable for artillery, and affording a means of concealed communication 
between the several parts of the island. In Stono and Folly Rivers a naval 
force was stationed, consisting of two gun-boats and a mortar schooner, to 
secure Folly Island against attack, and to hold the Stono against the light- 
draught gun-boats of the enemy. Folly Island was necessarily the base of 
operations against Morris's Island.?, The dense undergrowth with which it 


* Gillmore’s Operations against Charleston, p. 42. 

* “The question has been asked why the route across James’s Island from Stono River, the 
same that Brigadier General Benham attempted, was not selected to operate upon. 

‘‘The answer is simple. The enemy had more troops available for the defense of Charleston 
than we had for the attack. The general-in-chief, in the preliminary discussions of the project, 
had mentioned 10,000 men as the approximate number that could be collected in the Department 
of the South for this operation. ‘The force actually got together there did not vary much from 
11,500 men, including engineers and artillerists. Upon Morris’s Island, on acgount of tts narrow- 
ness, this force was ample, and it was not until the command had been reduced one third by sick- 
ness and casualties that re-enforcements were asked for. But James’s Island presents a different 
case. There our progress would soon haye been arrested by the concentration of a superior force 
in our front. Upon Morris’s Island both parties had all the force that could be apptied with ad- 
vantage. Our superiority in artillery, ashore and afloat—particularly in the use of mortars in the 
trenches—the Successful application of new devices, the energy and skill of owr engineers, and a 
strictly maintained initiative, gave us the controlling elements of success. Moreover, according to 
the programme of joint operations, the demolition of Fort Sumter was what the land forces had to 
accomplish, and that could be done with more ease and certainty from Morris’s Island than from 
any other position. James's Island was too wide to operate upon, with a fair promise of success, 
with our small force.”—Gillmore’s Operations, p. 22. 


Yi iy 
CHUM 


WSS 


was covered afforded cover for batteries on the north end, within musket 
range of the enemy’s picket on the opposite side of Light-house Inlet. 

The forces in Ossibaw Sound and on the North Edisto were withdrawn. 
Gillmore’s entire command available for offensive operations then consisted 
of 11,500 men and 66 guns, besides about 30 mortars. 

The descent upon Morris’s Island was made July 10th, 1863. It was an 
operation which required boldness and great skill, as it involved the storm- 
ing of a fortified position, not by the regular approaches of a siege, but by 
an advance covered by a few batteries, and made in small boats exposed to 
the enemy’s fire. There were two co-operative expeditions—one conducted 
by General A. H.Terry, with 3800 men, on James's Island, which was emi- 
nently successful, diverting a portion of the garrison from Morris’s Island; 
and a second, sent from General Saxton’s command at Beaufort to cut the 
Charleston and Savannah Railroad at Jacksborough, in order to delay re- 
enforcements from Savannah. This latter expedition proved a signal fail- 
ure, involving the loss of two guns and a small steamer, which was burned 
to prevent its capture. 

The main column engaged in the attack on Morris’s Island—about 2000 
men of General Strong’s brigade—was embarked in Folly River, and passed 
by night during high tide through the shallow creeks into Light-house In- 
let. This movement was first fixed for the night of the 8th of July, but had 
been postponed until the night of the 9th. At daybreak on the 10th the 
column halted, having reached Light-house Inlet, the boats keeping close to 
the east shore of the creek, where they were screened by the marsh grass 
from hostile observation. Shortly after daybreak the batteries on the north 
end of Folly Island—10 in number, and mounting 47 guns—opened against 
the opposite shore, the undergrowth having been previously cleared away 
in their front to give them an unobstructed view. Four monitors joined 
their fire to that of the batteries. For two hours this bombardment contin- 
ued, and then Strong’s brigade moved across the inlet to the assault. 

The movement had been planned with much skill and secrecy, and was a 
surprise to the enemy. At Oyster Point, and on the firm land lower down, 
the Federal troops were landed under a hot fire of musketry and artillery. 
But the column never faltered, and by 9 o’clock A.M. all the hostile batter- 
ies south of Fort Wagner were overrun and captured. This success closed 
the operations of that day. The troops were within musket range of Fort 
Wagner, and were exhausted by the intense heat and three hours’ hard fight- 
ing. Throughout the day the bombardment from the monitors was kept 
up, directed chiefly at Fort Wagner. 

On the morning of the 11th an assault was made upon Fort Wagner. 
The advance, led by General Strong in person, reached and gained the par- 
apet of the fort. But the supports could not be brought up in face of a fire 
from which they had no protection, and the attack failed. In the actions 


Jury, 1863. ] 


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RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—CHARLESTON. 


Welt 
ARS 

Ry) 
SnPlth 


Q. A. GILLMORE, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. . 


on the 10th and 11th the Federal loss was about 150. General Beauregard 
admits a loss of 300, including 16 commissioned officers! He had also lost 
11 heavy guns. 

In the mean time, General Terry, on James’s Island, had followed the route 
taken by Benham’s two divisions on the 16th of June, and demonstrated 
against Secessionville. On the 16th of July he was attacked by a largely 
superior force of the enemy; but with the assistance of the gun-boat Pawnee 
in the Stono, and two smaller vessels, the attack was easily repulsed. Ter- 
ry’s command was the next day withdrawn from James’s Island. 

On the 18th, just one week after the failure of the first assault on Fort 
Wagner, a second was undertaken. In the interim, four batteries—Rey- 
nolds, Weed, Hays, and O’Rourke—mounting twenty-nine guns and fourteen 
mortars, had been erected on Morris’s Island bearing upon Fort Wagner, and 
at a distance from that work of from 1330 to 1920 yards. In addition to 
the four monitors (the Catskill, Montauk, Nahant, and Weehawken), which 


' Gillmore’s Operations, p. 75. 


GEORGE ©, STRONG. 


[ JULY, 1863. 


———as: 


— 


ROBERT G, SHAW, 


were across the bar on the 10th, two other vessels—the Patapsco and the 
New Ironsides—now lay abreast of Morris’s Island. The guns of this fleet 
and of the shore batteries bombarded the fort all day. At twilight, in the 
midst of a thunder-storm, the assaulting columns, commanded by Brigadier 
General T. Seymour, advanced. Strong’s brigade—consisting of Colonel 
Shaw’s Fifty-fourth Massachusetts (colored) Regiment; the Sixth Connecti- 
cut, Colonel Chatfield; a battalion of the Seventh Connecticut; the Forty- 
eighth New York, Colonel Barton; the Third New Hampshire, Colonel 
Jackson; the Ninth Maine, Colonel Emery; and the Seventy-sixth Pennsyl- 
vania, Colonel Strawbridge—was in the advance, and was supported by 
Colonel H.S.Putnam’s brigade. The whole force engaged in the attack 
numbered about 6000 men. The approach of darkness, hastened by the 
storm, made it impossible for the fleet to discern friend from foe, so that the 
advance was exposed to the fire of Forts Wagner, Gregg (on Cummings’s 
Point), and Sumter, assisted by the works on James’s and Sullivan’s Island, 
Never, during the war, was an assault made in the face of such opposition. 
As soon as the columns approached the fort, and the Federal guns in the 
batteries and on the monitors were silent, the garrison of Wagner, 1000 
strong, sprang to its guns and muskets. Notwithstanding this tremendous 
fire from four different quarters, and although the leading regiment was 
thrown into such disorder that Putnam’s supporting brigade had to be sent 
in, still the troops went forward, and the southeast bastion of Fort Wagner 
was gained and held for nearly three hours. The darkness was so great an 
advantage to the garrison that it more than compensated for the partial suc- 
cess of the assailants, and a retreat was ordered. The Federal loss was very 


_ = one 4 
RULNS OF LIGHT-LOUSE ON MORRIS'S ISLAND. 


Aveust, 1863. ] 


severe, especially in officers. Gene- 
ral Strong, and Colonels Chatfield, 
Putnam, and Shaw, were either kill- = 
ed on the spot, or died subsequently = 
of their wounds, Colonel Shaw was 
killed upon the parapet of the fort. 
If, as was reported at the time, he 
was buried with the fallen negroes 
of his gallant regiment, it can only 
be said that what was intended for : : 
a disgrace will in the light of his- = = 
tory be regarded as a monumental = 
honor. General Seymour and sev- 
eral_regimental commanders were 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—CHARLESTON. 


741 


severely wounded. ‘The entire loss 
sustained in the assault must have 
amounted to 1200 killed and wound- 
ed. 


This repulse revived the faltering 
hopes of the citizens of Charleston, 
who regarded Fort Wagner as the 
key to the city. They had looked 
upon the conflict with anxiety and 
doubt. They remembered that this 
same General Gillmore had once de- 
molished Fort Pulaski—which they 
considered in impregnability next 
to Sumter—as easily as if it had 


been a house built of cards.!. They 
had trembled, therefore, for the fate 
of Wagner and Sumter, but now they breathed more freely. 

But General Gillmore had as yet scarcely commenced operations. His 
principal object was the demolition of Fort Sumter, in order to allow the 
iron-clads an entrance to the harbor. Failing in this, there was still left a 
secondary object to be accomplished—namely, to secure a perfect blockade 
of the port. This could be effected by the reduction of Forts Wagner and 
Gregg. 

Fort Wagner was an inclosed work, one fourth of a mile in width, ex- 
tending from high-water mark on the east, to Vincent’s Creek and the im- 
passable marshes on the west. It had an excellent garrison, and was con- 
structed of sand, upon which the heaviest bombardment could make little 
impression, with a ditch in front. Its bomb-proof shelter was capacious and 
secure, and its armament consisted of between fifteen and twenty guns, cov- 
ering the solitary approach to it on the south. This approach was in many 
places scarcely half a company front in width, and was swept by Fort Sum- 
ter, the batteries on James’s Island, and that at Cummings’s Point. Its com- 
munication with the rear was secure, thus giving opportunity for the in- 
crease of its armament or garrison.” 


' See the Augusta Sentinel of July 15, 1863. 2 Gillmore’s Operations, p. 105. 


SHARPSIOOTERS BEFORE WAGNER. 


Fort Wagner was neared by regular approaches. Immediately after the 
repulse of the 18th, the first parallel was established about 1300 yards from 
Fort Wagner.! On the night of the 23d the second parallel was established 
600 yards in advance of the first, on a line running diagonally across 
the island northwest and southeast. In the creek on the left two booms 
of floating timber were stretched across, to resist the approach ,of the enemy’s 
boats. It must be remembered that these approaches to Fort Wagner were 
chiefly defensive as to that work, and were preliminary to offensive opera- 
tions against Fort Sumter. The third parallel was established within less 
than 400 yards of Fort Wagner. The fire from the fort now became so 
severe that it was determined to operate against Sumter before another 
advance. 

Breaching batteries had been constructed for this purpose in rear of the 
several parallels. By the 11th of August 12 of these batteries were ready 


1 « A row of inclined palisading, reaching entirely across the island, was planted about 200 yards 
in advance of the line, with a return of fifty yards on the right. This return was well flanked by 
two guns on the right of the parallel. The parallel was arranged for infantry defense ; a bomb- 
proof magazine was constructed, and the armament of the line modified and increased, so that the 
parallel contained eight siege and field guns, ten siege mortars, and three Requa rifle batteries. ”— 
Gillmore’s Operations, p. 114. 


“I 
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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| AuGusT, 1863. 


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PORTION OF CHARLESTON E 


Hut 


Seprember, 1863. | 


for operation, mounting 28 heavy guns and 12 mortars. Their distance from 
Fort Sumter ranged from 8516 to 4290 yards, The bombardment com- 
menced on the morning of the 17th, and the guns were served steadily and 
deliberately for several days, until Fort Sumter was literally knocked out 
of all shape and deprived of its offensive power. During this time the fleet 
also bombarded Fort Wagner, whose fire, unless silenced, would interfere 
with the operations of the batteries on shore. 

On the 21st of August a demand was made upon General Beauregard for 
the surrender of Morris’s Island and Fort Sumter, accompanied by the as- 
surance that, if the demand was not complied with during the four hours 
following its delivery, fire would be opened upon Charleston from batteries 
already established within range of the city. For three weeks Gillmore had 
been locating a battery, commonly known among the troops as the “Swamp 
Angel,” mounted with an 8-inch Parrott rifle, and within range of Charles- 
ton, on the marsh between Morris’s and James’s Islands. He waited ten 
hours beyond the time specified in his notice to the Confederate general, 
and, receiving no reply, opened fire on the city.’ 


? The following is a copy of the correspondence which passed between Generals Gillmore and 
Beauregard : 
No. 1. 
“Headquarters Department of the South, Morris's Island, $,C., August 21, 1863. 
“General G, T. BEAUREGARD, Commanding Confederate Forces about Charleston, S. C. : 

‘* GeneRAL,—I have the honor to demand of you the immediate evacuation of Morris’s Island 
and Fort Sumter by the Confederate forces. 

‘<The present condition of Fort Sumter, and the rapid and progressive destruction which it is un- 
dergoing from my batteries, seem to render its complete demolition within a few hours a matter of 
certainty. All my heaviest guns have not yet opened. Should you refuse compliance with that 
demand, or should I receive no reply thereto within four hours after it is delivered into the hands 
of your subordinate at Fort Wagner for transmission, I shall open fire on the city of Charleston 
from batteries already established within easy and effective range of the heart of the city. 

‘“*T am, general, your obedient servant, 
‘*Q. A. GittmMore, Brigadier General Commanding.” 


No. 2. 
‘‘ Headquarters South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, Charleston, 8. C., August 22, 1863. 

‘*Sir,—Last night, at 15 minutes before 11 o’clock, during my absence on a reconnoissance of 
my fortifications, a communication was received at these headquarters, dated ‘ Headquarters De- 
partment of the South, Morris’s Island, 8. C., August 21, 1863,’ demanding the immediate evacta- 
tion of Morris’s Island and Fort Sumter by the Confederate forces on the alleged ground that ‘ the 
present condition of Fort Sumter, and the rapid and progressive destruction which it is undergoing 
from my batteries, seem to render its complete demolition within a few hours a matter of certain- 
ty,’ and if this letter was not complied with, or no reply was received within four hours after it was 
delivered into the hands of my subordinate commander at Fort Wagner for transmission, a fire 
would be opened on the city of Charleston from batteries already established within easy and ef- 
fective range of the heart of the city. This communication to my address was without signature, 
and, of course, returned. About half past one o’clock one of your batteries did actually open fire 
and throw a number of heavy shells into the city, the inhabitants of which, of course, were asleep 
and unwarned. 

** About 9 o’clock the next morning the communication alluded to was returned to these head- 
quarters, bearing your recognized official signature, and it can now be noticed as your deliberate 
official act. Among nations not barbarous, the usages of war prescribe that where a city is about 
to be attacked, timely notice shall be given by the attacking commander, in order that non-com- 
batants shall have an opportunity of withdrawing beyond its limits. Generally the time allowed 
is from one to three days; that is, time for the withdrawal in good faith of at least the women and 
children. You, sir, gave only four hours, knowing that your notice, under existing circumstances, 
could not reach me in Jess than two hours, and not less than that time would be required for an 
answer to be conveyed from this city to Battery Wagner. 

‘* With this knowledge you threaten to open fire on this city, not to oblige its surrender, but to 
force me to evacuate those works which you, assisted by a great naval force, have been attacking 
in vain for more than 40 days. Batteries Wagner and Gregg and Fort Sumter are nearly due 
north from your batteries on Morris’s Island, and in distance therefrom ranging from half a mile 
to two and a quarter miles. This city, on the other hand, is to the northwest, and quite five miles 
distant from the battery which opened against it this morning. It would appear, sir, that, despair- 
ing of reducing these works, you now resort to the novel measure of turning your guns against the 
old men, women, and the hospitals of a sleeping city—an act of inexcusable barbarity, from your 
own confessed point of sight, inasmuch as you allege that the complete demolition of Fort Sumter 
within a few hours by your guns seems a matter of certainty. Your omission to attach your sig- 
nature to such a grave paper must show the recklessness of the course upon which you have adven- 
tured. While the facts that you knowingly fixed a limit for receiving an answer to your demand, 
which made it almost beyond the possibility of receiving any reply within that time, and that you 
actually did open one, and threw a number of the most destructive missiles ever used in war into 
the midst of a city taken unawares and filled with sleeping women and children, will give you a 
bad eminence in history—even in the history of this war. I am only surprised, sir, at the limits 
you have set to your demand. — If, in order to obtain the abandonment of Morris’s Island and Fort 
Sumter, you feel authorized to fire on this city, why did you not include the works on Sullivan’s 
and James’s Islands, nay, even the city of Charleston, in the same demand? Since you have felt 
warranted in inaugurating this method of reducing batteries in your immediate front which were 
otherwise found to be impregnable, and a mode of warfare which I confidently: declare to be atro- 
cious and unworthy of a soldier, I now solemnly warn you that, if you fire again on the city from 
your Morris’s Island batteries, without giving a somewhat more reasonable time to remove the non- 
combatants, I shall feel impelled to employ such stringent means of retaliation as may be available 
during the continuance of this attack. Finally, I reply that neither the works on Morris's Island 
nor Fort Sumter will be evacuated on the demand you have been pleased to make. Already, how- 
ever, I am taking measures to remove all non-combatants, who are now fully aware and alive to 
what they may expect at your hands. Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

‘ 


. ‘G. T, Beaurecarp, General Commanding. 
“To Brigadier General Q. A. GiLLMorE, Commanding U, S. Forces, Morris's Island.” 


No. 3. 
‘Headquarters Department of the South, Morris’s Island, 8. C., August 22, 1864—9 P.M. 
“General G. T. BEAvREGARD, Commanding Confederate Forces, Charleston, 8. C.: 

‘*S1r,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, com- 
plaining that one of my batteries has opened upon the city of Charleston, and thrown ‘a number 
of heavy rifled shells into the city, the inhabitants of which, of course, were asleep and unwarned.’ 

“* My letter to you demanding the surrender of Fort Sumter and Morris’s Island, and threatening, 
in default thereof, to open fire upon Charleston, was delivered near Fort Wagner at 11 15 o’clock 
A.M. on the 28th instant, and should have arrived at your headquarters in time to have permit- 
ted your answer to reach me within the limit assigned, viz., four hours. The fact that you were 
absent from your headquarters at the time of its arrival may be regarded as an unfortunate cir- 


RECOVERY OF THE ATLANTIC COAST.—CHARLESTON,. 


743 


On the 24th of August the military force operating against Charleston 
had accomplished its primary object—the elimination of ort Sumter. This 
fort was not obliterated, and its offensive power was only temporarily re- 
moved.! For at least ten or fifteen days it could oppose to the monitors no 
serious resistance. Fort Wagner still remained in the hands of the enemy, 
but could be easily avoided by the fleet. But Admiral Dahlgren did not 
embrace the opportunity, and in the mean time the enemy strengthened 
Fort Johnson, converting it into an earth-work. This work is on the north 
end of James’s Island, and commands the channel, 

Gillmore continued his parallel approaches up to within 150 yards of 
Fort Wagner, and on the 5th of September commenced a bombardment of 
that work, which was continued for forty-two consecutive hours. Seven- 
teen siege and Coehorn mortars dropped their shells into the work, thirteen 
heavy Parrott rifles pounded away at the southwest angle of the bomb- 
proof, while by day the New Ironsides poured an uninterrupted stream of 
eleven-inch shells from her eight-gun broadside against the parapet. An 
assault would have been made on the morning of the 7th upon the now si- 
lent fort; but during the night of the 6th the Confederates, convinced of 
their inability to maintain their position on Morris’s Island, slipped away 
from Forts Wagner and Gregg, and all but seventy men effected their es- 


oo) 
cape. Highteen guns were captured in Fort Wagner, and seven in Fort 


‘Gregg. 


This success concluded General Gillmore’s work. From Cummings’s 
Point an irregular bombardment was commenced upon the city, and contin- 
ued till the evacuation of the latter in 1865. The “Swamp Angel” battery 
had long discontinued its fire upon Charleston. At the thirty-sixth round 
its gun—a 100-lb. Parrott—had exploded, and the guns mounted afterward 
were directed against the James’s Island batteries. 

Admiral Dahlgren was unwilling to attempt the entrance to the harbor 
until Fort Sumter was in possession of the national forces. This possession 
could only be effected by an open assault, involving great sacrifice of life; 
and after the acquisition of the fort, Gillmore could not expect to hold it 
against the formidable works of the enemy which bore upon its weakest 
points. Gillmore, on the 27th of September, offered to remove the obstrue- 


cumstance for the city of Charleston, but one for which I clearly am not responsible, 
bore date at my headquarters, and was officially delivered by an officer of my staff. 

‘The inadvertent omission of my signature doubtless affords ground for special pleading, but is 
not the argument of a commander solicitous only for the safety of sleeping women and children, 
and unarmed men. Your threats of retaliation for acts of mine, which you do not allege to be in 
violation of the usages of civilized warfare except as regards the length of time allowed as notice 
of my intentions, are passed by without comment. I will, however, call your attention to the well- 
established principle, that the commander of a place attacked, but not invested, having its avenues 
of escape open and practicable, has no right to expect any notice of an intended bombardment 
other than that which is given by the threatening attitude of his adversary. Eyen had this letter 
not been written, the city of Charleston has had, according to your own computation, forty days’ no- 
tice of her danger. ; 

‘* During that time my attack on her defenses has steadily progressed ; the ultimate object of that 
attack has at no time been doubtful. If, under the circumstances, the life of a single non-comba- 
tant is exposed to peril by the bombardment of the city, the responsibility rests with those who have 
first failed to remove the non-combatants or secure the safety of the city, after having held control 
of all its approaches for a period of nearly two years and a half, in the presence of a threatening 
force, and who afterward refused to accept the terms upon which the bombardment might have 
been postponed, 

‘* Fyrom various sources, official and otherwise, I am led to believe that most of the women and 
children of Charleston were long since removed from the city; but upon your assurance that the 
city is still ‘‘ full” of them, I shall suspend the bombardment until 11 o'clock P.M. to-morrow, 
thus giving you two days from the time you acknowledge to have received my communication on 
the 21st instant. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, ; 

**Q. A. GILLMorE, Brigadier General Commanding.” 


This letter 


' «¢'The barbette fire of the work was entirely destroyed. 
barbette tier from which the monitors had most to fear.] A few unserviceable guns still remain- 
ing on their carriages were dismounted a week later. ‘The casemates of the channel fronts were 
more or less thoroughly searched by our fire, and we had trustworthy information that but one 
serviceable gun remained in the work, and that pointed up the harbor toward the city. The fort 
was reduced to the condition of a mere infantry outpost, alike incapable of annoying our approach- 
es to Fort Wagner, or of inflicting injury upon the iron-clads. 

‘‘The enemy soon after commenced removing the dismounted guns by night, and not many 
weeks elapsed before several of them were mounted in other parts of the harbor. The period dur- 
ing which the weakness of the enemy’s interior defenses was most palpable was during the ten or 
fifteen days subsequent to the 23d of August, and that was the time when success could have been 
most easily achieved by the fleet. The concurrent testimony of prisoners, refugees, and deserters 
represented the obstacles in the way as by no means insurmountable.” —Gillmore’s Operations, p. 
149, 150. 

General Gillmore gives the following tabular statement of the firing from seven of his batteries 
on Fort Sumter, August 17-23: 


[It was this plunging fire from the 


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Sor ge ~@e voy ss 
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No. and Calibre of | soo Zoe 3.5 ‘cad a 
Name oF Battery. Parrott Rifles. Bpem | 228 > nas | 2 
Skog coon a we ol 
= 2 on ee A 33 ow E 
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BeOS Siok wwtenicss sie One 300-pr. 4290 19,142 46 22 5,500 
Brownid. sete uwn css Two 200-prs. 3516 82,070 299 198 32,670 
TG YS cssiccscte cess One 200-pr. 4172 86,129 225 196 33,320 
{| One 200-pr. 4272 - aan PA 
Reno .......+.--- 1| Two 100-prs. 4272 115,171 480 316 38,940 
Rosecrans.......... Three 100-prs, 3447 105, SOT 5ST 392 387,240 
Maade. ..vcccccaans Two 100-prs. 8428 98,282 502 336 98,392 
Stevens............ Two 100-prs. 4278 46,082 840 208 43,924 
otal eww a soc 5009 B52, 683 79 289,985 


OONFEDERATE EVAOUATION OF MOERIS'S ISLAND, 


744 


[May, 1864. 


£. R. 8, OANBY. 


tion with his soldiers, but Dahlgren would not agree to this, considering it 
his own ‘proper work.” He promised to proceed as soon as his monitors 
were repaired, if the musketry fire from Fort Sumter should be completely 
silenced. Delays followed, and finally the attempt was abandoned. 

The same day that Gillmore occupied the forts on the north end of Mor- 
ris’s Island, an expedition more gallant than judicious was undertaken by a 
hundred marines under Lieutenant Commander Williams. This force ap- 
proached Fort Sumter in 80 boats, but was driven back before a fire of 
musketry and hand-grenades, which killed or wounded about 50 men. 

III. No serious attack was made on the defenses of Charleston by sea. 
New fortifications were built on Morris’s Island, and named after the brave 
men who had fallen in the second assault on Fort Wagner. The capture of 
Morris’s Island secured a more perfect blockade of the port, but proved of no 
great value from any other point of view. After all the labor and cost in- 
volved in the defense of Charleston by the Confederates, and in offensive 
operations against it by the national forees—naval and military—the city 
was finally captured without a battle. As soon as General Sherman had 
reached Branchville in his march through South Carolina, and had, by his 
destruction of the railroad in that neighborhood, left General Hardee only 
a single line of retreat, the latter determined to evacuate Charleston. Beau- 
regard, who had been in command at Charleston, was at this time on the 
North Carolina border, collecting forces, and awaiting Hill’s troops from 
Augusta, and the remnants of Hood’s army from the West. 

General Foster had been relieved by General Gillmore shortly after Sher- 
man’s departure from Savannah. The available forces in the Department 
of the South had been making demonstrations against Charleston from 
James’s Island on the south, and Bull’s Bay on the north. On the 10th of 
February General Schemmelfennig effected a lodgment on James’s Island, 
and, covered by a naval force on the Stono, advanced and carried the works 
of the enemy with a loss of 70 or 80 men. The movement from Bull’s Bay 
was under the immediate command of General Potter, Admiral Dahlgren 
co-operating. Hardee evacuated Charleston on the night of the U7th of 
February, and moved northward so rapidly that he managed to join John- 
ston’s forces in North Carolina before he could be intercepted by General 
Sherman. 

The plan of defense against Sherman’s march was extremely novel. 
Wilmington, Augusta, and Charleston were held until the latest) moment. 
These points ought all to have been abandoned the moment General Sher- 
man entered South Carolina, and, with the forces from the West, been con- 
centrated in his front. 

On the morning of the 21st General Gillmore’s army entered Charleston. 
Lieutenant Colonel A. G. Bennett, with two companies of the Fifty-second 
Pennsylvania regiment, and about 30 men of the Third Rhode Island Artil- 
lery, had entered the city on the 18th. Fort Sumter and the works on Sul- 
livan’s Island had been abandoned, and that morning Lientenant Colonel 
Bennett had hoisted over Fort Sumter the United States flag. He then 


moved toward the city, having then with him only 22 men, replacing the 
national colors on Fort Ripley and Castle Pinckney in his progress, and at 
10 A.M. landed at Mills’s Wharf, Charleston, where he learned that a part of 
the Confederate troops yet remained in the city, and that mounted patrols 
‘“‘were out in every direction, applying the torch and driving the inhabitants 
before them.” He addressed a communication to Mayor Macbeth, demand- 
ing the surrender of Charleston in the name of the United States, and then 
awaited re-enforcements. Mayor Macbeth, probably astonished at the au- 
dacity of this meagre force, replied, addressing “the general commanding 
the army of the United States at Morris’s Island,” that the Confederate mili- 
tary authorities had evacuated the city, and that he himself remained to en- 
force order until the national forces took possession. Bennett replied, offer- 
ing to move into the city with his command and assist in extinguishing the 
fires. Having received re-enforcements, he lan ‘ed, and took measures for 
putting out the fires, and for the preservation of the United States Arsenal 
and the railroad dépéts. With Charleston were captured 450 guns. These 
guns, and the importance which had been attached to Charleston on account 
of its historic connection with the origin of the rebellion, were the only con- 
siderations which made its possession valuable to the captors. 

On the 14th of April, 1865—just four years after the evacuation of Fort 
Sumter by Major Anderson—the old flag which had once been hauled down 
at the bidding of rebels was again raised above the fort by the hands of 
Major Anderson. On this occasion the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher de- 
livered an oration which will be recognized by posterity as the ablest pro- 
duction of that orator, and worthy to hold a place by the side of the most 
brilliant efforts of Burke or Demosthenes. 


CHAPTER LIV. 
THE MOBILE CAMPAIGN. 


Situation and Defenses of Mobile.—Canby assumes command of the Mississippi Department, May 
11,1864.—The proposed Campaign against Mobile frustrated by the failure of the Red River 
Expedition.—Attack on Fort Gaines, in Mobile Bay.—Fort Powell evacuated.—Farragut passes 
Forts Morgan and Gaines.—Sinking of the TTecumseh.—Navyal Engagement in Mobile Bay.— 
Capture of the Tennessee.—Surrender of Forts Gaines and Morgan.—Suspension of Operations 
against Mobile.—Opening of a new Campaign in March, 1865.—The Situation.—Military and 
Naval Forces.—Investment of Spanish Fort.—Bombardment of April 8th.—The Enemy evacu- 
ates.—Steele’s Movement against Montgomery.—LEvacuation of Forts Huger and Tracy.—The 
Fleet again moves up in Front of Mobile.—Capture of Fort Blakely.—Surrender of Mobile.— 
Losses. 


Meats last surrendered of the Confederate strong-holds—is the 
chief city and port of Alabama. It is situated on low ground at the 
mouth of Mobile River, and on the western shore of Mobile Bay. At the 
outset, the city was not in favor of secession; but the false prediction of 
Yancey, which promised such an extraordinary development of its com- 


Aveaust, 1864. | 


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merce as a consequence of rebellion that the only peril to be dreaded would 
be the excess of luxury that must follow, had overcome its scruples. 

Mobile had often been threatened with attack, but no blow was directed 
against the city until the summer of 1864. At this time it was considered 
the best fortified city in the Confederacy. It had three lines of defenses. 
The outer was constructed three miles distant from the city, upon command- 
ing ground, and comprised fifteen redoubts. Through the suburbs of the 
city, after the fall of Vicksburg, a line of works was built with sixteen in- 
closed forts. Midway between these two lines still another was constructed 
in 1864, including nineteen bastioned forts and eight redoubts. Below the 
city ten batteries swept the channel, which was also obstructed by long rows 
of piles with narrow openings here and there for blockade-runners. Besides 
these obstacles on the Spanish River Channel, Forts Huger and Tracy had 
been erected on the eastern shore, close to the Appalachee River, and ob- 
structions placed in the river to prevent the ascension of national gun-boats 
up that stream, and their progress thence into the ‘l'ensas River to the front 
of the city. 


CAPTURE OF MOBILE. 745 


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MOULLE BAY, 


At the entrance of the bay stood two walled forts—Morgan and Gaines— 
four miles apart, built by the United States, but seized by the Confederates 
early in 1861. Fort Gaines, on Little Dauphin Island, mounted 380 guns, 
and had a garrison of 900 men. Tort Morgan, at the western extremity of 
Mobile Point, was a more formidable work, armed with 60 guns, with a 
water battery in its front. Fort Powell—a small work, mounting 98 guns 
—commanded Grant’s Pass, west of Little Dauphin Island. A large number 
of torpedoes had been planted in the channel abreast of Fort Morgan, but 
the strength of the current at this point hindered their efficiency. 

Behind these forts, in the bay, lay a small Confederate fleet, consisting of 
the ram Tennessee, and the gun-boats Gaines, Morgan, and Selma. Such 
were the defenses of Mobile against approach by land and sea. 

In General Grant’s plan of operations for 1864, a campaign against Mo- 
bile held a prominent place. But among the other unfortunate consequences 
of the disastrous Red River campaign was the impossibility of carrying out 
this part of the lieutenant general’s programme. On the 11th of May, 1864, 
General Canby assumed command of the military division of West Missis- 
sippi. He had been instructed to make the movement on Mobile, if pos- 
sible. But he found Kirby Smith’s forces, encouraged by Banks’s repulse 
and Steele’s retreat, threatening both the Arkansas and Mississippi. Thus 
the forces under Canby, as well as those under Steele, were for a time put 
on the defensive. This attitude was rendered all the more necessary by the 
withdrawal of 6000 men of the Nineteenth Corps to Virginia. 

Admiral Farragut, commanding the West Gulf Squadron, attacked Fort 
Gaines on the 5th of August. Fort Powell was that day blown up and 
evacuated by the Confederates. On the 3d,General Gordon Granger joined 
Farragut with 1500 men, who were landed on Dauphin Island. The mili- 
tary force marched up the island under cover of the fleet, and on the 4th in- 
trenched within half a mile of Fort Gaines. The next morning, with fifteen 
vessels, Farragut—having promised his men that they should breakfast in 
Mobile Bay—steamed up to Fort Morgan, the admiral being bound to the 
main rigging of his flag-ship, the Hartford. Forts Morgan and Gaines sim- 


FEDERAL FLEET IN MOBILE BAY. 


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HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


{ AUGUST, 1864. 


CAPTURE OF THE TENNESSEE. 


—»e 


Aveust, 1864.] > 


CAPTURE OF MOBILE. 


747 


FORT MORGAN AFTER ITS SURRENDER, 


ultaneously opened upon the fleet. Scarcely had the Tecumseh, the leading 
vessel, fired her first shot, when she struck a torpedo, and with her gallant 
Captain Craven and 120 of the crew, sank to the bottom of the channel. 
Under a galling fire from Fort Morgan, ten of the crew were rescued by a 
boat’s crew of the Metacomet. The Hartford then took the lead, and, after 
an hour’s engagement, passed the fort and entered the bay. The forts have 
been passed. Now the Confederate navy opposes a new obstacle to the ad- 
vance of the fleet. But this affair is soon settled. In about an hour after 
entering the harbor the Metacomet has captured the Selma, with her crew— 
90 officers and men. The Morgan, more fortunate, has escaped, and the 
Gaines, disabled, has sought refuge under the protecting guns of Fort Mor- 
gan. But the ram Tennessee bids defiance to the entire Federal fleet. She 
makes for the Hartford, but, in the mean time, is attacked on everyeside. A 
desperate struggle follows, lasting two full hours. At length a 15-inch shot 
from the Manhattan penetrates her armor, and at the same time a shell from 
one of the monitors, reaching her steering apparatus, disables her, and she 
surrenders, with 20 officers and 170 men. Admiral Buchanan, her com- 
mander, has been seriously wounded, and she has lost eight or ten of her 
crew by death or wounds. The Federal loss in the engagement with the 
forts and the hostile fleet is 52 killed and 170 wounded. But the battle— 
so far as Mobile Bay is concerned—has been fought and won. 

On the 8th, at 9 A.M., Fort Gaines was surrendered by its commander, 
Colonel Anderson, with 900 men. Fort Morgan still held out. Granger’s 
land force was then transferred to Mobile Point, and siege operations were 
commenced. On the 22d there was a general bombardment. At night a 
fire broke out in the fort, compelling the garrison to throw 90,000 pounds 
of powder into the cisterns. The interior of the fort soon became a mass of 
smoking ruins. All night the bombardment was kept up at intervals, and 
on the morning of the 23d the Confederate General Page surrendered the 
fort, with its garrison. 

Admiral Farragut removed the torpedoes planted in the bay. But, with 
the exception of some demonstrative movements made by Granger from 
Pascagoula, and by cavalry expeditions from Baton Rouge and Memphis, no 
farther attack was made on Mobile until the spring of 1865. Without 
doubt 8000 could have, immediately after Farragut’s entrance to Mobile Bay, 
moved up Dog River and captured the city; but, until after General Hood’s 
defeat in December, so large a force could not be spared for this purpose. 
The capture of Forts Gaines, Morgan, and Powell had secured a perfect 
blockade of the port, and it was the best policy of the national commanders 
to let the Confederates weaken themselves by detaching large garrisons for 
the protection of their coast cities, and then to disregard them, and rapidly 
concentrate against the two great armies of the Confederacy. 

But after Hood’s defeat, and when, by Sherman’s strategic marches, the 
field of conflict had been limited to the states of Virginia and North Caro- 
lina, there were two motives which urged a campaign against Mobile. In 
the first place, a portion of Hood’s, now Dick Taylor’s army, would be pre- 
vented from joining Johnston against Sherman; and, in the second place, 
forces could be thus occupied on the Federal side which were not available 
or necessary elsewhere. 

In March, 1865, a force of 45,000 men was collected for operating against 
Mobile. It consisted of three commands— General Granger’s Thirteenth 
Corps, 13,200 strong; A.J.Smith’s Sixteenth Corps, 16,000 strong, to which 
must be added 3000 for engineers, artillery, and cavalry; and Steele’s col- 
umn, 13,200 strong. At this time Dick Taylor had his headquarters at 
Meridian, Mississippi, and Major General D. H. Maury commanded the Dis- 
trict of the Gulf, with headquarters at Mobile. The garrison of Mobile 
numbered about 9000 men. ‘The defenses near the city had been strength- 
ened, and on the eastern shore a system of defenses, known as Spanish Fort, 
had been erected. 

The movement against Mobile was made from the east side. On the 17th 
of March the Thirteenth Corps marched from Fort Morgan along the pen- 
insula, and on the 24th reached Danley’s, on Fish River. The Sixteenth 


Corps had already reached this point, being conveyed thither by transports 
from Fort Gaines. A demonstration was at the same time made by Colonel 
J.B. Moore, with one brigade of the Sixteenth Corps, west of Mobile. 

General Steele’s command arrived at Barrancas on the 28th of February, 
and on the 19th of March reached Pensacola. It was designed with this 
column to cut the railroad from Mobile to Montgomery, and, if possible, cap- 
ture the latter city. 

The naval force, which had been increased by several light-draught irons 
clads from the Mississippi, and which was now under the command of Ad- 
miral Thatcher, in the absence of Farragut, had covered the landing of the 
troops on Fish River. 

On the 27th of March Spanish Fort was invested by the national troops 
—A.J.Smith’s corps on the right, and Granger’s on the left. This fort—or 
rather system of defenses—was seven miles east of Mobile, and was flanked 
on the one side by D’Olieve’s Creek and Bay, and on the other by Minette 
Bay. It was held by three thousand Confederates under Generals Gibson, 
Holtzclaw, and Ector. The line of works was two miles in length, and was 
weakest on its extreme left, opposite General Carr’s division. The siege 
lasted 18 days, during which the investing force made regular approaches to 
the fort. On the ninth day of the siege (April 4th) a bombardment was 
opened from 88 siege-guns and 37 field-pieces, but little was accomplished 
either in the way of injuring the fort or its garrison. At this time the ad- 
vance parallels of the besiegers were within a hundred yards of the enemy’s 
works. The Confederate General Gibson, who commanded the fort, tele- 
graphed to Maury on the 5th: ‘“ Enemy sweeps my flanks with heavy bat- 
teries, and presses on at all points. . . . My line is extended now to the 
water and in it. My men are worked all the time, and I don’t believe I can 
possibly do the work necessary in the dense flats on the flanks. Can’t you 
take a look at the situation to-morrow? . . . My men are wider apart than 
they ever were under*Generals Johnston and Hood. The works not so 
well managed nor so strong, and the enemy in larger force, more active, and 
closer. Can’t you send me the detachment belonging to Ector and Holtz 


LIGHT-HOUSE AT FORT MORGAN, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE 


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claw? Can’t you send a force of negroes with axes? I can make good 
soldiers of the negroes.” 

On the 8th of April the bombardment was renewed, continuing from 5 80 
to7 380 P.M. General Canby intended to assault on the morning of the 9th, 
but had instructed his corps commanders in their operations on the 8th to 
take advantage of every opportunity for assault which promised decisive 
success. Such an opportunity was offered during the bombardment. Gen- 
eral Carr, on the extreme Federal right, had advanced his works as close to 
the enemy’s as was practicable. In his front was Ketor’s brigade, 659 strong. 
By attacking this brigade on the flank, it seemed to him possible to gain 
some 200 yards on the Confederate left, and secure a commanding crest well 
covered with pines, where a battery might be erected which would take the 
enemy in reverse. A little after 6 P.M., the Highth Iowa, led by Colonel 
Bell, advanced boldly, and, in the face of a sharp musketry fire, gained the 
crest and a portion of the parapet. Then a hand-to-hand struggle ensued 
between the Iowans and the garrison in their immediate front. The fight 
was severe, but the enemy was forced to yield. The clamor of the bom- 
bardment had covered this brief combat so effectually that those of the gar- 
rison occupying the detached pits next to those who had been worsted were 
surprised. Advancing from pit to pit, Colonel Bell captured 300 yards of 
the Confederate works, and over one half of Ector’s brigade. His own loss 
had been five killed and 20 wounded. Then supports came up, until a 
whole Federal brigade was inside the works and had begun to intrench. 

General Gibson, hearing of the reverse on his left, determined to evacuate 
Spanish Fort under cover of a bold attack on Carr’s division. While, 
therefore, some two or three hundred men maintained the unequal struggle 
against the Federals already in the works, the remainder of the garrison, 
under General Gibson, silently and barefooted, glided out by the narrow 
treadway leading to Fort Huger, and crossed the Appalachee in boats. Five 
hundred prisoners and fifty guns were captured by Canby’s army, which 
entered the fort on the 9th—the same day that, hundreds of miles away, 
General Lee was surrendering to Grant the Confederate Army of Northern 
Virginia. 

In the mean time General Steele’s column had made its demonstration 
against Montgomery, moving with great difficulty through the swamps of 
Florida northward on the Pollard Road. A few miles south of Pollard the 
Confederate General Clanton’s brigade was encountered and defeated. Gen- 
eral Clanton was seriously wounded, and 180 prisoners captured. Steele’s 
advance entered Pollard on the 26th of March, and destroyed a portion of 


the railroad. From this point he turned again southward, and joined the 
main army in front of Mobile at the close of the month. His command was 
then moved against Fort Blakely. This work is about five miles north of 
Spanish Fort, on the east bank of the Appalachee River, opposite its point 
of junction with the Tensas. The garrison occupying the defenses at this 
point consisted of French’s division, then under General Cockrell, on the 
left, and General Thomas’s division of Alabama reserves on the right, and 
numbered 8500 men. ‘The general command of the works had been as- 
signed to General St. John Lidell. 

Fort Blakely—which, like Spanish Fort, is a name designating a system 
of defenses rather than the fort proper—was stronger than Spanish Fort. 
The works were more extended, being about three miles in length, and were 
held by a stronger garrison, which, after the capture of Spanish Fort, might 
also be re-enforced by a large portion of Gibson’s escaped command. On 
the 2d of April these works were invested by General Steele. 

On the evening of the 11th of April Forts Huger and Tracy were evacu- 
ated by the enemy. Thus the way was open for the fleet to move up the 
river into the Tensas, Contrary to the expectation of the enemy, the iron- 
clads had been able to cross Blakely Bar, but in doing so the Milwaukee 
and Osage had both been sunk. After the evacuation of Forts Huger and 
Tracy, the obstructions were removed from the channel of the river, and on 
the 18th Admiral Thatcher, with the Octorara and iron-clads, anchored off 
Mobile. 

But before this time the fate of Blakely had been decided. The siege of 
the Confederate works at this point was not essentially different from that 
of Spanish Fort. After the fall of the latter the entire army moved upon 
Blakely. The works were carried on the evening of the 9th by an assault, 
in which General Hawkins’s negro troops especially distinguished themselves. 
They captured nine guns, twenty-two officers, anc 200 enlisted men. The 
entire garrison was captured—3423 men—and forty guns. The loss of the 
Federals in the assault was 654 in killed and wounded. 

Mobile, now left with a garrison less than 5000 strong—a force too weak 
to oppose resistance to nearly ten times that number of men, assisted by a 
powerful fleet-—was evacuated on the 11th of April. The remnant of Gen- 
eral Maury’s command retreated up the Tombigbee to Meridian. On the 
12th Mayor R. H. Slough surrendered the city to General Granger and Ad- 
miral Thatcher. In this Mobile campaign 5000 Confederate prisoners were 
captured. General Canby’s entire loss in killed and wounded was 1500 
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MAP OF STONEMAN'S NORTIT CAROLINA RAID, 


CHAPTER LV. 
WILSON’S AND STONEMAN’S RAIDS. 


Situation in the West at the close of January, 1865.—Organization of two Co-operative Expe- 
ditions under Wilson and Stoneman.—The Object of these Moyvements.—Wilson’s Raid.—In- 
tercepted Confederate Dispatches.—Capture of Selma.—Surrender of Montgomery.—Capture 
of Fort Taylor at West Point.—Macon surrendered under Protest.—Croxton joins Wilson at 
Macon.—Stoneman’s Raid.—Change of Plan.—Stoneman enters Southwestern Virginia. —Cap- 
ture of Towns, Destruction of Railroads, ete. —Stonem 
Salisbury.—Gillem defeats the Confederate Detachment covering Ashville.—Is checked by the 
Sherman-Johnston Armistice. 


T the close of January, 1865, General Thomas’s army consisted of A.J. 
Smith’s and Stanley’s corps—the Sixteenth and Fourth—and of Wil- 
son’s cavalry command, then about 22,000 strong. The only organized 
Confederate forces in the West this side of the Mississippi amounted to 
about 21,000 men, of which 12,000 were in Mississippi and the remainder 
at Mobile. As we have seen, A.J. Smith’s corps and 5000 of Wilson’s 
cavalry were sent in February to re-enforce General Canby. Thus Thomas 
retained the Fourth Corps and 17,000 of Wilson’s cavalry. General Stone- 
man’s command was also subject to his control. 

Dick Taylor’s army at Meridian, Mississippi, consisted of one infantry 
corps and 7000 cavalry under Forrest. It was not sufficiently large for an 
offensive campaign, and not an element of enough importance in the opera- 
tions now contemplated by Thomas to justify the latter in attempting its 
elimination. In accordance with instructions received from the lieutenant 
general, Thomas determined to use the Federal forces under his control in 
co-operative movements. ‘T'wo expeditions were organized; one to consist 
of Stoneman’s command supported by the Fourth Corps, and the other of 
12,000 cavalry under General Wilson. The former was designed to pene- 
trate North Carolina and South Carolina toward Columbia, to co-operate 
9D 


with General Sherman, destroying the railroads and supplies on its march; 
the latter was to co-operate with Canby by an advance, conducted upon a 
similar plan, against Selma, Montgomery, and Macon. 

Wilson’s expedition, delayed by unfavorable weather and the exhausted 
condition of the horses, caused by the recent pursuit of Hood, did not leave 
Chickasaw, Alabama, until the 22d of March. It consisted of three cavalry 
divisions, commanded by Generals Upton,’ Long, and McCook. The dis- 
mounted men of the three divisions, numbering 1500, acted as an escort to 
the supply train, which consisted of about 250 wagons. Wilson’s instrue- 
tions from the lieutenant general allowed him the largest discretion as an 
independent commander. By divergent roads the command moved upon 
Russellville, and reached Elyton on the 80th of March, after an extremely 
difficult march over bad roads and swollen streams. At Jasper, on the 
27th, Wilson had been informed that a part of Forrest’s force, under Chal- 
mers, was moving toward Tuscaloosa, and he knew that as soon as the di- 
rection of his movement was discovered the balance of the enemy’s cavalry 
would move to the same point. The country so recently overrun by Hood’s 
army was nearly destitute of supplies, and Wilson’s train was consequently 
very large. Obviously Forrest would make every effort to destroy this 
train. Wilson therefore ordered his wagons to be left between the two 
branches of the Black Warrior, and his troops to fill their haversacks and 
load the pack animals with supplies, and advance as rapidly as possible to 
Montevallo. At Elyton, Croxton’s brigade, of McCook’s division, was de- 
tached, and sent to Tuscaloosa, ‘‘to burn the public stores, military school, 
bridges, and founderies” at that place. In the neighborhood of Montevallo, 


' Upton commanded the Fourth Division. Wilson says in his report: ‘‘ Brigadier General B. H: 
Grierson had been originally assigned to the command of this division, but, failing to use diligence 
in assembling and preparing it for the field, he was replaced by Brevet Major General E. Upton, 
an officer of rare merit and experience.’ * Wilson’s Report. 


JAMES H. WILSON, 


on the 31st, a large number of iron works, rolling-mills, and collieries were 
destroyed. 

From this point the advance was resumed toward Selma. Just south of 
Montevallo there was some skirmishing with Roddy’s cavalry on the 81st, 
and fifty prisoners were captured. At Randolph a Confederate courier was 
captured with two dispatches, one from General Jackson, commanding one 
of Forrest’s divisions, and the other from Major Anderson, Forrest’s chief 
of staff. From the first Wilson learned that Forrest was in his front with 
a portion of his command; that Jackson, with his division, and all the wag- 
ons and artillery of the Confederate cavalry, was marching from Tuscaloosa 
to Centreville; that Croxton had struck Jackson’s rear, and interposed be- 
tween him and the Federal train, and that Jackson, knowing this, would at- 
tack Croxton on the following morning. The other dispatch indicated that 
Chalmers had reached Marion, and was about to cross the Cahawba for the 
purpose of joining Forrest in Wilson’s front, or in the works at Selma; also 
that the bridge across the Cahawba at Centreville was held by the Confed- 
erates. Following fast upon this intercepted intelligence came a dispatch 
from Croxton, dated the previous night, stating that he had struck Jackson’s 
rear, and, instead of pushing on direct for Tuscaloosa, would follow the ene- 
my, and bring on an engagement, if possible, to prevent Jackson’s junction 
with Forrest. Wilson immediately ordered McCook to advance to Centre- 
ville and secure the bridge there, and continue the march to Trion, where, 
nfter breaking up Jackson’s command, he was to join Croxton and return 
with the entire division to the main army. Long and Upton were ordered 
to press Forrest back to Selma. Forrest’s force, about 5000 strong, was en- 
countered at Ebenezer Church on the 1st of April, and completely routed, 
losing two guns and 200 prisoners. By 4 P.M. on the 2d Wilson reached 
the immediate vicinity of Selma, having destroyed the trestle and bridges 
on the railroad as far as Burnsville. 

Selma is situated on the north bank of the Alabama River. A line of 
bastioned fortifications extended three miles distant from the city, on the 
north side, from the river below to the river above, flanked on the west by 
Valley Creek, and on the east by an almost impracticable swamp. Includ- 
ing the citizen militia, the garrison numbered about 7000 men. 
proach of the Federal columns, Dick Taylor left the city under the command 
of General Forrest. ‘The works were carried by assault on the 2d. The 
loss in Long’s division, which was mainly engaged in the direct assault, was 
40 killed and 260 wounded. Forrest, Armstrong, Roddy, and Adams es- 
caped with the main portion of their commands under cover of the darkness. 
Thirty-two guns and 2700 prisoners—ineluding 150 officers—and a large 
quantity of stores were captured. Selma was the principal Confederate 
dépét in the southwest. In anticipation of its capture, 25,000 bales of cotton 
had been burned by the enemy. 

On the 5th McCook came in with the train, not having attacked Jackson 
or effected a junction with Croxton. After having constructed a bridge 870 
feet long across the Alabama, General Wilson crossed his troops on the 10th, 
leaving the arsenal, founderies, and stores of Selma a complete ruin. Mont- 
gomery was on the 12th surrendered by the city authorities, the Confeder- 
ate General Adams having fallen back before Wilson, after the destruction 
of 90,000 bales of cotton. The Federal cavalry then entered Georgia, and 
on the 16th General Upton, with 400 dismounted men, captured Columbus, 
saving the bridges over the Chattahoochee, and taking 52 field-guns and 
1200 prisoners. The Confederate ram Jackson, nearly ready for sea, and 
carrying an armament of six 7-inch guns, was destroyed, together with the 
navy yard, arsenal, armory, factories, 200 cars, and an immense amount of 
cotton. The same day La Grange’s brigade, of McCook’s division, cap- 


tured Fort Taylor at West Point, above Columbus, taking three guns and 
800 prisoners, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


On the ap- | 


[ APRIL, 1865. 


On the 20th Wilson arrived at Macon, which was surrendered under pro- 
test by the municipal authorities, who claimed that, under the provisions of 
armistice which had been agreed upon between Sherman and Johnston, and 
of which Wilson now heard for the first time, the capture was contrary to 
the usages of war. Notwithstanding this, Wilson held as prisoners of war 
Major Generals Howell Cobb and G. W.Smith, and three brigadier generals, 

Croxton’s brigade, in the mean time, had eluded Jackson, and captured 
Tuscaloosa on the 8d of April, and, advancing a few miles farther south- 
west, had then turned back to Jasper, and thence, via Talladega and New- 
man, joined Wilson at Macon, having marched 650 miles in 80 days. 


Stoneman’s expedition had started from Knoxville, Tennessee, two days 
before Wilson’s departure from Chickasaw. Its original purpose was co- 
operation with General Sherman ; but before it set out Sherman had already 
captured Columbia, South Carolina, and was moving into North Carolina. 
The plan of Stoneman’s expedition was therefore modified. About this 
time it was feared that General Lee might evacuate Richmond and Peters- 
burg, and force his way through Kast Tennessee, va Lynchburg and Knox- 
ville. To prevent this, Stoneman was sent toward Lynchburg, with orders 
to completely annihilate the railroad west of that point. The Fourth Corps 
was also ordered to advance from Huntsville, Alabama, as far up into East 
Tennessee as it could supply itself, repairing the railroad as it advanced, and 
forming, in conjunction with Tillson’s infantry division, a strong support for 
Stoneman’s cavalry in the event of the latter being driven back. 

Stoneman moved with three brigades—Brown’s, Miller’s, and Palmer’s— 
commanded by General Gillem, through Bull’s Gap, and thence eastward up 
the Watauga River, and across Iron Mountain to Boone, in North Caro- 
lina, where, on the 18th of April, he had a slight skirmish with some horse- 
guards. Continuing his advance to Wilkesborough, ne then moved into 
southeastern Virginia. By the main column and detachments from it, Chris- 
tiansburg, Wytheville, and Salem were captured, and the railroad was de 
stroyed from near Lynchburg to Wytheville. Concentrating his command, 
Stoneman returned to North Carolina through Jacksonville and Taylors- 
ville. From Germantown Palmer’s brigade was sent to Salem (North Caro- 
lina), where 7000 bales of cotton were burned and the cotton factories de- 
stroyed; also the bridges on the railroad between Greensborough and Dan- 
ville, and between Greensborough and the Yadkin River. In the accom- 
plishment of these objects there was some fighting, and 400 prisoners were 
captured, From Germantown Stoneman moved on Salisbury, where he 
charged a Confederate force 3000 strong defending the place, capturing 14 
guns and 1364 prisoners, The immense dépéts of supplies in Salisbury 
were destroyed, and the bridges on all the railroads leading out of the town 
were burned for several miles. Stoneman then returned to Greenville, Hast 
Tennessee, with his prisoners and captured artillery, leaving Gillem with the 
three brigades east of the mountains to intercept or disperse any Confeder- 
ate troops moving south. On the 23d of April, Gillem, having defeated 
a detachment of the enemy defending Ashville, would have captured. the 
town, but was met by a flag of truce announcing the armistice agreed upon 
between Sherman and Johnston. This armistice, and the circumstances 
which led to it, will be considered in a subsequent chapter. 


ALVIN U, GILLEM. 


January, 1865. ] 


‘ing year its fortunes had seemed far from desperate. 


CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 


751 


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GRAN’S HEADQUAR 


CHAPTER LVL 
THE CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 


Position in the Autumn of 1864.—Davis’s Macon Speech.—Political Aspect.—Presidential Elec- 
tion at the North.—The Democratic Convention. —How McClellan’s Nomination was regarded 
at the South.—Views of Alexander H. Stephens.—Moral Effect of Sherman’s Campaign.— 
Forces of Johnston.—Military Situation in the Spring of 1865.—Actual Boundaries of the Con- 
federacy.—Forces in the Field.—Strength of Lee’s Army.—Project for arming the Slaves.— 
Opposed by the President and Secretary of War.—Favored by Lee.—Act passed for this pur- 
pose.—Protest by Mr. Hunter.—Provisions of the Act.—Confederate Finances.—Enormous Is- 
sue of Paper Money.—Practical Repudiation.—Depreciation of the Currency.—The Confederate 
Commissariat.—Difficulty in Feeding the Armies in Virginia.—New Tax Laws.—Lee deter- 
mines to abandon Richmond.—His Plans. —Grant’s Plans.—His Orders to Sheridan,—Sheridan 
moves up the Valley.—Routs Early at Waynesborough.—Destroys Canal and Railroads.—Joins 
Grant at Petersburg.—Designs of Lee and Grant.—Changes in the Organization of the Federal 
Army.—Commanders and Position. —The Confederate Lines.—Strategical Position of the Five 
Forks.—General Confederate Position. —The Confederates assault Fort Steadman.—The Fort 
surprised and taken. —The Confederates checked by Hartranft.—They are cut off, and surren- 
der.—The Confederate Picket Line assaulted and carried.—Losses on both Sides.—Grant’s 
Plans unchanged.—The Idea of the Operations. —Special Directions to Sheridan.—Strength of 
Sheridan’s Cavalry.—Advance of Warren’s Corps.—Lee’s Counter-movement.—He masses 
Troops against Sheridan and Warren.—Operations suspended by a Storm,—Battle of White 
Oak Ridge, March 31.—Sheridan reaches Five Forks, and is forced back.—Action at Dinwiddie 
Court-house.—Warren directed to join Sheridan.—The Orders received by him.—The Confed- 
erates fall back to the Five Forks.—Sheridan’s Moyements.—Sheridan and Warren.—The Bat- 
tle of the Five Forks.—The Fifth Corps captures the Confederate Lines.—Cavalry Operations. 
—The last Confederate Stand.—Their Rout.—How Lee received the Tidings. —Warren super- 
seded.—Sheridan’s Reasons.—Bombardment of Petersburg.—The general Assault.—The Ninth 
Corps carries the first Lines in their Front, and is checked. —The Sixth Corps pierces the Con- 
federate Lines. —Capture of Fort Gregg.—Movements of Sheridan and Humphreys.—Death of 
A. P. Hill.—Lee determines to abandon his Position.—His Strength at the Time.—He concen- 
trates his Force, and assaults the Union Lines.—Fort Mahone captured and recaptured.—Pe- 
tersburg abandoned.—Davis notified of the intended Evacuation.—Scenes in Richmond.—Davis 
leaves Richmond.—Riots and Pillaging.—Evwell fires the Warehouses.—The Conflagration at 
Richmond.—In the Lines.—Musical Interlude.—Weitzel enters Richmond.—Hoisting of the 
Union Flag upon the Capitol.—Shepley appointed Military Governor.—His Orders.—The Con- 
flagration checked.—Jefferson Davis reaches Danville.—His last Proclamation. 


S the spring of 1865 drew near, all men might see that the end of the 

Confederacy was close at hand. Late into the autumn of the preced- 
Never had it borne 
itself to the world more defiantly than in October. The two great armies 
east of the Mississippi, for the destruction of which the campaign of 1864 
had been planned, were in October as strong as they had been in May. In 
Virginia Grant had been brought to a dead stand by Lee before Petersburg. 
Early lay in the Valley of the Shenandoah, threatening a renewed invasion 
of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Sherman had indeed penetrated far into 
Georgia, and had won Atlanta—a heavy blow, but one lighter than others 
from which the Confederacy had apparently recovered. Sherman’s posi- 
tion, indeed, seemed full of peril. He was 800 miles from his only source 
of supplies, with which he was connected by two slender lines, and if these 
should be severed his army would be starved out. So it seemed to Jeffer- 
son Davis, who had! gone on a tour of inspection to the West. The army 
of Sherman, he declared in public speeches, ‘would meet the fate that be- 
fell the army of the French empire in its retreat from Moscow.” ‘Our cav- 
alry and our people,” he said, “‘ will harass and destroy his army as did the 
Cossacks that of Napoleon, and the Yankee general will, like him, escape 
with only a body-guard.” ‘Be of good cheer,” he said to a division of 
Tennessee troops; “for within a short time your faces will be turned home- 
ward, and your feet pressing Tennessee soil.” All thoughts of peace which 
did not start with the recognition of the absolute independence of the Con- 
federacy were scouted. 

While the military operations of the campaign had not been decidedly 
unfavorable, and it needed only a sanguine spirit to consider them rather 
favorable than otherwise to the Confederate cause, there was much in the 
apparent political aspect of affairs to encourage the South. ‘To all appear- 
ance the Confederacy was yet thoroughly united for the prosecution of the 
war to the utmost extremity. It is now known that a general feeling of 
dissatisfaction with the government was growing up, but hitherto it had 
hardly manifested itself openly. All the functions of authority had been 
merged in the executive. Congress was little more than a debating club. 


September and October, 1864. ? Davis’s speech at Macon, September, 1864, 


TERS, OLTY POLN'T. 


Vehement opposition speeches were indeed made, but, as the sessions were 
mainly held in secret, they had little influence upon public opinion. It was 
different in the Union. There had all along been an active party opposed 
to the administration and to the conduct of the war, if not, as was believed 
at the South, to the war itself. The presidential election was approaching; 
all the elements of opposition had combined in the nomination of McClel- 
lan. The Chicago Convention had embraced in its platform a proffer of 
thanks to the soldiery of the army and the sailors of the navy, who had 
fought upon land and water under the flag of the country; but it had also 
declared that the four years of war had been a failure, and that immediate 
efforts should be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ulti- 
mate Convention of the states, or other means, for the restoration of peace. 
It was indeed added that the restoration should be “on the basis of the Fed- 
eral Union of the states.” But so emphatic had been the declaration of the 
South against any restoration or reconstruction of the Union, that it was 
firmly believed that, should the opposition come into power, hostilities be 
suspended, and a Convention called, the North would yield this point, and 
consent to a separation. So the South looked with much anxiety and some- 
thing of hope to the result of the coming election at the North.’ 

These hopes, political and military, were soon dispelled. Lincoln was re- 
elected as President; Sherman accomplished his march through Georgia, 
and thence traversed South Carolina, and penetrated the very heart of 
North Carolina, with scarcely a show of opposition. Hood’s army was 
crushed, and in effect annihilated in Tennessee. Sherman’s march demon- 
strated to both parties and to the world the exhaustion of the Confederacy. 
It was not so much that the march was effected, but that there was no force 
left to dispute it. Johnston, once more called to the rescue, and placed in 
command of all the Confederate forces east of the Mississippi up to the very 
lines of Petersburg, swept together all the troops left in that wide region. 
Saving those shut up at Mobile, he drew together almost every man from 
Mississippi to Alabama, from Alabama to Georgia, with all in the two Car- 
olinas. By the Confederate muster-rolls there were still enough for a great 
army. But to gather them was like collecting water with a sieve. On the 
last day of January Hardee had in South Carolina 23,000 men present for 
duty. Three weeks after he evacuated Charleston with 18,000; three weeks 
later, when he joined Johnston in North Carolina, he had but 6000. The 
Governor of South Carolina had withdrawn from him 1100 state troops; the 
remaining 11,000 missing had deserted on the march.’ All told, the garri- 
sons of Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, and Augusta, with the relics of 
Hood’s army, Johnston could not gather more than 40,000 men.?_ Pressing 
hard upon these was Sherman, now re-enforced by Schofield from Thomas’s 
victorious army, raising his force to fully 100,000. 

Before the last week of March, when the active operations of the cam- 
paign were opened, the field of contest had been restricted within narrow 


1 “The action of the Chicago Convention, so far as its platform of principles goes, presents a ray 
of light which, under Providence, may prove the dawn of day to this long and cheerless night—the 
first ray of real light I have seen from the North since the war began.” (Alexander H. Stephens, 
September 22, 1864.)—‘‘I look upon the election of McClellan as a matter of vast importance to 
us in every view of the case, and hence I thought it judicious, patriotic, and wise to do every thing 
that could properly be done to aid in his election. Whatever may be his individual opinions, he is ° 
the candidate of the State Rights party at the North, in opposition to the Centralists and Consoli- 
dationists, whose hobby now is abolitionism. . . . Some think that if what they term a Consery- 
ative man should be elected, or any on the Chicago platform even, that such terms for a restoration 
of the Union would be offered as our people could accept. The spectre of reconstruction rears its 
ghastly head at every corner, and haunts their imagination. These ‘apprehensions, I doubt not, are 
sincere; but I entertain none such myself. The old Union and the old Constitution are both dead 
—dead forever, except so far as the Constitution has been preserved by us. There is for the Union 
as it Was no resurrection by any power short of that which brought Lazarus from the tomb. ‘These 
fears of voluntary reconstruction are but chimeras of the brain. No one need entertain any such 
from McClellan’s election. But, on the contrary, I think that peace—and peace on the basis of a 
separation of the states and our independence—would be the almost certain result... . . So, in 
any and eyery view I can take of the subject, I regard the election of McClellan and the success of 
the State Rights party at the North, whose nominee he is, as of the utmost importance tous. .... 
On the question of reconstruction, I stand now just where I did in October, 1861, when I wrote to 
a gentleman, in answer to a letter from him stating that I was charged with such sentiments, that 
I looked upon such charges as no less an imputation upon my intelligence than upon my integrity. 
The issue of this war, in my judgment, was subjection or independence,” (Alexander H. Stephens, 
November 5, 1864.) ? Pollard, Lost Cause, 676. 

3 Johnston surrendered 31,243; but in this number were included many not actually present 
with him in front of Sherman. By his own statement, which must pass unquestioned, he had with 
him near Raleigh about 24,000, of whom 18,578 were infantry and artillery, and a little more than 
5000 cavalry. In the interval he had lost some thousands in battle, and it is presumable many 
more by desertion, Our estimate of 40,000 will unquestionably cover his force when the largest. 


752 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ MARCH, 1865, 


? ay - 


FIELD HOSP 


limits. There was still a considerable Southern force beyond the Missis- 
sippi, but this was so thoroughly isolated from the remainder of the Con- 
federacy that it could effect nothing toward the general result. The West 
was swept clear of Confederate troops. In Alabama they held useless and 
precarious possession of Mobile, with feeble garrisons at a few points in the 
interior. The remainder of the state, together with Georgia, South Caro- 
lina, and two thirds of North Carolina, were held by the Federals. Wil- 
son’s and Stoneman’s cavalry, sent out by Thomas, rode at will, with none 
to molest or hinder them. If they gained no great victories, it was because 
there was no enemy to encounter save in trifling skirmishes. All North- 
ern and Eastern Virginia, down to the banks of the James, had been wrest- 
ed from the hands of the Confederates. As a military, and, by consequence, 
as a political power, the Confederacy now embraced only the southern third 
of Virginia and the northern third of North Carolina. Its boundaries were 
the James on the North and the Neuse on the south, the Atlantic on the 
east and the Alleghanies on the west—one hundred and fifty miles from 
Raleigh to Richmond, and cutting off a broad strip on the sea-board, practi- 


AL OF NINTH OORPS. 


cally in Federal hands, as far from the mountains toward the ocean—a ter- 
ritory of 22,500 square miles, less than one half of the area once comprised 
in the State of Virginia. Within these boundaries the Confederate armies 
numbered about 100,000, with no prospect of the addition of a single regi- 
ment; the Union forces numbered fully 250,000, with 100,000 more ready 
to be launched thither, and still another 100,000 in arms, which could be 
sent in a few weeks.' Lee, indeed, still held his strong lines at Peters- 
burg with a powerful army. On paper it numbered 175,000 men; but 
of these more than half were absent, and only about 65,000 present for 


* The Federal force ‘‘ available and present for duty” on the Ist of March numbered 602,598, 
of whom about 150,000 were with Grant, and 100,000 with Sherman. There were 40,000 in the 
departments of Washington and West Virginia; these, with quite 60,000 from various depart- 
ments of the West where hostilities had ceased, could have been sent at once to Virginia and 
North Carolina, leaving 252,000 for operations in the extreme South and elsewhere, from which 
another 100,000 could, in case of need, have been spared for operations on the actual scene of war. 

3esides the 602,000, there were 180,000 in hospitals or on sick leave, and 50,000 absent as pris- 

oners of war or without leave; there were 132,000 on detached service in the different military 
departments, many of whom could have been brought into active service. The entire nominal 
force of the Union armies on the Ist of March was 965,591.—See Report of the Secretary of War 
for 1865. 


NEGRO QUARTERS ARMY OF THE JAMES. 


ES 


Sa — el CC 


a ee ee a a 


~~ 


4 
4 


Marcz, 1865.] 


duty. With such an army, according to the dictum of Napoleon, Lee 
might have held Richmond against the whole Federal army, had that been 
the simple problem presented to him for solution. But, as we have seen, 
the maintenance of Richmond inyolved also the holding of a long line of 
intrenchments, designed to cover the only communications by means of 
which his army could be fed. 

But the depletion of the army was only an external symptom of the gen- 
eral infirmity which had fallen upon the Confederate state. As usual, the 
patient tried to remove the symptom rather than heal the disease. The pro- 
ject began to be broached of replenishing the army by arming the slaves. 
A proceeding so utterly at variance with every idea upon which Southern 
society was based met at first with little favor. Slaves had, indeed, from 
the very first, been employed as laborers upon fortifications, and gradually 
as teamsters and pioneers in the field. In September, 1864, the Governor 
of Louisiana urged upon the Secretary of War that the time had come to 
put into the army every able-bodied negro as a soldier. ‘I would,” he 
said, “free all able to bear arms, and put them into the field at once.” In 
his message in November Mr. Davis discussed the question. It was to be 
viewed, he said, ‘solely in the light of policy and our domestic economy. 
When so regarded, I must dissent from those who advise a general levy 
and arming of the slaves for the duty of soldiers; but,” he added, “should 
the alternative ever be presented of subjugation or the employment of the 
slave as a soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what should then be our 
decision.” Mr. Seddon, then Secretary of War, took the same view. So 
long as there were whites who could be brought into the army, it was not 
safe to “risk our liberties and safety on the negro. For the present, it 
seems best to leave the subordinate labors of society to the negro, and to 
impose its highest, as now existing, on the superior class.” But it became 
apparent that few more whites could be brought into the depleted armies. 
Late in February, 1865, Lee strongly urged the employment of negroes as 
soldiers. ‘I think,” he said, “the measure not only important, but neces- 
sary. Ido not think our white population can supply the necessities of a 
long war. I think those who are employed should be freed. It would not 
be just or wise to require them to remain as slaves.” An impressment or 
draft he thought would not bring out the best class; he would rather call 
upon those who were willing to come, with the consent of their owners. 
“Tf” he wrote, ‘Congress would authorize their reception, and empower 
the President to call upon individuals or states for such as they are willing 
to contribute, with the condition of emancipation to all enrolled, a sufficient 
number would be forthcoming to enable us to try the experiment.” Soon 
after an act was passed by Congress for this purpose. It had passed the 
House, and was lost in the Senate by a single vote; but the Legislature of 
Virginia having instructed the senators from that state to vote for it, it was 
reconsidered, and passed by one majority. Mr. Hunter, who had before 
voted against the bill, in now voting for it in obedience to the instructions of 
the Legislature, accompanied his vote with an emphatic protest. “ When we 
left the old government,” he said, ‘“‘we thought we had got rid forever of the 
slavery agitation. We insisted that Congress had no right to interfere with 
slavery. We contended that whenever the two races were thrown together, 
one must be master and the other slave. We insisted that slavery was the 
best and happiest condition of the negro; now, if we offer slaves their free- 
dom as a boon, we confess that we were insincere and hypocritical. Yet, if 
the negroes were made soldiers, they must be made freemen. There is 
something in the human heart that tells us that when they come out scarred 
from this conflict they must be free. If we can make them soldiers—the 
condition of the soldier being socially equal to any other—we can make 
them officers, perhaps to command white men. If we are right in passing 
this measure, we were wrong in denying to the old government the right to 
interfere with the institution of slavery and to emancipate slaves.” The 
measure, he said, would also injure the Confederacy abroad. It would be re- 
garded as a confession of despair, and an abandonment of the ground upon 
which secession was based. As a matter of expediency, it was, he declared, 
worse than as a question of principle. No considerable body of negro 
troops could be got together without stripping the country of the labor ab- 
solutely necessary to produce food. Moreover, the negroes abhorred the 
profession of a soldier. They would not volunteer, and if they were im- 
pressed they would desert to the Yankees, who could give them a better 
price than the Confederacy could do. The act, as passed, empowered the 
President to ask for and accept from owners of slaves such number of ne- 
groes as he should deem expedient, for and during the war, “to perform 
military service in whatever capacity he may direct.” They were to be 
formed into companies and regiments by the general-in-chief, and command- 
ed by such officers as the President should appoint, and to receive the same 


1 The strength of Lee’s force has been most persistently and strangely understated. Pollard 
(Lost Cause, 679) asserts that ‘‘in the first months of 1865 Lee held both Richmond and Peters- 
burg with not more than 33,000 men.” Swinton (Army of the Potomac, 573) says: ‘* At the 
opening of the spring campaign General Lee had on paper 160,000 men, but, in reality, less than 
50,000, from which, if there be deducted the 10,000 troops on detached duty, it will appear that 
he had 40,000 men wherewithal to defend forty miles of intrenchments.” It is somewhat strange 
that Mr. Swinton should have failed to refer to the Confederate reports which he had in his pos- 


session. These reports give the following as the sum of Lee’s force at the close of February : 
Present and Absent. Present. Present for Duty. 
‘Army of Northern Virginia.............s0ssss00+ LGOSAI pcs. 78,849 sso 59,094 
Department of Richmond ...........+00. Nesates 5 BE ACT CSB 5450 Oo ieess 4,692 
420 ROR ee oe ide. Oa Cea ae L0G6. eerie TET. ote: 64,786 


The troops in the Department of Richmond, under Ewell, were the actual garrison of Richmond ; 
they marched out at the evacuation, and formed the rear-guard of the retreating army. Upon 
what ‘‘ detached duty” any of Lee’s force could have been engaged, it is hard to see. The one 
thing to be done was to defend his lines. It is probable that Lee’s force was slightly increased 
during the three weeks between the date of this report and the commencement of operations ; for, 
as will be seen hereafter, about 65,000 are definitely accounted for as killed and wounded, captured 
on the field, or surrendered ; and it is certain that considerable numbers escaped, and were not in- 
cluded in the lists of paroled prisoners. 
9 E 


CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 


7538 


pay and rations as other troops in the same branch of the service. If a suf- 
ficient number was not thus raised, the President might call upon each state 
for her quota of any number not exceeding 300,000 troops, in addition to 
those subject to military service under existing laws, “to be raised from 
such classes of the population, irrespective of color, in each state as the prop- 
er authorities thereof may determine.” But it was provided that “ nothing 
in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation of the 
said slave;” and that not more than a quarter of the male slaves between 
the ages of eighteen and forty-five should be called for. Whatever might 
have been the effect of such a law if enacted at an earlier period, it came too 
late. The Confederacy had now no arms to put into their hands, and no 
means of producing them at home or procuring them from abroad;} and, 
moreover, long before the requisition could be made and complied with, 
the Confederacy had ceased to exist. 

The finances of the Confederacy were even in a worse condition than its 
armies. It had long since practically ceased to pay its soldiers. It was 
hardly worth the trouble even to go through the form, when a month’s pay 
of a soldier in paper money would not buy a pair of shoes. Yet, for many 
purposes, the government must have something to represent money; and at 
last notes and bonds were put forth with a profusion limited only by the 
ability of the printing-press to execute them. What the total sum was no 
man can tell with any approach to accuracy.? The financial measures of 
the government have been made the subject of unbounded animadversion ; 
but it is hard to see how the wisest financier could have materially changed 
the general results. Most of the twenty millions of specie in the Confeder- 
acy was loaned to government, or soon became absorbed in the tempting 
business of blockade-running; all that government could borrow or raise by 
the export of cotton was spent abroad for vessels, arms, munitions, and mili- 
tary supplies. Bank-notes, themselves in the end to become almost worth- 
less, were carefully hoarded, and the government could only pay its home 
expenses in its own notes and bonds; and these, as the expenses accumu- 
lated, must be issued in larger and still larger quantities, accelerated by what 
was styled the universal advance in prices, but which was really the depre- 
ciation in the estimate put upon the circulating medium. The Confederate 
financiers had laid upon them a task more grievous than that imposed by 
the Keyptians upon the Hebrews. They had to make bricks not only with- 
out straw, but without clay—with nothing but sand. No wonder that their 
bricks crumbled at a touch. The Confederate paper depreciated until it had 
a real purchasing power of only a twentieth, a fortieth, and finally a sixtieth 
of its nominal value. It grew to be a common jest, that when one went to 
market he needed a basket to carry his money, and only a wallet to bring 
home his purchases. 

A vigorous government may for a long time keep armies in the field with- 
out pay, but not without food. The Confederate commissariat was in worse 
plight than its treasury. The South, though essentially agricultural, and 
abundantly supplied with food, had yet no large accumulations. It had no 
great dépéts where supplies were collected in advance. The crops were 
consumed in the year of their harvesting, and mainly in the region of their 
production. The means were scanty for their transportation from place to 
place. Hence, when the sudden necessity arose for accumulating large 
amounts at Richmond, it was with the utmost difficulty that this want could 
be met. We have already? seen how sorely this difficulty pressed upon Lee 
in the summer and autumn of 1864. As weeks passed on, the difficulty be- 
came greater and greater. The immediate region was well-nigh exhausted, 
Early in the winter the state of things was thus set forth in secret session of 
Congress :* There was not meat enough in the Confederacy for the armies 
it had in the field. In Virginia there was not meat enough for the armies 
within her limits. The supply of even bread depended upon keeping open 
railroad connections with the South. Meat must be obtained from abroad; 
and bread could no longer be had by impressment, but must be paid for at 
market rates, and in a better currency than that in circulation. 

Grave as were these difficulties, they grew rapidly graver. The capture 
of Fort Fisher, by closing the port of Wilmington, shut off all possibility of 
obtaining meat from abroad. The wharves at Nassau might be piled with 
meat purchased for the Confederacy, but not a barrel could reach the army. 
Sherman’s march though Georgia and the Carolinas had severed all connec- 
tion with the regions where bread was mostly to be found. Even if it was 
to be found, whence was to come that better currency wherewith to pur- 
chase it? Congress, near the close of its last session, made a desperate ef- 


1 At the time when ‘‘ Congress was debating a bill to put 300,000 negroes into the Confederate 
armies, there were not five thousand spare arms in the Confederacy, and our returned prisoners 
could not actually find muskets with which to resume their places in the field.” —Pollard, Lost 
Cause, 660. 

2 Pollard (Lost Cause, 420) says: ‘The total cost of the war to the Confederate government 
had reached at its close, according to the opinion of intelligent officers of the Treasury, about thir- 
ty-five hundred millions of dollars. Of this total about twenty-five hundred millions consisted of 
eight, six, and four per cent. bonds of long dates, of treasury notes, unsettled accounts,” ete. ; the 
remaining thousand millions being in the form of unpaid claims for property purchased or impress- 
ed and damages sustained at the hands of the enemy. He elsewhere (page 651) puts down the 
amount of treasury notes in circulation as money at three hundred and twenty-five millions; but, 
as appears, many millions had been practically repudiated by the government a year before. At 
that time the amount of notes was more than six hundred millions. By the law of February 17, 
1864, holders of these notes above the denomination of five dollars were for a few months to be al- 
lowed to exchange them for four per cent. bonds; after that they should cease to be current, but 
might be exchanged for new notes at the rate of three of the old for two of the new. Old notes 
of one hundred dollars could not be exchanged for the new ones, but only for four per cent. bonds ; 
all of them outstanding after April 1 were to be taxed ten per cent. a month until January, 1865, 
when they should be taxed one hundred per cent.—that is, repudiated wholly. Notes of the new 
issue, and the small ones of the old scaled down to two thirds of their value, might be exchanged 
for certificates bearing four per cent. interest, and payable two years after the notification of a 
treaty of peace with the United States. A large majority of the note-holders, it is added, ex- 
changed the old notes for new ones under the conviction that the reduction of the amount of the 
currency would make the two dollars worth more than three now were. If we suppose that this 
large majority held two thirds of the whole six hundred millions, the scaling down was in effect a 
repudiation of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. 


3 Ante, p. 693. “ Pollard (Lost Cause), 649. 


| 
| 


Marcu, 1865.] 


fort to grapple with this last difficulty. Early in March a tax-bill was pass- 
ed, more stringent than any civilized people had ever endured. Agricul- 
turists must pay in kind a tenth of their produce. All property, real and 
personal, not otherwise provided for, must pay eight per cent.; specie, bul- 
lion, and bills of exchange, twenty per cent.; paper money five per cent. ; 
incomes five per cent.; all profits of above twenty-five per cent. upon sales, 
twenty-five per cent. Upon all prescribed taxes, of whatever kind, there 
was to be an addition of one eighth, to be applied toward the increased pay 
of soldiers. On the 17th of March another act was passed, “to raise coin 
for the purpose of furnishing necessaries for the army.” <A tax of twenty- 
five per cent. was imposed upon all coin held by banks or individuals in ex- 
cess of two hundred dollars; not, however, to go into effect in case banks 
and individuals would, within a month, raise a loan of two millions to the 
government. The tax was also commuted in cases where the owners of 
coin would exchange it for cotton at the rate of fifteen cents a pound. On 
the 28th, the very day before Grant opened the final ten days’ campaign, 
the State of Virginia advanced three hundred thousand dollars in coin, tak- 
ing in exchange an order from the Secretary of the Treasury for two mil- 
lions of pounds of cotton, “with the right to export the same free of all 
conditions except the payment of the export duty of seventy-five cents a 
pound.” This duty, being payable in paper, was, at the then existing rate, 
equivalent to one and a quarter cents a pound in coin. 

Thus threatened with starvation, imminent at the best, and certain in case 
either of the two railroads running southward were interrupted even for a 
week, Lee at last determined that his position was no longer tenable. He 
resolyed to abandon it, and unite with Johnston somewhere near the bor- 
ders of Virginia and North Carolina. If the retreat could be successfully 
executed, he would have a force of nearly or quite 100,000. Perhaps he 
might be able to crush Sherman, and thus regain possession of the Carolinas 
and Georgia, and then, gathering together the troops beyond the Mississippi, 
inaugurate a new war. At worst, the contest could be prolonged for a 
while, for it would be a work of months for the Federal army, with its ma- 
terial, to concentrate upon this new and difficult field of operations, and who 
could tell what changes a few months might not bring? Would the North 
hold out for another campaign? At all events, the army would escape im- 
mediate peril of starvation. If its food could not come to it, it would be go- 
ing toward its food. This resolution was formed early in March, and the 
arrangements for its execution concerted with Johnston. But time was re- 
quired to carry these arrangements into effect. Dépdts of provisions must 
be gathered at different points on the way, and the march could not begin 
until opening spring should make the roads practicable for an army and its 
trains of material. 

Grant, on his part, was aware of the situation of Lee, and divined what 
must be the means which he would essay to extricate himself. Day after 
day was spent by him in anxiety lest each morning should bring the report 
that his opponent had retreated the night before. He had before meditated 
bringing Sherman, by water or land, upon the rear of Lee’s position, but he 
became convinced that Sherman’s crossing the Roanoke would be the sig- 
nal for Lee to march toward Johnston. To forestall the junction of these 
two armies, and thus prevent a long and tedious campaign, seemed the 
thing nearest at hand to be done. Perhaps, also, he wished that the armies 
of the Hast, after their long and as yet not successful struggle, should have 
the glory of destroying their stout opponent, and thus match the achieve- 
ments of their heretofore more fortunate comrades of the West. Something 
which seemed almost an accident now favored the execution of this design. 

Early in February Grant had begun to make dispositions for the cam- 
paign. In the far South, Canby was moving upon Mobile, while Thomas 
was to send his cavalry to raid in different directions. Sheridan had win- 
tered at Winchester, where he had recruited his cavalry until he had more 
than 10,000 in excellent condition. These, Merritt being Chief of Cavalry, 
had been organized into two divisions, under Devin and Custer. On the 
20th Grant sent his orders, or rather suggestions, to Sheridan. As soon as 
the roads would permit, he would find no difficulty in going with cavalry 
alone up the Valley of the Shenandoah, and thence crossing the Blue Ridge 
still farther southward to Lynchburg. From there he was to destroy the 
eanal and railroads in every direction, so that they would be of no farther 
use to the enemy. Grant was desirous to re-enforce Sherman with cavalry, 
in which arm he was greatly inferior to the enemy, Accordingly, when 
Sheridan had reached Lynchburg, and done his work in that region, he 
might, if circumstances should warrant, strike southward, heading the 
streams in Virginia, and push on to join Sherman, whom he would be like- 
ly to find somewhere near Raleigh. 

Sheridan set out from Winchester on the 27th of February, his men car- 
rying five days’ rations in haversacks, and each horse bearing thirty pounds 
of forage; fifteen days’ rations of coffee, sugar, and salt were borne in wag- 
ons. Besides the ammunition trains, a pontoon train of eight boats, eight 
ambulances, and one wagon for each division headquarters, no vehicle was 
permitted to accompany the march. Thus lightly equipped, the command 
moved rapidly, though the weather was bad. The mountains were cov- 
ered with snow, rapidly disappearing under the heavy rains, rendering most 
of the streams past fording. Small parties of guerrillas hovered upon the 
flanks of the column; but they kept at a respectful distance, and no notice 
was taken of them. Once, however, Rosser, with one or two hundred cay- 
alry, attempted to impede the march by burning a bridge over a fork of 
the Shenandoah, but was driven off with loss of men and material. In 
three days Staunton was reached, the farthest point which any Union force 
had hitherto attained by this route. Early, with a miscellaneous force of 
2000 men, had been hovering in this region ever since his defeat at Cedar 


CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 


755 


River. He retreated eastward, leaving word behind that he would fight at 
Waynesborough, which commanded the only practicable gorge through the 
Blue Mountains, which Sheridan must pass to debouch into the Valley of 
the James, and reach Lynchburg. Custer’s division was pushed in pursuit. 
He found Karly, true to his word, well posted, with two divisions of infan- 
try and Rosser’s cavalry, behind breastworks. Without even pausing to 
reconnoitre, with his troopers partly dismounted and partly in the saddle, 
Custer dashed straight at the works, drove the enemy out, pursued them 
until they were brought up by the river, where they threw up their hands 
in token of surrender, “‘ with cheers at the suddenness with which they had 
been captured.”? The fruits of this brilliant dash were 1600 prisoners, 
11 guns, and 200 wagons, with ammunition and subsistence. arly es- 
caped with two of his staff. Rosser’s cavalry also rode off, to appear for a 
moment a few days later. Herewith Early disappears from the war. On 
the 80th of March Lee wrote, dismissing him from command, couching his 
order in the kindest terms possible: He himself had full confidence in EKar- 
ly’s zeal, ability, and discretion; but he had lost public confidence, and a 
commander must be sought for who could secure this. Lee had no occa- 
sion to make this search; for, before Harly had received the order of dis- 
missal, Lee was forced from Petersburg, and was on his disastrous retreat, 
which ten days after closed in his surrender. 

Sheridan pushed through the gorge in the Blue Mountains thus opened 
to him, and reached Charlottesville in the Valley of the James, where he was 
obliged to wait two days for his trains to make their slow way through the 
thick mud. The prisoners, meanwhile, were sent under a strong escort to- 
ward Winchester. Rosser followed this body, and at Mount Jackson made 
an attack, hoping to rescue the prisoners. He was repulsed, and left be- 
hind some of his own men. The delay at Charlottesville enabled the Con- 
federates to gather at Lynchburg a force too strong to be assailed by cavat- 
ry. Sheridan abandoned the purpose of reaching that point, but sent his 
troopers in every direction to destroy the canal, railroad, and public prop- 
erty. The James River Canal was for miles so thoroughly destroyed as to 
be impassable, and thus one important means of supply for Lee’s army was 
cut off. Sheridan then proposed to cross the James between Lynchburg 
and Richmond, and, pressing southward, to reach the Southside Railroad 
fifty miles in the rear of Lee’s lines. But the Confederates succeeded in 
destroying every bridge between these two points, and the pontoons would 
not half span the still swollen stream. 

Sheridan now, exercising the discretion which nad been wisely given 
him, resolved, instead of endeavoring to join Sherman in North Carolina, 
to more thoroughly destroy the railroads leading northward from Richmond, 
and then, pressing eastward to the York River, bend southward, and, after 
eight months’ absence, rejoin Grant in front of Petersburg. After raiding 
hither and yon for a week, destroying every thing destructible down to 
within ten miles of Richmond, he resumed his march, Nature imposed ob- 
stacles to this march such as had been heretofore pronounced insurmounta- 
ble. It was the worst season of the Virginian year. There were incessant 
rain, deep and almost impassable streams, swamp and mud to be endured 
or overcome. The animals suffered much, mostly from hoof-rot. The men, 
buoyed up by the thought that they had completed their work in the Val- 
ley of the Shenandoah, and were now on their way to aid in what remained 
to be done upon the Appomattox, bore up bravely. The whole loss on the 
march was not more than a hundred men, and some of these were left by 
the wayside, overborne by fatigue. Crossing the South and North Anna 
Rivers, passing hard by many famous battle-fields whereon there was now 
no hostile force, this cavalry force reached the site of the memorable White 
House upon the 19th of March. Sheridan’s march from Winchester had 
occupied twenty days. In its course he had traversed thirteen counties in 
Virginia, and, by the almost utter destruction of the James River Canal and 
of the railroads, had effectually deprived the Confederate army at Richmond 
of all subsistence from the region of Virginia lying north and east of the 
James River. After resting and refitting for a week at the White House, 
Sheridan resumed his route. Crossing the Chickahominy and the James, 
he encamped near Petersburg on the evening of the 26th of March. 

Here, at points only a few score rods apart, two men, neither of them to 
a casual observer notable for any thing but the rare faculty of saying little, 
however much they might think, yet both somehow having that power of 
command which more showy men never cared to question, had fixed upon 
measures the result of which was to determine the issue of the war. Each 
of these two men, Grant and Lee, had by this time learned to value the oth- 
er; each knew nearly the condition of the other, and so could gauge what 
he should, and therefore would endeavor. Either could then play the part 
of his opponent almost as well as his own. Lee’s main purpose toward the 
closu of March was to withdraw his army, with its materials, from the James 
and the Appomattox, and, joining Johnston, to carry on the fight in North 
Carolina, or, events favoring, far to the southward. Grant’s purpose was to 
prevent this orderly retreat, either by shutting up Lee within his lines, and 
therein forcing him to surrender by assault or famine, or to drive him out 
by sheer force, in which case he would be able to follow hard on in pursuit. 


1! Sheridan’s Report. 

2 Neither Lee himself, nor any one qualified by position or knowledge to speak for him, has as 
yet undertaken to set forth the purpose of the Confederate commander at this period ; but his op- 
erations, soon to be described—such as bringing to Petersburg only the food needed from day to 
day, accumulating supplies at different points on the railroads, and the assault upon Fort Stead- 
man—can be explained and justified only upon this theory. Grant, in a few significant sentences, 
clearly sets forth his design. He says: ‘*The greatest source of uneasiness to me was the fear 
that the enemy would leave his strong lines about Petersburg and Richmond, for the purpose of 
uniting with Johnston, before he was driven from them by battle or I was prepared to make an ef- 
fectual pursuit... . With Johnston and him combined, a long, tedious, and expensive campaign, 
consuming most of the summer, might become necessary. By moving out I would put the army 
in better condition for pursuit, and would at least, by the destruction of the Danyille Road, retard 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


“7 


[ MARCH, 1865. 


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BRIDGE ON MILITARY RAILROAD. 


Important changes had within a few months taken place in the organiza- 
tion of the Federal armies in Virginia. Not long after the failure of the mine 
enterprise, and in consequence of the censure of the Court of Inquiry, Burn- 
side, at his own request, received leave of absence. He wished to resign 
his commission, but the President refused to accept it, thinking that there 
would arise occasion to place him again in active service. The command 
of the Ninth Corps was in the mean time given to Parke, who happened to 
be the ranking general in command of a corps, and who consequently found 
himself at an imminent moment in command of the whole army. Hancock, 
never fully recovered from his wound at Gettysburg, had given up the com- 
mand of the Second Corps, and gone Hast to recruit a new corps, to be 
known as the First. Humphreys, who had acted as chief of staff to Meade, 
was placed at the head of the Second Corps, Webb taking his place as 
Meade’s chief of staff. Wright retained the command of the Sixth Corps, 
to which he had acceded upon the death of Sedgwick at Spottsylvania. 
This corps, having done brave service in the annihilation of Karly in the 
Valley of the Shenandoah, had returned to the Appomattox, and to it was 
reserved the honor of giving two out of the three great blows which decided 
the issue of the war! Warren still retained the command of the Fifth 
Corps. Butler had been, at the special request of Grant, removed from the 
command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, including 
what was known as the Army of the James. This army had been reorgan- 
ized. The former Tenth and Eighteenth Corps had been discontinued, and 
the troops, to which was added the colored division formerly attached to 
Burnside’s corps, were formed into two corps, designated as the T'wenty- 
fourth and Twenty-fifth. Ord, having performed brilliant service in the 
West and Southwest, had been ordered to the North, and had replaced 
Smith at the head of the old Highteenth Corps, and was at length placed in 
command of the department vacated by the removal of Butler, the newly- 
arranged T'wenty-fourth and T'wenty-fifth Corps, constituting the Army of 
the James, being confided to Gibbon and Birney. Thus it happened that, 
of the six generals who commanded corps in the combined armies of the 
Kast at the opening of operations in May, 1864, Warren only retained his 
place in March, 1865. Sheridan also, though now with his troopers upon 
the James, was still nominally commander of the Army of the Shenandoah. 
But the distinction between the armies of the Potomac, the James, and the 
Shenandoah had been practically set aside. The entire force around Rich- 
mond. and Petersburg was directly under Grant, Meade being second in 
command, Sheridar. coming next in grade, the corps commanders following 
in order of sepiority in the date of their commissions. The combined force 
of all arms numbered about 150,000 men present for duty, of whom about 
two thirds were available for direct offensive operations in the field, the 
remainder being required for guards, camp duty, and other multifarious 
work.?- As posted, Ord lay on the right, north of the James, and at Ber- 


the concentration of the two armies of Lee and Johnston, and cause the enemy to abandon much 
material that he might otherwise save.” As late as March 27, just two days before active opera- 
tions commenced, Grant concerted with Sherman, who had come to City Point from North Caro- 
lina, a plan of campaign based on the supposition that Lee would continue to hold his lines at Pe- 
tersburg and Richmond. Sherman, on the 20th of April, was to move northward, his army fully 
equipped and rationed for twenty days. He would, as circumstances should indicate, strike the 
Danville and Southside Railroads at their junction at Burkesville, 52 miles in the rear of Lee’s 
lines, or join the armies operating in front of Richmond. Sherman, unless otherwise directed, was 
to begin this movement on the 10th of April; but, as events finally shaped themselves, on the very 
day before, Lee, having been forced from Richmond and Petersburg, surrendered his army at Ap- 
pomattox Court-house. It may be safely assumed that, at the opening of the spring campaign of 
1865, both of the opposing commanders so well understood the whole situation, that the immediate 
aim of each was to prevent the other from accomplishing the thing which at the moment he most 
desired. As, therefore, Grant’s main purpose was to prevent Lee from getting safely away from 
his lines, it may be safely assumed that thus to get away was the main purpose of Lee. Each 
general, of course, was eager to avail himself of any advantage which circumstances should throw 
into his hands. In this view of the plans of the opponents—that is, Lee wishing to carry off his 
army and material, and Grant wishing to prevent him from so doing—the operations of the last 
fortnight of this long campaign are clearly explicable. 

The three great blows were: (1st) The battle of the Five Forks, won April 1 by Warren’s Fifth 
Corps and Sheridan’s Cavalry ; (2d) The piercing of the Confederate lines, April 2, by the Sixth 
Corps; (3d) The capture of Ewell’s Corps at Sailor’s Creek, April 6, mainly by the Sixth Corps. 
These three blows cost the Confederates a loss of 20,000 prisoners, and probably 5000 in killed and 
wounded—nearly a half of the nominal, and more than a half of the real fighting force which Lee 
had left to him on the 31st of March, 


” Force present for duty, March 1: Army of the Potomac, Meade, 103,273; Department of 


muda Hundred; next, and before Petersburg, Parke; then Wright; then 
Humphreys; and upon the extreme left, Warren. 

Lee had, during the winter, continued his intrenchments two miles farther 
westward, bending the extremity in a sharp crotchet to the north. Farther 
he could not go from sheer want of men to hold the lines; otherwise there 
was no reason why they might not have stretched across the continent. 
Four miles beyond where the works ceased was a point as important as any 
other. Here three roads came together, the point of junction being known 
as the Five Forks, One, the White-oak Road, ran westward from the Boyd- 
ton Plank Road, nearly parallel with the vital Southside Railroad, from 
which at the Five Forks it was but three miles distant, by way of the Ford 
Road, running north and south. An enemy, having gained the Five Forks, 
could in an hour strike the railroad, and in a few hours so damage it that 
days would be required for its repair. It was of prime importance that the 
Five Forks should be guarded. Intrenchments were therefore laid out 
here, stretching for two miles north and south behind the White-oak Road. 
This, between the Forks and the extremity of the regular lines, ran along 
a slight ridge, southward of which the region was woody and swampy. 
The White-oak Road thus formed practically a covered way by which 
troops could, in case of a menaced movement by the enemy, be hurried to 
the defense of the Forks. Thus, at the opening of spring, the absolute 
right of the Confederate line was a mile to the west of the Five Forks: this 
was watched by the bulk of the cavalry under Fitzhugh Lee. Thence it 
stretched eastward and northward, girdling Petersburg and Richmond. 
Ewell commanded the few thousand men which formed the proper garrison 
of Richmond. Longstreet commanded below the city, north of the James, 
and across the river to within a few miles of Petersburg. Then came Gor- 
don at Petersburg, the bulk of his force consisting of the remnants of the 
three divisions reduced to the numbers of one in the disastrous campaign 
in the Valley of the Shenandoah. Lastly came Hill with three strong divi- 
sions, holding the long line south and west of Petersburg. Lee’s headquar- 
ters were with Hill’s division. 

On the 24th of March Grant issued his order for a grand movement to be 
commenced on the 29th against the Confederate right. Lee, knowing the 


imminency of such a movement, and perceiving that the time had now come — 


for the evacuation of his position, resolved to anticipate the movement of 
his antagonist by an offensive thrust which should facilitate his own with- 
drawal. The thing to be done was to prevent Grant from adding to the 
strength upon his left, and, if possible, to cripple for a space the forces al- 


ready there, so as to leave open his own meditated line of retreat. He 


therefore planned a sudden assault upon the Federal right, the point far- 
thest removed from that upon which the effect of the blow was to be felt. 
The point chosen was Fort Steadman, close by the crater where Burn- 
side’s mine had so signally failed. This fort occupied a salient projected 
forward toward the Confederate works, the distance between being only one 
hundred and fifty yards. ‘The fort itself was of no great strength. It was 
a small earthwork, without bastions, slightly constructed originally, and 
now much dilapidated by the frosts and rains of winter. So completely 
was it covered by the enemy’s artillery that it was impossible to make any 
repairs except imperfectly and by stealth. This, however, was of less con- 
sequence, as the hill’ upon which it stood was commanded in the immediate 
rear by a crest of nearly equal height, and covered upon each side by 
flanking batteries. Still it seemed to Lee that if the fort and a few of the 
flanking batteries could be taken by surprise, an opening could be made 
through which a strong column could be thrust, which should carry the 


Virginia, Ord, 45,986, some thousands being at Fortress Monroe and elsewhere, and so not avail- 
able for direct operations; cavalry of Middle Division, 12,980, of whom there were, at the close 
of March, about 9000 under Sheridan, at hand on the James. ‘The actual movable force may be 
estimated from the fact that when Warren moved on the 29th of March, his corps counted 15,300 
men. ‘The corps appear to have been of about equal strength, so that the six would have con- 
tained 91,800 movable men. Add to these 9000 cavalry, and there will be 100,800 at Grant’s 
command for immediate offensive operations. 

* Known as Hare’s Hill. Confederate writers usually denominate thé action which here ensued 
as the battle of Hare’s Hill, 


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Marcu, 1865. ] 


heights in the rear, and thus effectually pierce the Federal lines. Thence 
a sudden rush of less than two miles would reach the military railroad 
which Grant had constructed from City Point southwestward, by which the 
left of the Union army received its supplies. Such an attack, it was not 
unreasonably anticipated, would induce Grant to bring all his force from 
both extremities of his lines. Ifnothing more than this was accomplished, 
Longstreet and Hill, relieved from immediate pressure in front and on 
flank, could start southward without obstruction, while the assaulting col- 
umn would be suddenly withdrawn and follow in their rear, and, before the 
Federal commander could reorganize his army for pursuit, would, with its 
material, be fairly on its way, with two full days’ start, to unite with John- 
ston, and could so obstruct the roads behind them that they could not be 
overtaken until the junction already prepared for was effected. It was not 
wholly impossible that still greater results might be accomplished. The 
railroad destroyed, City Point itself might perhaps be reached, and in a 
brief space the great accumulation of stores there be given to the flames. 
The plan was a bold one; but Lee was now in such case that he must ven- 
ture much. In its very audacity lay its best augury of success. 

Lee left nothing undone which it was in his power to do to insure suc- 
cess. The initial blow was to be struck by Gordon with two of his divi- 
sions, while 20,000 more were massed to follow up the blow in case an 
opening was made at Fort Steadman and the crest in its rear was gained. 
The first blow must be given by surprise. Accident favored this. The 
Federal picket-line was advanced fifty yards in front of the fortifications, 
and within a hundred yards of the Confederate works. Across this narrow 
space deserters, often in squads and with arms in their hands, had been 
wont to make their way within the Union lines. At four o’clock on the 
morning of March 25 the officer on duty made his rounds along the picket- 
line; the men were alert, and there was no indication of any movement on 
the part of the enemy. Soon after, squad after squad, announcing them- 
selves as deserters, began to drop in. The occurrence had come to be so 
common that no alarm was taken. Suddenly these squads dashed upon 
the pickets, and overpowered them with scarcely a show of resistance. <At 
the same moment the near Confederate abatis was opened and three strong 
columns emerged. The central column struck straight for Fort Steadman; 
the others diverged to the right and left, taking in reverse small advanced 
batteries which flanked the fort on either hand. All these were carried 
with a rush, the garrison, five hundred strong, being made prisoners. A 
gap of a quarter of a mile wide had been made into, but not through the 
Union lines—an opening large enough to give passage to the 20,000 who 
had been massed to follow up the assault. If they had followed promptly 
in the gray dawn no man can say what would have been the result. They 
might possibly have won the commanding crest in the rear, and thence 
dashed upon the railroad; they might thus have won a great success, or 
they might have been cut off to a man, shut in by the enemy closing in 
behind them. By whose merit or whose fault it was that the 5000 whom 
Gordon pushed forward were left unsupported has been left untold.’ 

The lines, for a long distance to the right and left of Fort Steadman, were 
held by Parke’s Ninth Corps. At half past five, when the attempt of the 
enemy was apparent, he sent tidings of it to headquarters. Three times 
within half an hour the message was repeated without an answer. Then 
came the reply through the telegraph operator: ‘General Meade is not here, 
and the command devolves upon you.” Hurrying couriers to City Point to 
inform Grant and Meade of what was going on, Parke summoned Wright 
and Warren to move troops toward the point assailed. But before they 
could come up the Ninth Corps had done the work. Tidball, chief of artil- 
lery, was ordered to post his batteries upon the hillin the rear. These ef- 
fectually stopped the advance of the central column. The two other assail- 
ing columns soon came to grief. The right column met Hartranft’s divi- 
sion, which had sprung to arms; they were checked, and soon forced back. 
The left gained some success, capturing momently two batteries, but were in 
like manner checked and forced back. The three columns were now drawn 
together within the captured works of Fort Steadman; but these were com- 
manded by Fort Haskell on the left, as well as by the batteries in the rear. 
After making a feeble attempt to take this fort, the troops of Gordon 
crouched in disorder behind the breastworks which they had captured, for 
the way of retreat was by this time closed upon them. Forts Haskell on 
the left, and McGilvery on the right, swept the narrow space to the Confed- 
erate lines with a fire under which no troops could live. Hartranft, upon 
whom the immediate direction of operations had devolved, had posted his 
own division and portions of others so as to cover their front and both 
flanks.? Hartranft now dashed upon the works, and carried them with 
hardly a show of resistance. Some of the Confederates ran the terrible 


1? Pollard (Lost Cause, 686) says: ‘‘ Had this opportunity” (that is, the capture of the fort and 
batteries) ‘‘ been taken advantage of, there is no telling the result ; but the troops could not be in- 
duced to leave the breastworks they had taken from the enemy, and to advance beyond them and 
seize the crest in rear of the line they had occupied.” But nothing can be clearer than that the 
force which had effected the capture was inadequate for any thing more. Swinton (Army of the 
Potomac, 597) says: ‘‘It is well known that there was great dereliction on the part of the sup- 
porting columns, for Gordon’s attack was left almost wholly unsupported, notwithstanding that Lee 
had massed in the vicinity all his available force.” He, however, fails to give his authority for this 
representation, and does not state upon whom rests the blame of this dereliction. The one thing 
certain is, that this supporting force was not pushed forward. We can hardly suppose that a move- 
ment upon which so much was staked should have been made except under the direct supervision 
of Lee. In the light of the account given in the text, which shows how rapidly the Union troops 
recovered from their momentary surprise, we think that the failure to follow up the attack was 
wise. ‘Twenty thousand men could not then have carried the lines. It was better to submit to 
the inevitable loss of a fifth than to risk the almost certain destruction of the whole of the force as- 
signed to the adventure. 

2 «* At half past seven o’clock the position of affairs was thus: Batteries 11 and 12 had been 
recaptured; a cordon of troops, consisting of Hartranft’s division, with regiments belonging to 
McLaughlin’s and Ely’s brigades, was formed around Fort Steadman and battery 10, into which 
the enemy was forced. There he was exposed to a concentrated fire from all the artillery in posi- 
tion bearing on these points, and the reserve batteries in the rear,” —Parke's Report, 


9F 


CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 757 


cross-lines of fire and got back to their own lines, but nearly 2000 of them 
surrendered. Their loss in killed and wounded is unknown, but it must 
have exceeded that of the Federals, which amounted to 500. Of the 5000 
men whom Gordon led to the attack, about 3000 were killed, wounded, or 
captured. 

The Confederate disasters of the day were not yet over. The conflict at 
Fort Steadman was finished before nine o’clock, only a part of the Ninth 
Corps having taken part in it. Wright and Humphreys, whose corps were 
now well in hand, were anxious to follow up the advantage by an assault in 
their fronts; but Parke considered that his accidental and temporary com- 
mand of the entire army would not warrant him in forcing a general en- 
gagement. Meade, who soon after came upon the field, forbade a general 
attack, but later in the day pushed forward the Second and Sixth Corps to 
feel the enemy in their respective fronts. After a fierce struggle the strong 
Confederate picket-lines were carried, and held in spite of desperate attempts 
to retake them. ‘This cost the Federals 1100 men, of whom 200 were miss- 
ing. ‘The Confederates lost 800 prisoners, and probably as many in killed 
and wounded. The entire Confederate loss on this day was not far from 
4500, that of the Federals 2000.) 

There was nothing in the result of the affair on the 25th of March to in- 
duce Grant to change his order issued the day before, to be carried into ef- 
fect four days later. The essential thing contemplated in this plan was that 
Sheridan, with all the cavalry of all the armies upon and near the James 
and the Appomattox, should, by a wide detour, pass clear beyond the ut- 
most westward extension of Lee’s lines, and cut the railroads by which the 
Confederate army was fed, nearly half way to the point where Johnston was 
presumably awaiting the approach of the Army of Northern Virginia. This 
movement was rendered feasible only by what we have already styled the 
“accident” whereby Sheridan was in Virginia, instead of far away in North 
Carolina, ready to operate with Grant instead of with Sherman. Subsidiary 
to this cavalry movement, the infantry was to make a determined effort to 
turn the enemy out of his position around Petersburg. ‘To effect this, every 
available man of the two armies of the Potomac and the James was to be 
brought against the Confederate right before Petersburg, and to its south 
and southwest. 

Ord, leaving Weitzel in command north of the Potomac, was to bring 
half of his two corps over, and, sweeping around in the rear of the lines be- 
fore Petersburg, pass toward the left of the position. Parke was to hold the 
position which his corps had so long maintained; Wright, next to him, was 
to be ready to hold his lines or to move; Humphreys, and the movable 
part of Ord’s corps, and that of Warren, were to form the great turning col- 
umn whose movements, it was hoped, would force the abandonment of Pe- 
tersburg; the general purpose of all being “not to attack the enemy in his 
intrenched position, but to turn him out of it if possible.” But, at the same 
time, all corps and division commanders were to hold themselves ready for 
offense should the enemy weaken himself in their front. Above all things, 
no commander of a corps or division, in case of attack, was to wait for spe- 
cial orders from headquarters. The strength of the enemy was pretty well 
ascertained. Should he appear in great force at any one point, it could 
only be by weakening himself elsewhere. Advantage should be promptly 
taken of every weakening, and every advantage any where gained should 
be promptly followed up. For the rest, the men of the moving column 
were to take four days’ rations in their haversacks, twice as much following 
in wagons. The artillery was to be kept within the smallest compass, six 
or eight guns to a division being the utmost to be taken; for in the woody 
and swampy region where operations were to be carried on, artillery would 
be an incumbrance rather than aid. Such was the substance of the general 
order of the 24th. 

The order to Sheridan, given on the 28th, just as he was setting out, was 
to the same purport, but with some special additions: First and foremost, 
he was to aim at the railroads; “but if the enemy should come out of his 
own lines and attack, or put himself in a position where he can be attacked, 
move in your own way; the army will engage or follow, as circumstances 
will dictate. Having accomplished the destruction of the two railroads,” so 
concluded the order, “ which are now the only avenues of supply to Lee’s 
army, you may return to this army, selecting your road farther south, or 
may go on into North Carolina, and: join General Sherman.” No wider 
discretion was ever given to a general than this of Grant to Sheridan. Next 
day, indeed, March 29, when matters had apparently taken shape, this order 
was modified: “I feel like ending this matter, if it is possible to do so, be- 
fore going back,” wrote Grant. ‘Ido not want you, therefore, to cut loose 
and go after the enemy’s roads at present. In the morning, push around 
the enemy’s rear, if you can, and get on to his right rear. We will act all 
together as one army here until it is seen what can be done with the ene- 
my.” How nearly this last plan failed of the success which it finally at- 
tained is now to be shown. 


1 The entire Federal loss is officially given. It was, at Fort Steadman, 68 killed, 337 wounded, 
506 missing—in all, 911; at the picket-lines, 52 killed, 864 wounded, 207 missing—in all, 1128: 
a total of 2034. The number of Confederate prisoners taken is also given: these were, at Fort 
Steadman, 1900; at the picket-lines, 834—in all, 2734. Their loss in killed and wounded is pure- 
ly conjectural. From the facts that at Fort Steadman they were for two or three hours under heavy 
fire, and that at the picket-lines they were repulsed after desperate charges, it is safe to assume 
that it was in both cases considerably greater than that of their opponents. Grant, in his final Re- 
port, says: ‘Their loss in killed and wounded was far greater than ours.” In his first dispatch, 
he says: ‘‘ Humphreys estimates the loss of the enemy in his front at three times his own, and 
Wright, in his front, as double that of ours.” This would indicate the entire Confederate loss to 
have been greater than we have estimated it. But those who have had occasion to compare these 
guesses, on either side, with actual facts as subsequently verified, will place little reliance upon 
them. In the absence of authenticated reports, they will rather rely upon estimates based upon 
the nature of the operations. Thus, in the case under consideration, the Union loss in killed and 
wounded having been shown to have been 1300, and that of the Confederates considerably greater, 
though far from two or three times as large, by placing it at about 1700 we reach approximately 
ut the result given in the text, 


~T 
bit 
oO 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ MARCH, 1865. 


EWELLS HEADQUARTERS, NEAR RICHMOND, 


Sheridan had a month before set out from Winchester with 10,000 horse- 
men. Of these, 1500 had been sent back to guard the prisoners taken from 
Early at Waynesborough. In his great ride up the Valley, and thence 
through thirteen counties, he had lost by casualty hardly a hundred men. 
But his animals had suffered severely, and when he joined Grant, his two di- 
visions, under Devin and Custer, numbered 5700 men in saddle ;! but Crook, 
with 8300, was ready to join him, and he thus set out with 9000. In a day or 
two, McKenzie, with 1000 horsemen from the Army of the James, was add- 
ed to his mounted command, making 10,000 in all. The Confederate cav- 
alry under Fitzhugh Lee could hardly have reached a third of this number. 
With this magnificent force Sheridan swept southward and then westward, 
until, after encountering a few mounted pickets, who were easily brushed 
away, he reached Dinwiddie Court-house. Here several roads centred, 
along some of which his proposed raid would be conducted. Here, on the 
evening of the 29th, he received the order from Grant countermanding the 
plan ofa raid, and directing him to co-operate with the infantry in the effort 
to turn the right flank of Lee’s army. 

Warren’s corps—the Fifth—consisting of the three divisions of Crawford, 
Griffin, and Ayres, 15,300 strong in all, with twenty guns, marched out at 
three o'clock on the morning of the 29th.2 They moved southwestward 
until they struck the Quaker Road running straight north to the Confeder- 
ate lines. Turning up this, Griffin, whose division was in the advance, en- 
countered a force of the enemy pushed in front of their lines, and after a 
sharp conflict, in which some four hundred were killed and wounded on 
each side, forced them back within the shelter of their intrenchments. 
Humphreys, also moving to the right of Warren, got close up to the Con- 
federate fortified line without meeting opposition. It seemed now that the 
enemy was shut up in his lines to their utmost westward reach; and now, 
if this could be turned by Sheridan, it was as sure as any thing can be in 
warfare that the matter might be ended. To secure this, Grant was pre- 
pared, if need were, to give up every thing south of the position still held 
by Parke, flinging upon Lee’s right his cavalry, with the entire corps of 
Warren, Humphreys, and Wright, with the three divisions detached from 
Ord. It was then that the order was sent to Sheridan to abstain from his 
projected raid upon the railroads. 

Lee had in the mean time learned something of the mighty effort to be 
put forth against him. He still misconceived its ultimate purport. He 
thought it only a more determined repetition of the old efforts to reach the 
railroads, for the great sweep of Sheridan’s cavalry was still unknown to 
him. Yet this must be thwarted at all hazards, and those roads protected 
for a few days, or all was lost; for, these roads seized, he had no means of 
feeding his army for a week, and no means of escaping from his position. 
So, stripping his intrenchments in front of Petersburg until to guard ten 
miles of works there were hardly as many thousand men, he gathered a mo- 
bile force, which, added to the cavalry on his right, numbered in all some 


as These two divisions formed Merritt’s command; Sheridan directing all the cavalry, together 
with such infantry as were at times added to it for special operations. 

_* For the moyements of March 29, 30, 31, and April 1, culminating in the battle of the Five 
Forks, one needs to compare Sheridan’s Report with Warren’s Account of Operations. For the 
operations of the Fifth Corps we rely upon Warren; for those of the cavalry, upon Sheridan. 
Grant’s report of this critical period is very meagre, Confederate reports are wholly wanting. 


15,000 or 20,000, to meet the endeavor of Grant.) This column was only 
sent out after nightfall, and there was a fearful probability that it would not 
reach the scene of operations, fifteen miles away, until it was too late. But 
a fortune which neither general could anticipate intervened in favor of Lee. 
During the night a furious rain set in, which lasted all through the next 
day, the 80th. The region through which Warren was working his way 
was a low land covered mainly with tangled woods, threaded every where 
with swampy brooks, which a sharp shower would render difficult of pas- 
sage. The soil of mingled sand and clay, upheaved by the winter frosts, 
was still soft, and the rain quickly converted the ill-made roads into mor- 
tar-beds. Any thing on wheels could hardly move a rod unless the road 
was laboriously corduroyed. Footmen and cavalry could indeed advance 
slowly ; so, during the 80th, Warren and Sheridan worked their way a little 
onward, the former toward the White-oak Road, the latter toward the Five 
Forks. lLee’s column had much farther to go, but they had the advantage 
of a less intolerable road, and thus, on the morning of the 81st, had passed 
beyond the extremity of the intrenched line, and occupied the White-oak 
Road toward the Five Forks. 

On the morning of Friday, March 81, Warren’s corps had worked itself 
up in sight of the White-oak Road, clear beyond the line of the enemy’s 
intrenchments. On account of the woods and swamps, they could not form 
a regular line of battle, but each division was so massed that it could fight 
in any direction. Humphreys’s corps had connected with Warren on the 
right. Just before nine o’clock Warren received an order from Meade, in- 
forming him that there was firing along Humphreys’s front, and directing 
him to be ready to support Humphreys, if necessary, adding that there 
would be no movement of troops that day. Warren replied that he thought 
it best, if possible, to drive the enemy from the road, and in two hours re- 
ceived permission to make the attempt. Winthrop’s brigade of Ayres’s di- 
vision was sent to make the attempt. The Confederates, at the same time, 
had planned a counter-move to drive Warren off. They rushed forward 
from both north and west. -Ayres’s division was forced back in confusion 
upon Crawford’s, which lay next behind. This also gave way, and both 
fell back upon Griffin, who was posted in an opening in the woods large 
enough to give room for all. The two divisions which had fallen back, be- 
wildered by the fierce assault in front and flank, amidst the unknown for- 
ests and swamps, rallied with that of Griffin, and held their ground. Hum- 
phreys, in the mean while, had sent Miles’s division against the enemy’s 
left flank. Warren, at two o’clock, finding that the enemy had ceased from 
his onset, advanced upon him with all his force. To his surprise, he met 
with little resistance; only one of his brigades was seriously engaged, and 
this swept up nearly a whole Confederate regiment, with its flags. At half 


‘ The numbers of this body are given conjecturally from the indicia afforded by its known losses. 
Swinton (Army of the Potomac, 585; Decisive Battles, 485) gives the number at 15,000, appa- 
rently exclusive of the cavalry, which could not then haye been more than 3000. In this state- 
ment he apparently follows Pollard (Lost Cause, 689), whose words are: ‘‘In the night of the 
29th, General. Lee, having perceived Grant’s manceuvre, dispatched Pickett’s and Bushrod John- 
son’s divisions, Wise’s and Ransom’s brigades, Huger’s battalion of infantry, and Fitzhugh Lee’s 
division—in all about 17,000 men—to encounter the turning column of the enemy.” But Fitz- 
hugh Lee’s cavalry division were already upon the right, falling back before Sheridan. Taking 
into account the ascertained losses in this force, we think that Pollard’s statement is a very closa 
approximation to the actual number. 


—— 


Apnit, 1865. ] 


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. Last Stand of Confederates at Five Forks. 
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FIVE FORKS—MOVEMENTS OF THE FIFTH Corrs, MARCH 29-arrin 1, 


past three he wrote from the White-oak Road to Meade’s chiet of staff: 
“ We have driven the enemy, I think, into his breastworks. The prisoners 
report General Lee here to-day, and also that their breastworks are filled 
with troops. We have prisoners from a portion of Pickett’s and Johnson’s 
divisions.” [He had, to appearance, won a decided victory on the White- 
oak Ridge, though at heavy cost, for his losses in killed and wounded num- 
bered 1400. 

Lee had, indeed, recoiled from the attack. Possibly he would in any case 
have given it up after having forced Warren back a space from his threat- 
ening position, for he was in no condition to run great risks, unless urged 
by imperative necessity. But the immediate occasion was that he was call- 
ed upon to meet a still more imminent peril. To understand this, we must 
look to Sheridan’s movements. 

On the 80th, Sheridan, in spite of the rain, had pushed a part of his com- 
mand toward the Five Forks, forcing the Confederate cavalry westward, and 
right away from the army of Lee. In the forenoon of the 81st a division 
of the cavalry reached the Forks. This point must be regained by Lee at 
all hazards, so the force which had been engaged with Warren was with- 
drawn and sent down the White-oak Road, and, falling upon the Union 
eavalry, drove them from the Forks. Then, uniting with the cavalry of 
Fitzhugh Lee, the whole force pressed upon Sheridan’s cavalry, who were 
much scattered, and, in spite of strong resistance, forced them back upon 
Dinwiddie Court-house. The two divisions of Devin and Davies were cut off 
from a direct retreat, and compelled to make a wide detour to gain the main 
body at Dinwiddie, reaching it only after the fight which there ensued was 
over. But Sheridan’s horsemen, dismounting, took post behind a slight 
breastwork of rails, where they recovered and repulsed the assault of the 
enemy, who at dark withdrew a little, and lay upon their arms within a 
hundred yards. During the evening, Sheridan was informed by a dispatch 
from Grant that Warren’s corps were ordered to report to him, and would 
reach him by midnight. This dispatch was written hours before—Grant’s 
headquarters being ten miles away—and in ignorance of what had trans- 
pired. Warren also, some time before, had begun to receive orders from 
Meade. At five o’clock he was told that Sheridan was pushing up the 
White-oak Road, and he might send down a small foree to communicate 
with him, but must be careful not to fire into his advance. An hour and a 
half later, the tidings to Warren were that a portion of Pickett’s force had 
penetrated between him and Sheridan. Warren had learned this before. 
An hour and a half more, and tidings came that Sheridan had been forced 
back to Dinwiddie by a strong force of cavalry, supported by infantry. 
Close upon the heels of this came an intimation from Meade that “the prob- 
ability is that we shall have to contract our lines to-night.” To contract 
the lines was equivalent to a retreat. All the indications at the moment 
were that this movement would be a repetition of those which had gone be- 
fore. Warren urged that, instead of retreating, he might be allowed to 
move down to Dinwiddie, and attack the enemy on one side, while Sheridan 
assailed him on the other. Orders for movements were given, few of which, 
owing to the darkness, were capable of exact literal execution, but the gen- 
eral purport of all was that Warren should advance to the aid of Sheridan. 
He obeyed the intent of his orders, and moved as rapidly as possible. 


* The last order from Meade to Warren, written a quarter of an hour before midnight, and re- 
ceived an hour after, contained these sentences: ‘‘ Sheridan can not maintain himself at Dinwid- 
die without re-enforcements, and yours are the only ones that can be sent. Time is of the utmost 
importance. Use every exertion to get troops to him as soon as possible. If Sheridan is not re- 
enforced, and is compelled to fall back, he will retire by the Vaughan Road.” 


But, in the mean time, the Confederates had their own difficulties to en 
counter. They had found it impossible to shake Sheridan away from Din- 
widdie; and, knowing that re-enforcements were coming to him, they began 
a little after midnight to retire cautiously toward the Five Forks, Sheri- 
dan suspected that this movement was going on, and so notified Meade by 
verbal message; but he could not be sure, for at three o’clock he sent an 
order to Warren stating that he was holding on at Dinwiddie with Custer’s 
division, where he might be attacked at daybreak. In that case, Warren, 
who was thought to be nearer than he was, should also attack in flank and 
rear. ‘Do not fear,” added Sheridan, “my leaving here. If the enemy 
remain I shall fight at daylight.” But just after daylight, when Ayres’s di- 
vision, the advance of Warren’s corps, came in sight, the enemy “hastily 
decamped,”? and hurried back toward their intrenchments at the Five Forks. 
Merritt followed hard after with the cavalry, until he saw the enemy fairly 
within their works, and had even driven them from two lines of temporary 
works, 

The whole of Warren’s corps were united at seven o’clock on the morn- 
ing of April 1 at a point three miles from the Forks, and somewhat to the 
right of the extremity of the Confederate works, which had in the mean 
while been much strengthened. Here they were halted for four hours by 
Sheridan “until he could complete his arrangements for attack, for he pro- 
posed nothing less than to dispose absolutely of this body, crushing it if 
possible, and driving westward any who might escape, isolating them from 
the main army at Petersburg. There was a likelihood that Lee, compre- 
hending the peril, might venture to send re-enforcements down the White- 
oak Road to the Forks. Fortunately, Sheridan had just been joined by 
McKenzie’s fresh cavalry, a thousand strong. These were sent straight to 
the White-oak Road, with orders to attack any force of the enemy which 
they might find. The prevision was justified. McKenzie met a force 
coming down, and drove it back. 

The day was wearing away when Sheridan had completed his prelimina- 
ry dispositions. His plan was beautiful in its simplicity. Merritt was to 
hold the enemy in front with a part of the cavalry, while with the remain- 
der he should demonstrate as if proposing to turn their right flank. War- 
ren was to move the infantry up to the White-oak Road, and then, by a 
sharp wheel to the right, strike the enemy’s left, and, doubling it up, gain 
their rear. This plan presupposed a great superiority of force, but that was 
at hand. Sheridan had of cavalry and infantry quite 20,000; the Confed- 
erates could hardly number more than 10,000 infantry, with only a few 
guns; and they do not appear to have brought their cavalry behind their 
intrenchments, where they could be of little service. 

Having, as was his wont, made his plans with careful deliberation, Sher- 
idan was eager for their prompt execution. He chafed at every thing 
which looked like delay. Warren, quite as earnest, strove to repress all 
outward manifestations of impatience, which he thought would tend to im- 
pair the confidence of his troops. ‘When every thing possible is being 
done,” he argued, “it is important to have the men think it is all that suc- 
cess demands.” So Sheridan rode off firmly impressed with the idea that 
Warren was not exerting himself to get his corps up as rapidly as he should 
have done, and that “he wished the sun to go down before the dispositions 
for the attack could be completed.”? 

2 Sheridan's Report.—Sheridan had also been previously dissatisfied with Warren. He had, 


very naturally, asked that Wright’s corps, which had been with him in the Valley of the Shenan- 
doah, should be sent to him instead of that of Warren. ‘This, owing to its position, could not be 


760 


ROMEYN 3B. AYRES. 


But the sun was still more than two hours high when Warren advanced 
from the point where his corps had been formed, a thousand yards from the 
White-oak Road. In the operations of the three days about 2000 of his 
corps had been disabled, and 1000 more had fallen out from weariness, or 
been sent on detached duty, so that the corps went into action 12,000 
strong. Ayres’s division, the weakest, was on the left; next came Craw- 
ford’s, with Griffin’s as a support, in its rear, and a little to the right. It 
was supposed that upon reaching the road they would strike just upon the 
enemy’s left; then, pivoting upon Ayres’s division, the others were to wheel 
round, so that Crawford’s would just fall upon the flank. But, on reaching 
the road, it was found that they were some distance from the hostile line, 
which was also hidden in a thick wood beyond an open space. This mis- 
take, slight in itself, changed the whole order of the battle. The division 
of Ayres, forming that part of the radius nearest to the centre of the semi- 
circle to be described in the turning movement, and thus having the short- 
est distance to be traversed, effected its change of front earliest, and moved 
across the open space toward the enemy’s position. The order given to 
each division was to keep closed upon that to its left; and as the region 
where they were to move was wholly unknown, the direction to march was 
to be maintained by keeping the sun over their left shoulders. But now, 
Crawford having the larger distance to sweep, his left became disjoined from 
Ayres’s right, which was thus thrown out into the air, in the open space 
over which both were advancing. At this moment, also, a sharp fire was 
poured from the woods upon these exposed flanks—Ayres’s right and Craw- 
ford’s left. The effect was that the right of Ayres became disordered, many 
of the men rushing back to the rear, while Crawford’s left obliqued to the 
right, where the woods and a slight ridge gave shelter. Thus the interval 
between the two became still wider. The firing, however, was more noisy 
than destructive, owing to the dense wood through which the shot had to 
pass. Ayres soon rectified his line; the portions which had become un- 
steady “moved up and bore their part of the action in a handsome man- 
ner.’ Pressing forward, he soon came upon the enemy’s position. The 
Confederate line ran from west to east, but its extremity was turned at a 
right angle northward for a hundred yards. This crochet, fronting to the 
east, was that part of the line facing Ayres. It was a strong breastwork 
secured behind a dense undergrowth of pines. Through this undergrowth 
and over the breastwork Ayres’s corps charged with the bayonet, and cap- 
tured a thousand prisoners—more than a third of its own number.? Here 
it was halted by Sheridan, who was now on this part of the field, awaiting 
the result of what was transpiring elsewhere. It was soon “apparent that 
the enemy were giving way generally,” and Ayres pushed forward rapid- 
ly, holding his men in hand, and marching steadily in line of battle. 

Crawford, having completed his wider circuit, moved steadily westward, 
urged on by both Sheridan and Warren. His way lay through bogs, tan- 
gled woods, and thickets of pines, interspersed here and there with open 
spaces. ‘The Confederate skirmishers spread northward from the extremity 


granted. He also believed that Warren had not joined him as promptly as he should have done; 
and had eyen received, “‘ unsolicited,” as he says, authority to remove him. But it is hardly pos- 
sible that such permission would have been expressly given unless Grant, to whom Sheridan di- 
rectly reported, was somehow assured that it was desired.  Ayres’s Report. 

* Ayres’s division marched out on the 29th not quite 4000 strong. In the interval it had lost 
about 1000.— Warren's Narrative. 5 Ayres’s Report. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ APRIL, 1865. 


of their intrenched line. These were steadily driven back; and so Craw- 
ford moved straight along parallel to the enemy’s main line until he reached 
the Ford Road, running north from the Five Forks, and directly in the rear 
of what had been its centre. It was no longer its centre. Griffin, whose 
circle of movement was a little exterior to that of Crawford, moved on a 
little behind. Pressing westward for a mile, and finding nothing on his 
front except a few cavalry vedettes, he halted to reconnoitre. Heavy firing 
to his left and rear showed that the enemy were in that direction, and thith- 
er he directed his march. Warren had sent a messenger with orders to that 
effect. Moving at double-quick, he struck the rear of the enemy’s left, cap- 
turing the breastworks, and securing 1500 prisoners. 

The whole Confederate left almost to its centre was now driven in. Half 
or more of it were prisoners. The rest streamed down the White-oak Road. 
But Crawford had reached the Ford Road, and barred the only avenue of 
escape to the north. Down this pressed Crawford, with whom Warren had 
now taken his position. Sheridan had before directed McKenzie with his 
cavalry to sweep clear to the right of the infantry and gain the Ford Road. 
He took too wide a circuit through an unknown region, and found himself 
moving away from the battle; and, turning back, reached the road, not till 
after Crawford had won it, but in time to take part in the closing scenes of 
the fight and the pursuit. 

Meanwhile the cavalry had borne their share in the action. Two divi- 
sions of Crook’s command had been left behind at Dinwiddie to guard the 
trains and crossings of the streams; the other, that of Gregg, was on the 
left and rear, skirmishing with the Confederate cavalry. Merritt, with the 
divisions of Devin and Custer, charged the enemy’s lines in front, the sig- 
nal being the firing of Warren’s infantry. They carried the lines at sey- 
eral points, not without enduring heavy loss. While Griffin and Ayres 
pressed upon the routed left flank, Crawford came down upon their rear. 
One brief but determined effort was made to stop him. A stiff line, sup- 
ported by artillery, was formed across the road, from which Coulter’s bri- 
gade suffered severely. But the effort was vain. Entrapped, assailed in 
front, flank, and rear, almost the whole of the force surrendered to Crawford. 

Warren now rode on to the coveted Five Forks, thence westward along 
the White-oak Road. A mile beyond the Forks the remnant of the Con- 
federates made one more attempt to stand. ‘Their line was formed at a 
right angle, one branch facing southward toward Merritt’s cavalry, the oth- 
er eastward to confront Warren, whose three divisions had come up in pur- 
suit. These were somewhat disordered by their long march and fighting 
through the woods. They halted, but kept up a rapid fire. Warren, with 
a few of his staff, dashed to the front, shouting to those at hand to follow. 
He was met with a single sharp fusilade; his horse was shot under him, an 
aid at his side was killed, and Colonel Richardson, who had sprung right 
between him and the enemy, fell sorely wounded. But Warren’s appeal 
had not been in vain. All along the line officers and color-bearers sprang 
to the front; and the troops, advancing at a run, and without firing, cap- 
tured every man in their front. Those who had been trying to make a 
stand against Merritt broke and fled in wild confusion by the only way 
open to them—that leading westward. Merritt and McKenzie dashed for- 
ward in pursuit, which was kept up for six miles, and until long after dark- 
ness had set in. The two divisions upon which Lee had counted for the 
salvation of his army were gone. Johnson’s was utterly annihilated; of 
Pickett’s we find, five days later, note of a remnant of a few hundred men. 
Whether they had been in the fight and escaped, or whether they had been 
kept back, is not recorded. The Union loss in the battle of the Five Forks 
was about 1000, of which 634 were of Warren’s corps. Of the Confederate 
killed and wounded there is no statement. They lost in prisoners between 
5000 and 6000, of whom 8244 were captured by Warren. 

The blow to Lee was a crushing one. It is said that upon the receipt of 
the tidings of his loss, he for the only time gave utterance to any reproach 
in the field. The next time his troops were taken into the field he would 
put himself at their head; and, turning to one of his generals, he ordered 
him sharply to gather up and put under guard all the stragglers in the field 
—officers as well as men. It may be granted that the Confederates fought 
at Five Forks. with less than their wonted vigor; but they must have felt 
that, after Sheridan had fairly shut them up within their lines, victory was 
impossible; and, moreover, could they have made their escape, now that 
their lines were fairly turned, it would be but to prolong for a few days a 
hopeless struggle. 

When Warren had captured the last of the enemy opposed to him, he 
sent to Sheridan a report of the result, and asked for farther instructions. 
The reply was that his instructions had been sent. They reached him at 
seven o'clock. Surely no general who had just gained a victory so brilliant 
and decisive ever before received upon the field which he had won such a 
message. The order ran thus: “Major General Warren, commanding Fifth 
Corps, is relieved from duty, and will report at once for orders to Lieutenant 
General Grant, commanding armies U.S.” ‘The command of the corps was 
conferred upon Griffin.? 


' That the general credit of the victory of the Five Forks must be given to Sheridan is undoubt- 
ed. The plans were his, and they were, as he affirms, ‘‘ successfully executed.” 
tial feature of these plans, without which all else would have been comparatively fruitless, was the 
operations of the Fifth Corps. These operations were conducted by Warren. After the move- 
ment was begun, there is record of but a single order given by Sheridan to any portion of this corps. 
The main allegation brought by Sheridan against Warren is that ‘‘ General Warren did not exert 
himself to get up his corps as rapidly as he might have done, and his manner gave me the impres- 
sion that he wished the sun to go down before dispositions for the attack could be completed.” 
But the dispositions were made and the attack commenced while the sun was yet more than two 
hours high, and in time to win the victory before it had set. Moreover, each of Warren’s division 
commanders—and no one more explicitly than Griffin, who succeeded him—avyer that their divi- 
sions were formed without any unnecessary delay. Sheridan, indeed, makes two other specifica- 
tions against Warren: (1.) ‘‘Had General Warren moved according to the expectations of the 
Lieutenant General, there would appear to have been but little chance for the escape of the enemy’s 


But the essen- ~ 


Apri, 1865. ] 


OUARLES GRIFFIN. 


While the result of the movements of Sheridan and Warren were uncer- 
tain, active operations directly before Petersburg were suspended to await 
the issue upon the extreme Union left. When, at nightfall, Sheridan had 
utterly routed the force directly opposed to him, his position was not free 
from peril. His command, now numbering about 18,000 cavalry and in- 
fantry, was widely separated from the main army, and there was reason to 
apprehend that Lee would, during the night, abandon his lines, and, falling 
upon Sheridan, drive him off, and thus open the way for retreat. To guard 
against this, Miles’s division of Humphreys’s corps was sent to the support 
of Sheridan, while a furious bombardment was opened along the whole line, 
sweeping from the north of Petersburg clear around to Hatcher’s Run. The 
Union batteries had gradually crept closer to the city, and for the first time 
during the siege the balls fairly crashed through the streets of Petersburg. 
This fierce fire was kept up until almost daybreak, when the general as- 
sault was ordered. Parke and Wright had before expressed their belief 
that they could carry the lines in their front. 

The assault commenced just before daybreak on the morning of Sunday, 
April 2, Parke’s Ninth Corps was in front of the strongest portion of the 
Confederate defenses. The general plan for this corps was that Wilcox’s 
division should make a feint in front of Fort Steadman, while the divisions 
of Potter and Hartranft were to make the assault to the left, at the. very 
points which it had been hoped would have been opened by the explosion 
of the mine eight months before. Each column was accompanied by pio- 
neers with axes, and details of artillerists to work any guns that might be 
captured. Wilcox’s feint was successful. His division carried the whole 
outer line in its front, causing the Confederates to concentrate a heavy force 
to stay their farther advance. Then, at half past four, the signal was given 
for the opening of the main assault. The troops, eager to avenge their for- 
mer repulse, sprang forward with a rush, and in the teeth of a deadly storm 
of grape, canister, and musketry, plunged through the ditch, tore away the 


infantry in front of Dinwiddie Court-house” on the morning of the Ist of April. Whether or not 
Warren could, either with or without the expectation of Grant, have made movements which would 
have had this result, it is certain that Sheridan, on the evening of that day, could have had no ad- 
equate means of knowing. (2.) ‘‘ During this attack I again became dissatisfied with General 
Warren. In this engagement, portions of his line gave way when not exposed to a heavy fire, | 
and simply from want of confidence on the part of the troops, which General Warren did not ex- 
ert himself to inspire. I therefore relieved him from the command of the Fifth Corps, authority 
for this action having been sent to me before the battle unsolicited.”—Leaving out of view Sheri- 
dan’s emphatic testimony to the gallantry of the troops in this engagement, there is no mention of 
any part of Warren’s line giving way under any fire, light or heavy, saving the very brief one of a 
part of Ayres’s division, and this was soon rectified ; and these very men, in a few minutes, ‘‘ bore | 
a part in a handsome manner in the first brilliant charge which took place.” In any case, War- | 
ren could not personally inspire them with confidence, for he was in a different part of the field ; | 
and he, as commander of the corps, had a right to judge on what portion of the field his presence | 
was most required, subject, of course, to the ultimate decision of his superiors, upon due considera- 

tion, as to the military soundness of his judgment. In any case, Sheridan, being on a still differ- 
ent part of the field, could have had no personal knowledge on this point ; and, in the interval of 
less than two hours between any possible giving way and the order of supersedure, could not have 
had opportunity to ascertain the facts in the case with sufficient certainty to warrant such a sum- 
mary procedure. The misconduct, if any had existed, could no longer produce any evil effect, for 
the victory had been fully won when the supersedure took place. ‘The order was certainly over- 
hasty, and we think no one who examines the question will hesitate to say unjust. There is, in- 
deed, no reason to suppose that Sheridan was moved by any unworthy personal feeling, for the two 
generals had never happened to serve together. Sheridan was likely somewhat annoyed that War- 
ren’s corps, instead of Wright’s, was sent to him; for on the day before, in writing his plans to 
Grant, he said: ‘‘TI believe I could, with the Sixth Corps, turn the enemy’s left or break through 
his lines, but I would not like the Fifth Corps to make such an attempt.” But the Fifth Corps, 
under his own dispositions, did make the attempt, and with a success which did not fall short of 
his most sanguine anticipations of what the Sixth would haye accomplished. Warren, on report- 
ing to Grant, was at once assigned to the command of the defenses at City Point and Bermuda 
Hundred. Just a month after his supersedure from the command of the Fifth Corps he was as- 


CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 


signed to the command of the Department of the Mississippi, the only one in which there was then 
any prospect of farther hostilities. 9G | 


761 


abatis, mounted the parapet, and carried the line of works. Here Har- 
tranft’s division captured 12 guns and 800 prisoners. Potter’s division, 
next on the left, attacked with equal vigor, and, in spite of the most gallant 
opposition, pressed the enemy clear back to his interior cordon of works. 
This inner line had within the last few months been most elaborately forti- 
fied. From it the position gained by Parke was swept on the right and 
the left by an enfilading fire of artillery. Potter made a determined but 
unsuccessful effort to force this inner cordon. He fell severely wounded, 
and the command of his division fell upon Griffin.) But the assault in 
other quarters had met with such success that there was no need for the 
Ninth Corps to essay to carry the lines opposed to them. Parke was di- 
rected not to advance unless he saw the way clear to success, but to strength- 
en his position so as to hold it against any assailing force. 

The Sixth Corps, under Wright, was next on the left to that of the Ninth, 
As it lay, it occupied a salient where the Union lines, after trending away 
from the Confederate works, again closely approached them. Here, during 
the darkness, this corps had been formed into a mighty wedge, which was, 
in the result, to be driven straight through the Confederate lines which had 
for so long bidden defiance to all assault. At half past four a single gun 
gave signal for the advance of the Sixth. It happened that the very 
point where the edge of the wedge was to strike had been left weakly held 
by the withdrawal of the force which had held it to defend a point which 
seemed of more pressing importance. The Confederate pickets and skir- 
mishers were swept away in a moment, the three lines of abatis overpassed, 
the works crowned, the long lines which had guarded Petersburg and. its 
railway communications pierced. The Confederate army, a quarter of 
which had twelve hours before been annihilated by Sheridan and Warren, 
was again cut in two, a quarter of what remained being to all appearance 
wholly severed from the main body. Wright swept leftward for a space 
down the line of the Confederate intrenchments, repeating Warren’s move- 
ment at Five Forks, and capturing some thousands of prisoners; and then, 
being joined by portions of Ord’s command and Humphreys’s corps, who 
had carried every thing in their own fronts, turned to the right, and moved 
straight toward Petersburg, leaving that portion of the Confederate force 
which had been severed from the main army to be disposed of by Sheridan, 
whose command had in the mean while been augmented by Miles’s division 
of Humphreys’s corps. 

Miles was ordered by Sheridan to move up the White-oak Road and at- 
tack the extreme right of the enemy. ‘This, in the mean time, had been 
cut off from Petersburg by Wright and by Humphreys, who, with the di- 
visions of Hays and Mott, carried a redoubt in their front, and then swept 
round and took up their position upon the left of Wright. The Confeder- 
ates here made no opposition, and their isolated right fled northward, cross- 
ing Hatcher’s Run, and took up a position at Southerland’s Station, on the 
Southside Railroad. Miles was anxious to attack, and Sheridan gave him 
permission to do so; but at this moment Meade directed that Miles should 
be returned to the command of Humphreys, and the attack, to Sheridan’s 
regret, was not made. Sheridan, who had been moving in the same direc- 
tion with the Fifth Corps, now retraced his steps, and moved back to the 
Five Forks. Thence they struck the railroad, and, after destroying it for 


* General S. G. Griffin, who commanded the division during the few remaining days of the cam- 
paign with such ability that he received therefor the brevet rank of major general. He is to be 
distinguished from General Charles Griffin, who was now in command of the Fifth Corps. 


NELSON A. MILES, 


69 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 


a space, moved up it toward Southerland’s Station, upon the flank of the 
Confederates who still held position there. His cavalry meanwhile had 
been sent westward to break up the Confederate cavalry, who had gathered 
in some force, but not sufficient to offer any resistance. These operations 
consumed the whole day. Toward evening Miles attacked the enemy at 
Southerland’s, and, after a brief conflict, routed them, capturing 600 prison- 
ers, and driving them in confusion to the Appomattox. It was supposed 
that the river was impassable, and that this body, shut in by Sheridan on 
the one side and Humphreys on the left, must surrender. But there hap- 
pened to be a ford, over which they escaped, leaving their guns behind, and 
next day joined Lee in his retreat. 

Two or three hundred yards behind the lines which Wright had carried 
a series of strong forts had been erected to guard against just such results 
as had ensued. In the movement which .had followed, Gibbon’s division 
of Ord’s command came right upon the two strongest of these, Forts Alex- 
ander and Gregg, which were all that stood in the way of the Federal forces 
marching straight upon Petersburg by the rear. Gibbon dashed upon these. 
Fort Alexander was carried with a rush. Within Fort Gregg had been 
gathered a mixed garrison from the very extremities of the Confederacy. 
‘here were Virginians and Louisianians, North Carolinians and Mississip- 
pians. Its commander was Captain Chew, of Maryland. Gibbon marched 
straight for this fort, but was met by a fire so fierce and deadly that the 
troops recoiled for a moment. Then the charge was renewed; the assail- 
ants, unchecked by the fusilade which met them, swarmed up the parapet. 
Once, twice, and thrice they were pressed back; but at length the crest was 
gained, and a brief hand-to-hand conflict ensued. The fort was carried. 
Of its two hundred and fifty defenders, only thirty survived; of the assail- 
ants, five hundred lay dead or wounded. 

It was now barely seven o’clock, hardly three hours from the time when 
the grand assault had been commenced; but within that time the whole 
outer line of defenses had been carried, and what remained of the Confed- 
erate army was shut up within the interior lines. Lee, with Hill and Ma- 
hone, was within the city, listening to the noise of battle which sounded 
from every side, and endeavoring from it to judge how the fight was going, 
and to decide upon what remained to be done. The reports grew moment- 
ly nearer and nearer. “ How is this, general?” exclaimed Lee to Hill; 
“your men are giving way!” Hill, buttoning around him a rough citizen’s 
coat, upon the shoulders of which were only the stars of a colonel, and ac- 
companied by a single orderly, rode out to reconnoitre. In a wooded ra- 
vine he came upon half a dozen soldiers in the blue Federal uniform. They 
had penetrated in advance of their comrades. He ordered them to surren- 
der. For an instant they were confounded by the very audacity of the de- 
mand. The next instant their answer was given from their rifles, and Hill 
fell dead from his horse. Of all the great generals in the Confederate army, 
no other one had borne part in so many of the great battles in Virginia, 
Maryland, and Pennsylvania, from Bull Run onward. No one division of 
the Army of Northern Virginia had been engaged in so many fights as his. 
After the seven days on the Peninsula, it had formed part of Jackson’s com- 
mand while that daring general lived. It bore the brunt of the fight at 
Groveton, saved the lost day at Antietam, won the action at Chancellors- 
ville, was foremost in the Wilderness, and to it, during this last campaign, 
was confided the most important task, that of holding the Confederate lines 
on the right, the vital point in Lee’s system of defense. 

Sheridan’s victory at the Five Forks and Wright’s piercing of the Con- 
federate lines had in a few hours solved the long-questioned problem of 
the siege of Petersburg. The place was no longer tenable, for its avenues 
of supply were lost beyond all hope of recovery. Lee resolved upon a 
speedy abandonment of the lines which he had held so long. The bells 
were ringing for church on that Sunday morning when a dispatch was sent 
to President Davis, at Richmond, giving notice of what had happened, and 
informing him that the two besieged cities would be abandoned by the 
army, and advising that the authorities should make preparations to leave 
the capital that night. 

Lee, indeed, was shut up to the alternative to surrender or to make his 
escape, and try the almost desperate chance of a race for life or death with 
a victorious army of thrice his force close upon his rear and flank. He 
chose the latter course, and in the execution of it manifested energy and 
skill not exceeded in any other portion of his career. After all the losses 
of the two days, he had still an army of more than 40,000 men; but they 
were widely scattered. Some 5000, cut off from the rest, were at Souther- 
land’s, fifteen miles west of Petersburg; as many more were in Richmond, 
a score of miles to the north; Longstreet, with half the remainder, was on 
the James; leaving 15,000 at and around Petersburg, confronting the corps 
of Parke, Wright, and Humphreys, with half that of Ord—in all not less 
than 50,000 men ready for action; while upon the flank of his line of re- 
treat was Sheridan with well-nigh 20,000 cavalry and infantry.) The ob- 
stinate defense of Fort Gregg gave Lee a breathing space, and enabled him 
to assume a strong defensive position which could be held for a brief space. 
It must be held for twelve hours at all hazards; for the retreat could not 
be begun until darkness had come on, veiling the movement from the eyes 
that were keenly watching every sign of the abandonment, which all saw 
was speedily inevitable. 


* The data upon which I estimate the present force of Lee will be stated hereafter. In giving 
that of Grant, I only include the numbers actually available for immediate pursuit from before Pe- 
tersburg. Besides these 70,000, there was a considerable force at City Point, and half of the Army 
of the James, left under Weitzel on the north side of the James. The actual number in each corps 
wailable for instant action in the field at the commencement of operations on the 29th was about 
15,000, or 90,000 in all. To these are to be added 10,000 cavalry, The losses in the interval 
had been not far from 10,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners. | 


THE CIVIL WAR. 


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CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 763 


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THE EVACUATION OF PETERSBURG. 


Lee was still ignorant that the force north of the James had been reduced 
to three divisions, But immediately after the tidings of the disaster at Five 
Yorks he had ordered Longstreet to send re-enforcements from the James to 
the Appomattox. ‘That veteran commander, with a few brigades, arrived 
just in time to stay the Federal advance, and enable Lee to form his new 
line, This, in a narrow semicircle, girdled Petersburg, each flank resting 
upon the Appomattox. A show of offense was the best defensive, and at 
intervals, from ten o'clock until dark, blows were struck at various parts 
of the Federal line closely encircling his own. These attempts were main- 
ly directed upon that part of the line held by the Ninth Corps. In one of 
these assaults Fort Mahone fell again into the hands of the Confederates. 
So threatening were these assaults, that two brigades were ordered up from 
City Point and one from the Sixth Corps to re-enforce the Ninth. Fort 
Mahone was soon recaptured, and Parke wished to renew the assault which 
had been closed in the morning; but, finding that his men were greatly ex- 
hausted, he decided merely to make his position perfectly secure, and await 
the operations of the next day, but in the mean while to be in a position to 
take advantage of any movement which the enemy might make showing 
an intention of evacuating his position. 

The night had almost passed before any such indications were perceived. 
At two o’clock in the morning the Confederate pickets were still out; but 
the evacuation had been commenced in the darkness hours before. By 
three o'clock the troops were all across the river, and the only bridge in 
flames, while the air was luminous with the glare of the burning warehouses. 
At this moment the heavily-charged magazine of the battery of siege-guns 
before Bermuda Hundred was blown up; then followed the explosion of 
that of Fort Clifton on the James. The explosion was taken up all along 
the line to Richmond, giving some tokens that the evacuation was accom- 
plished, and the Confederate army in full retreat. The skirmishers of the 
Ninth were at once pushed forward, but found no trace of an enemy. The 
entire corps went forward, Ely’s brigade leading. They were met by the 
mayor and a deputation from the Common Council, who announced that the 
city, having been evacuated, was formally surrendered, and asked for the 
protection of the persons and property of the inhabitants. At half past four 
the flag of the First Michigan Regiment was raised upon the Court-house of 
Petersburg. 

The dispatch of Lee, announcing his purpose to evacuate the cities, was re- 
ceived by Davis while in church. Three years before, lacking a month, he 
had been baptized and confirmed on the same day, and had since been a de- 
vout worshiper. As nearly as such hurried moments can be noted, the 
message reached the church just when the Litany, with its solemn responses, 
‘Good Lord, deliver us!” was being uttered. The Confederate President 
rose from his knees and left the house with his wonted stately step. But 
men remembered, or thought they remembered, that he seemed to have 
grown older by years since he had entered the sacred edifice an hour be- 
fore. Evil tidings find speedy messengers. Though no announcement was 
made, within an hour every inhabitant knew that the Confederate capital 
was to be abandoned. In the leading Presbyterian Church, the minister, at 
the close of his sermon, announced to the congregation that there was sad 
news; the army had met with great reverses, and it was not likely that the 
congregation would ever again assemble in that house of God. 

Never since when the Babylonians learned that Cyrus had penetrated 
their walls, or when the dwellers in New Carthage assembled in the theatre 
were told that the Vandals of Genseric were upon them, was there a greater 
surprise than at Richmond when on that bright April Sabbath it was made 
known that within a few hours the city was to fall into the hands of the be- 
leaguering force. They could see no signs of siege. They knew, indeed, 
that for months a great hostile force was encamped not far away, but between 
them and it was their own invincible army under its indomitable command- 
er, who had three years before driven off a like threatening force, and had 
held this at bay so that not a sound of battle had reached their ears, and 
who had vowed that he would die before he would abandon their defense. 
Richmond had been notably gay all through the winter and spring, so much 
so that the clergy had been constrained to institute special religious services 
to counteract the prevailing current of dissipation. The newspapers were 
allowed to give only brief scraps of tidings furnished by the War Depart- 
ment, and these amounted simply to nothing. But in the absence of all true 
accounts there was a superabundance of rumors and reports. One day it 
was said that a messenger was making his way overland with a treaty duly 
signed, whereby the French emperor, and, by consequence, the British queen, 
had formed an alliance with the Confederacy against the Union. Again it 
was reported that Johnston had crushed Sherman, and was in full march to 
unite with Lee, and that by the combined force the army of Grant would be 
swept away, as that of McClellan had been swept away not three years be- 
fore. Ofthe great battles which had been fought not a score of miles away, 
not a word was told; but on the very day before they commenced, the 
morning train from Petersburg brought reports that Lee had made a night 
attack, in which he had crushed the enemy along his whole line. That day 
John Daniel,the editor of the leading Richmond paper, and the wielder of 
the most trenchant pen in the Confederacy, had died. Next morning his 
obituary appeared in the papers, closing with a regret that ‘the great Vir- 
ginian” had passed away just as the decisive victory had been won which 
was likely to prove the turning-point to the success of the Southern Con- 
federacy. So, of all the days in the year, this bright April Sabbath seemed 
the last which was to be the day of doom to the Confederacy. 


‘ Fort Mahone was at a point where the two lines had approached most closely. Opposite te it 
was Fort Sedgwick. So fierce and continuous had been the fire from these forts that the latver 
was known in the army as “‘ Fort Hell,” and the former as “ Fort Damnation.” 


764 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. [ APRIL, 1865. 


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CAPTURE OF PETERSBURG AND RICHMOND. 765 


W hen, therefore, the authentic tidings came that before another sun should 
rise the Confederate capital was to be abandoned, they were like a thunder- 
clap from a cloudless sky. All was confusion and dismay. Those who 
rushed to the government offices could learn nothing; but the hasty pack- 
ing of archives, and the long lines of wagons conveying them to the railroad 
dépéts, told the story. A special train during the afternoon bore the Presi- 
dent and a part of his cabinet toward Danville. This was now the only av- 
enue for those who hoped to escape from the apprehended horrors of a sack- 
ed city. They could not forget how the Confederates had wantonly burned 
Cumberland; they knew what had befallen Columbia. So the great throng 
of those who had means of paying their fare pressed to the dépdt of the Dan- 
ville Road. They found the doors guarded by lines of soldiers, with orders 
to allow no one to enter without a special pass from the Secretary of War. 
To find that functionary was hopeless. Now and then one who knew the 
premises, or had special means of influence, succeeded in getting within, only 
to find the waiting trains loaded to twice their regulated capacity with the 
employés and effects of the government. 

In the streets the disorder grew fiercer and fiercer till it rose to tumult 
and riot. As night closed in all the rascality of the city seemed let loose, 
and surged around every spot where there was a chance of pillage. There 
were numerous stores and warehouses filled with goods which, having run 
the blockade, were rated at prices which, reckoned in Confederate currency, 
were worth a prince’s ransom. ‘These were broken open, and their contents 
borne away with scarcely a pretense of opposition. ‘I'he poorest scoundrel 
in the city was for the moment a richer man than he had ever hoped to be- 
come. For a few hours there had been a lingering hope that Lee would 
be able to escape the necessity of withdrawing his army. But when at last 
the mayor announced that this hope was vain, and that the evacuation was 
a foregone conclusion, the city council proposed to get together some regi- 
ments of militia to preserve order, and to establish a regular patrol for the 
night. Above all, every drop of liquor in the shops and warehouses was 
to be destroyed. This was partially executed, and the gutters ran with a 
liquor freshet whose reeking fumes filled the air. But the destruction could 
be only partial. Not a few who were to carry out the order chose to drink 
rather than destroy the liquor. The militia slipped through the hands of 
their officers; the patrols disappeared; soldiers, half famished during the 
long months in the intrenchments, straggled from their commands, mad- 
dened by the thirst for liquor, which they now found it easy to satiate. The 
city was given up to pillage; stores were entered and stripped; the side- 
walks were strewn with a mingled rubbish of costly goods, provisions, and 
broken glass. The early night was made hideous by the shouts of the mob, 
the yells of drunken men, and wild cries of distress from women and chil- 
dren. 

But the horrors of that night had only begun. The great body of troops 
from the fortifications had been passing through the city, and had crossed 
the river. Their presence had some effect in checking the outrages. To 
Ewell’s corps, the rear-guard, had been committed the task of destroying 
the bridges across the James, and blowing up the iron-clad vessels which 
lay in the stream, and, in general, of making way with every thing which 
could be of use to the enemy. In the very heart of the town were four 
warehouses filled from top to bottom with tobacco; close by were the great 
Gallego Flour-mills, the largest in the world, with all the combustible mate- 
rials which gather around such establishments. To these Ewell ordered the 
torch to be applied. A fire breaking out here at any time would be disas- 
trous; now, when all means of checking it were paralyzed, a general con- 
flagration was inevitable. The mayor and a committee of citizens remon- 
strated against the execution of this order. The warehouses were fired, the 
flames spread from building to building, and from street to street, over whole 
acres of ground whereon was the whole business part of Richmond. With- 
in its area were all the banks, insurance offices, auction stores, newspaper of- 
fices, and nearly all the mercantile houses. Here, too, were arsenals stored 
with shells and munitions of war: the successive explosion of these sound- 
ed like a continuous peal of thunder. While this great conflagration was 
raging, without even an effort to check it, the tumult, and riot, and ravaging, 
and pillaging grew madder and madder all through that long night. 

When the sun rose in the morning it looked upon a strange and sorrow- 
ful scene. The streets were crowded with a motley throng—drays loaded 
with goods, men toilsomely rolling barrels, women and children of all colors 
staggering under heavy loads, their own goods or that which they had plun- 
dered. The Capitol Square, seeming to be safest from the conflagration, 
was covered over with piles of furniture dragged from the burning houses, 
among which were huddled together women and children, whose only homes 
were now beneath the open sky; even here the air was dim with smoke, 
and blinding with a snow of fiery cinders. The sun was an hour high 
when from the rear of the motley crowd pressing up Main Street arose the 
ominous ery of “The Yankees! The Yankees!” 

During the three days while fighting had been going on around Peters- 
burg there had been perfect quiet on the James. Confederates and Federals 
seemed aware that nothing which could be done there would influence the 
issue. When that Sabbath night closed in, each was aware that the result 
was decided. All the bands in Weitzel’s lines struck up the national airs, 
They were answered with corresponding music from the Confederate lines. 
Until midnight the air was vocal with the strains of ‘‘ Hail Columbia” and 
“Dixie,” the “Star-spangled Banner” and the “ Bonnie Blue Flag.” Then 
came a brief interval of absolute repose, during which the Confederate troops 
were silently withdrawn, and, as morning was breaking, the glare of the 
flames, and the dense masses of smoke which rose over Richmond, proclaim- 
ed to Weitzel that the Confederate capital, the prize of such long endeavor, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[APRIL, 1865, 


RUINS OF RICILMOND—MAIN STREET. 


was probably at his merey. Slowly and cautiously at first he put his troops 
inmotion. They threaded the intricate lines of works before which they had 
so long lain, and for the first time learned how formidable they were. Hy- 
ery thing showed how hasty had been the abandonment. Around Fort 
Field, the first approached, were three lines of abatis and one of torpedoes. 
The flags which marked the place of the torpedoes had not been taken down. 
The torpedoes were carefully removed by the advance-guard. A second 
and third line, each commanding that exterior to it, was passed. The camps 
were entered, the tents still standing, and all the furniture within. Then, 
when, for the first time, Richmond was fairly in view by a Federal army, 
Weitzel sent forward a squad of cavalry, twoscore strong, to enter the city. 
It was this little body whose coming aroused the ery of ‘The Yankees!” 
They proceeded at a leisurely walk up the main street. The crowd fled 
cursing and trampling up the main street and down the by-streets. The 
troopers then broke into a trot for the public square, and in a few minutes 
their guidons were fluttering from the Capitol. Soon afterward a regular 
flag was raised. This was the same which had been hoisted over the head- 
quarters of Butler at New Orleans. It had been brought there by Shepley, 
who hoped to raise it over the Capitol at Richmond. It had been given in 
charge of Johnston de Peyster, a young aid of Shepley, who had asked 
permission to hoist it himself when the Confederate capital should be cap- 
tured. By some misapprehension, the flag was raised over the “State” end 
of the Capitol instead of over the “ Confederate States” end. Those who 
believed in omens saw in this an augury that Federal authority had now 
triumphed over the cherished theory of “States Rights.” 

Soon they were followed by all the troops, marching in order, but with 
cheers and martial music. It was noted with bitter indignation that a regi- 
ment of colored cavalry, as if moved by an irrepressible impulse as they 
swept by the principal hotel, drew their sabres and broke into wild shouts. 
Mayo, the mayor, had gone out to surrender the city, but missed his way. 
Three years before he had declared that “when the citizens of Richmond 
demand of me to surrender the capital of Virginia and the Confederacy, they 
must find some other man to fill my place.” But the scenes of the past 
night, and the flames which were still surging and spreading, were enough 
to convince him that there was something worse even than surrender to the 
Yankees. The city had been fired against his earnest remonstrance, and 
now the conquering army alone could put a stop to the conflagration, and 
prevent a general pillage which was going on. 

General Shepley, the same who had been appointed military governor of 
New Orleans, was placed in command of Richmond. He issued orders at 
once. The first duty of the army was to save the city, which the Confed- 
erate army, unable to hold, had sought to destroy. The fire department of 
the city would report to the provost-marshal, who would aid them with a 
detachment of troops; all attempts at plunder, whether by soldiers or citi- 
zens, would be summarily punished; no officer or soldier should enter any 
private dwelling without express orders; no soldier should use offensive 
words or gestures toward citizens; no treasonable expressions, or insults to 
the national flag or cause, would be allowed; the rights and duties of the 


citizens were laid down in the proclamations of the President; and, finally, 


“with the restoration of the flag of the Union, the citizens might expect the | 


restoration of that peace, prosperity, and happiness which they enjoyed un: 
der the Union of which that flag was the glorious symbol.” 

All attempts to check the conflagration seemed unavailing; but toward 
evening the wind changed, blowing the flames back in the direction from 
which they had spread, and the fire died out for lack of fuel. A third part 
of Richmond had been burnt. The pencil of the surveyor could not have 
more distinctly marked out the business portion of the city. For a night 
and a day the Confederate capital had undergone all the horrors of a sacked 
town; but they had been inflicted by its own populace, not by the victors, 
The bitterest enemies of the conquerors find hardly an instance of the slight- 
est outrage committed by the Federal troops.1_ Men have wrongly, we think, 
in the main, charged the burning of Columbia upon the Federal troops; but 
no one has ventured to charge upon them the far more destructive confla- 
gration of Richmond. 'The responsibility for this wanton act, palliated by 
no possible pretext of military necessity, rests solely upon Ewell, who had 
for well-nigh a year commanded the garrison ofthe city. Deliberately, and 
against all remonstrance, he applied the torch where there was no human 
possibility that the result could have been other than what it was. 

Jefferson Davis had in the mean while reached Danville, where, on the 
next day, he issued a characteristic proclamation. The general-in-chief, he 
said, had found it necessary to make such movements of his troops as to un- 
cover the capital. The loss of the capital was certainly a great misfortune; 
for months the finest army of the Confederacy had been obliged, in order to 
defend Richmond, to forego many promising enterprises. But now a new 
phase of the struggle had begun. The army, free from the necessity of 
guarding particular points, was free to move, and could strike the enemy in 
detail far from his base. Virginia, and no part of it, should be permanently 
abandoned. If compelled temporarily to withdraw, the army would return 
until the baffled and exhausted enemy should give over the contest; and 
no peace should ever be made with the infamous invaders. The people of 
Richmond only knew of this proclamation when they read it in the North- 
ern newspapers. Before that time arrived the Confederate army had sur- 
rendered. Davis, indeed, returned to Virginia, but it was as a prisoner of 
state, captured in the vain attempt to escape to a foreign soil. 


* The best account of the incidents at the capture of Richmond is that given by the Rey. Dr. 
Leyburn, in Harper's Magazine for June, 1866. From this we cite a few sentences: ‘‘The curtain 
had now fallen on one act of the stupendous drama. It was soon to rise on what, in its opening at 
least, would prove even more striking and impressive. The government and army which for years 
had protected us was gone; that other army, which had come so near that they could hear the 
sound of our church-bells, and we could see the flash and smoke of their guns—that army, probably 
by this time exasperated and infuriated to the last degree, was to be upon us with the dawn of the 
coming day, and we helplessly at their mercy... . . Imagine our condition, left by our own army 
and anticipating the enemy’s ; the entire business part of the city on fire—stores, warehouses, mills, 
depots, and bridges, all covering acres, one sea of flame; and as an accompaniment, the thunder of 
exploding shells, and in the midst of it that long-threatening, hostile army entering to scize its prey. 
. .. - Up to this time I do not remember to have seen a fire-engine at work. I went to one of 
the Federals and told him that, unless they went to work to arrest the conflagration, the entire city 
would be swept away. Soon after, the military authorities organized the crowds of blacks as a fire 
corps, and this, with their own efforts and the steam-engines at length brought to play, was instru- 
mental in checking, and at length stopping the tempest of fire. But all the forenoon, and till well 
on in the afternoon, flame and smoke, and burning brands, and showers of blazing sparks filled the 
air. Seldom has a city in proportion to its population and wealth suffered so terribly. Very 
agreeable was the disappointment at the behavior of the victorious army. The fact was that, with 
few exceptions, the troops behaved astonishingly well, and were remarkably courteous and respect- 
ful. Some cases of outrage were committed in the suburbs, but every attempt of the sort in the 
city of which I heard was followed by condign punishment.” 


ON 


Se 


ee 


Oo 


Soe. eae a 


— 


F 


} Aprit, 1865. | 


t tes fi 


THE RETREAT AND SURRENDER OF LEE. 


767 


CHAPTER LVII. 
THE RETREAT AND SURRENDER OF LEE. 


The Line of Retreat.—Number of Lee’s Army.—The Pursuit.—Lee reaches Amelia Court-house. 
—Finds no Supplies.—Sheridan reaches Jettersville.—Position of Lee.—He resumes his Re- 
treat.—Sheridan’s Plan of Assault.—Engagement at Sailor’s Creek.—Capture of Ewell’s Corps. 
—Straggling from the Confederate Army.—Ord’s Column reaches Farmville.—Reade attacks 
and is repulsed.—The Confederates recross the Appomattox, make a stand, and repulse Hum- 
phreys.—They continue their Retreat.—Sheridan’s Movements.—A Scout reports Supplies at 
Appomattox Station.—Custer sent forward.—He captures the Trains and heads off Lee’s Re- 
treat.—Ord and Griffin urged forward.—The Confederate Retreat on the 8th of April.—Reach 
Appomattox Station.—Are assailed by Custer and driven back.—Situation on the 9th.—Gordon 
attempts to break through.—He fails.—Asks a Suspension of Hostilities:—Lee and Grant.— 
Their Correspondence.—Conference of Confederate Generals. —Lee seeks Grant.—Their Meet- 
ing.—Terms of Surrender.—The Correspondence between Grant and Lee.—The Paroles.—Lee’s 
Farewell Address to his Army.—His Return to Richmond.—The formal Surrender. 


HEN Lee abandoned Richmond and Petersburg, his purpose was to 
retreat to Danville, where he hoped to unite with Johnston. The 
first necessity was to concentrate his widely-spread forces. The point of 
junction fixed upon was Chesterfield Court-house, midway between Peters- 
burg and Richmond, but to the west of both cities. The forces at Peters- 
burg thus at first headed northwestward, those at Richmond southwestward., 
Leaving the burning warehouses of Petersburg and the fast-spreading con- 
flagration of Richmond behind them, the troops plunged into the thick dark- 
ness of a moonless night. When all were brought together there were 
about 40,000 men. The men, unencumbered by rations, moved rapidly, 
and at dawn had put nearly a score of miles between them and Petersburg. 
All the next day they pressed on with no signs of an enemy on their track. 
To Lee it seemed that the great peril was overpast. His troubled brow 
lightened. He had accomplished the almost hopeless task of getting his 
army safely on its way, and had gained a start of many miles. One more 
day unmolested, and he would have passed the junction of the Southside and 
Danville Railroads, and then, by destroying roads and bridges behind him, 
he could easily keep ahead of any possible pursuit. But he had now to 
deal with a different opponent from the one who had suffered him after An- 
tietam to slip quietly across the Potomac, or that other who failed to follow 
up the retreat from Gettysburg. 

Karly on Monday morning Grant put his pursuing columns in motion, not 
following the line of Lee’s retreat, but moving so as to intercept him before 
he should reach the junction of the Southside and Danville roads. This is 
at Burkesville, fifty-two miles almost due west from Petersburg. If the 
Confederates passed that point, they were safely on their way to Danville, 
and could laugh at present pursuit. Ifthe Federals reached that place, or 
any other on the railroad nearer Richmond ahead of the Confederates, Lee’s 
purpose of joining Johnston would be frustrated. 

The Appomattox River, rising in the county of the same name, runs east- 


* Tam aware that this number is far in excess of that usually assigned. Thus Pollard (Lost 
Cause, 703) says: ‘* With the additions made to the Petersburg section of troops from the Rich- 
mond lines and from Lee’s extreme right which had crossed the Appomattox above Petersburg” 
[that is, those who, having been cut off by Wright, retreated before Miles], that resourceful com- 
mander had now well in hand more than 20,000 troops.” There is some ambiguity in this state- 
ment, as it is not clearly said whether in this number are to be included those from the north of 
the James and from Richmond, 15,000 at least. Elsewhere (Southern History of the War, ii., 507) 
he says, ‘‘ Lee had on the lines he had abandoned between 27,000 and 28,000.” This would seem 
hot to include that portion cut off by Wright. Swinton (Army of the Potomac, 605) puts the en- 
tire number at 25,000; and ( Twelve Decisive Battles, 499) says ‘‘ the army was reduced to almost 
20,000 effective men.” But the official returns show that Lee finally surrendered 27,805 men (Re- 
port of the Secretary of War, 1865, p. 45); and Pollard (Lost Cause, 711) says, ‘‘ About 7500 
men laid down their arms; but the capitulation included in addition some 18,000 stragglers, who 
were unarmed, and who came up to claim the benefit of surrender and accept paroles.” —Besides 
these there were, as will be seen, not far from 10,000 prisoners captured during the retreat; and 
there were, moreover, considerable losses in killed and wounded. Perfect accuracy where official 
reports are wanting is impossible; but I think, in placing Lee’s entire force when the retreat was 
begun at 40,000, I am rather below than above the true number. 


McLEAN’S HOUSE. 


ward for fifty miles toward Richmond. At a distance of thirty miles from 
the capital it bends sharply southward for twenty miles, and then, resuming 
its eastward course, reaches Petersburg. The Danville Railroad, along which 
lay Lee’s proposed line of retreat, runs southwestward, crossing the Appo- 
mattox just at its southward bend. For a rapid day’s march Lee’s line of 
retreat lay on the north side of the river, which he had then to cross in order 
to head toward Danville. Grant’s pursuing, or rather intercepting columns, 
moved upon the south side of the river, which ran between, and thus it 
happened that for the first two days the two armies, though heading for the 
same point, never came in sight of each other. The Union army moved in 
two parallel lines. Ord, with his two half corps of the Army of the James, 
marched along the Southside Railroad straight for the junction at Burkes- 
ville. The other and larger column, to the north, kept close to the Appo- 
mattox. This column consisted of the cavalry and the Fifth Corps under 
Sheridan, followed closely by the corps of Wright and Humphreys. In the 
rear of this was the Ninth Corps, which was left behind to occupy Peters- 
burg, form the rear-guard of the whole army, and cover the communications 
with City Point. 

As the morning of Monday, April 3, broke, it was doubtful whether pur- 
suers or pursued would first reach the Danville Road. The chances were 
rather in favor of Lee, for he had about the same distance, with the advan- 
tage of better roads, and was at the outset unencumbered with provision 
trains. So all day he marched cheerily on. Maling a brief halt during the 
night, he crossed the Appomattox at Goode’s Bridge, and early on the morn- 
ing of the 4th reached Amelia Court-house, on the Danville Road. Here, 
according to his carefully-planned arrangements, he was to have found sup- 
plies for his troops, who had started out with only food for a single day. 
He had ordered that trains from the South, loaded with a quarter of a mil- 
lion of rations, should await him here. ‘The trains arrived duly on the 
evening of Sunday. They were met by orders from Richmond to press on 
to the capital in order to carry off the persons and archives belonging to 
the government. In the hurry and confusion of the moment, no order was 
given for the unloading of the trains, and so, with all their stores of food, 
they moved on to Richmond, and when Lee reached the Court-house he 
found not a morsel of food for his famishing troops. Thus, at a moment 
when every hour was precious, Lee had no alternative but to halt, break up 
his force into foraging squads, and sweep the region round for such scanty 
supplies of food as might be picked up. This enforced delay proved fatal. 

Sheridan, on the other side of the Appomattox, had kept up a neck-and- 
neck race with Lee. His cavalry, striking that of the enemy at Deep 
Creek, routed them, capturing many prisoners, and leaving Griffin, who was 
close behind, to pick up whatever spoils were left behind. Lee’s enforced 
delay at Amelia Court-house enabled Sheridan’s cavalry to push ahead of 
him, and strike the Danville Road. Up this they moved, and late in the 
afternoon the Fifth Corps also gained the railroad at Jettersville, seven miles 
south of the Court-house. Here they intrenched themselves, resolved to con- 
test the passage until the main body could come up. Had Lee been able 
to move his army that afternoon, he might possibly have broken through,’ 
and kept up his retreat. Such, indeed, was apparently Lee’s design; for he 
sent on a dispatch, here intercepted, to the commissaries at Danville and 
Lynchburg, directing 200,000 rations to meet him at Burkesville. But the 
Confederate troops were in no condition to fight, much less to make a rapid 
march that day. They had been pushed to the utmost limits of human en- 


1 ¢¢Tt seems to me that this was the only chance the army of Northern Virginia had of saving 
itself, which might have been done had General Lee promptly attacked and driven back the com- 
paratively small force opposed to him, and pursued his march to Burkesyille Junction.” —Sheri- 
dan’s Report. 


768 


durance. Half of them were broken up into foraging parties, and all were 
in a state of starvation. Moreover, their long trains of ammunition, stretch- 
ing for thirty miles, must at all hazards be protected, for these, if lost, could 
not be replaced. So Lee, sending forward a portion of his trains under a 
cavalry escort, was compelled to lie at Amelia Court-house all that day and 
until the afternoon of the next Humphreys’s corps now came up, Meade 
accompanying it, but, being unwell, he placed it under the charge of Sheri- 
dan. Sheridan pushed out Davies with a brigade of cavalry to strike the 
moving trains. Davies routed the escort, destroyed 180 wagons, and cap- 
tured five guns, with many prisoners. Meade now requested that the Fifth 
Corps should be returned to his immediate command. Sheridan complied 
with reluctance. He had learned the worth of that corps, with which not a 
week before he had been loth to undertake an offensive operation. 

Wright's corps now came up, and three fourths of the army of the Poto- 
mac were concentrated at Jettersville. On the morning of the 6th it was 
put in motion toward Amelia Court-house; but Lee, anticipating such a 
movement, had the evening before moved off. Bending a little to the north, 
he turned the head of the advancing force, and Sheridan, upon nearing Ame- 
lia, found that Lee had given him the slip, and had gained a full half day’s 
march to the westward. 

The faces of the pursuing force were now turned from the north to the 
west. ‘T'o secure greater rapidity, it was divided into three columns, Hum- 
phreys in the rear of the retreating enemy, Griffin on the south, and Wright 
on the north of it. Lee’s retreat was now painfully slow. Worn out, half 
famished, and encumbered by the wagons, which the half-starved animals 
could hardly drag over the rough roads, they could barely move half a 
mile an hour. The advantage of the start was soon lost. Sheridan, whose 
command was now reduced to the cavalry, soon came upon the left flank 
of the long column. The trains were the tempting objects of attack, and 
against these Sheridan directed his fiery energy. Crook, who was in the 
advance, was to attack; if he found the enemy too strong, he was to hold 
them in check, while another division passing was to strike farther on, and 
so on alternating until a weak point was at last found. Crook found the 
enemy too strong to be driven; he held his own, while Custer passed him 
and found a weak point at Sailor’s Creek, a small tributary of the Appomat- 
tox. Crook and Devin coming up, the whole force charged the train, dis- 
persed the guards, capturing hundreds of prisoners and sixteen guns, de- 
stroying four hundred wagons, and cutting off a large body of the enemy 
from their line of retreat. 

~ The troops thus cut off were Ewell’s corps and the remnants of Pickett’s 
division who had escaped from the disaster of Five Forks—in all, some six 
or eight thousand strong. This force thus isolated was a prize so tempting 
that Sheridan, not for the first time, deviated from the principle that he had 
laid down that cavalry should not be employed to attack infantry in posi- 
tion, and gave Merritt permission to make a mounted charge against their 
lines. The charge was gallantly made by Stage’s brigade, which dashed up 
to, but were unable to break the hostile lines. But the charge accomplished 
its main purpose. It detained the enemy for a space. Sheridan, who had 
waited behind, sent back a message urging Wright’s corps to come up with 
the utmost speed. He was still unaware of Custer’s complete success in 
cutting the Confederate line two miles beyond. But information came to 
him in an unexpected way. A single horseman dashed up. He was one 
of Custer’s men, who had rode right into the enemy’s works, had been a pris- 
oner for a brief space, and then, getting clear of his captors, had fairly passed 
through the hostile troops and brought tidings of what had been accom- 
plished, and that Custer and Crook were pressing hard upon the opposite 
side. Sheridan, in the hurry of the moment, forgot the name of the trooper, 
but he must have kept the exploit in mind, for in a note added long after to 
his report he mentions that he had ascertained that it was private William 
Richardson, of the Ohio Veteran Cavalry. The head of Wright’s division 
now came up, and Ewell and Pickett faced about and met them with such 
a hot fire that Seymour’s division was checked until Wheaton’s came up to 
its support. Pickett’s remnant was overpowered and broke into rout, Ewell 
made a brief stand, and from a commanding position poured in a fire which 
broke a portion of the assailants who were advancing over a patch of open 
ground. But now a general charge was made. Stagg struck one flank, 
Custer the rear, while Wright assailed in front. Humphreys, a little to the 
right, also struck a body of the enemy, destroyed two hundred wagons, and 
made many prisoners. Ewell was outnumbered and completely surround- 
ed. His whole corps threw down their arms. Ewell, Custis Lee, and Ker- 
shaw, with six or eight thousand men, surrendered themselves as prisoners.’ 

The straggling from Lee’s army had become enormous. Quite a quarter 
of its remaining effective force was now lopped off at a blow. The remain- 
der had, however, won a brief respite, and moved on, Their sufferings from 
hunger during the last days had been fearful. Save the single ration which 
they had brought with them, and the scanty scraps gathered by some for- 
aging parties, they had been without food since they had left Petersburg. 
Company after company was sent out into the woods to browse upon the 
tender shoots of the trees just bursting into bud.2_ More pitiable even than 
the condition of the troops was that of the animals. At every step the jaded 
horses and mules sank down. At every difficult place the way was blocked 
up with wagons which could not be moved, and which were set on fire to 
save them from falling into the hands of the enemy. The exploding ammu- 
nition sounded like the continuous noise of a great battle. The spirits of 
the men gave way at every step. They threw away their arms by regi- 


* No actual count of the prisoners at Sailor's Creek seems to have been made. Sheridan roughly 
estimates them at 10,000. Grant, probably more accurately, states the number at 6000 or 7000. 
Pollard gives the number of Ewell’s and Pickett’s men at about 5000. 

* Fletcher, iii., 516, upon authority of one of Longsireet’s staff. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ APRIL, 1865. 


ments, too weak to carry them. Thousands of these unarmed men wander- 
ed away, the officers finally ceasing to make any effort to restrain the strag- 
gling. Other thousands dragged themselves along mechanically by the side 
or at the rear of the few who yet kept their ranks, and held on to their arms; 
for there was yet, after the disaster at Sailor's Creek, a solid core of some 
ten thousand in whom was now concentrated all the vitality of the great 
Army of Northern Virginia, So the army struggled on, heading for Farm- 
ville, where they hoped to recross the Appomattox, and, by burning the 
bridges behind them, place the river once more between them and their 
eager pursuers, 

While the Army of the Potomac thus pressed hard upon the Confederates, 
Ord, with his command from the Army of the James, had, on the evening 
of the 5th, reached Burkesville. Next morning he moved northward to- 
ward Farmville, hoping to head off the enemy there. Approaching this 
place, he sent Reade forward with a couple of regiments and a squadron of 
cavalry. He encountered the head of Lee’s column and charged it vigor- 
ously. His small force was repulsed with heavy loss, he himself being among 
the slain. But this attack delayed the crossing until the remainder of Ord’s 
force came up, whereupon the Confederates intrenched themselves too strong- 
ly to be assailed. During the night they began to cross the river at various 
points, proposing to destroy the bridges behind them. This was delayed an 
hour too long. The last of the stragglers had just got over, and the fuel 
which was to consume the bridges was just lighted, when Barlow’s division 
of the Sixth Corps came up, drove off the Confederate rear-guard, saved the 
highway bridge close by the high railroad bridge, and secured the means of 
crossing the river. The Confederates fell back step by step to positions 
which had been previously selected until toward night, when their whole 
remaining force was seen drawn up in line of battle in a position covering 
the roads, their batteries sweeping a gentle slope of halfa mile in their front. 
Humphreys, keeping Barlow in their front, sent Miles around to attack them 
upon their left. The assault was repelled with heavy loss; and then, under 
cover of night, the Confederates resumed their retreat eastward toward Appo- 
mattox Station, where supplies were awaiting them. They hoped that the 


start thus gained would enable them to reach Lynchburg, a score of miles 


beyond, where they would pass the mountains, and emerge into the great 
Valley of Virginia. Here they might hope for at least a temporary respite 


from pursuit. 


Sheridan, having learned that Ord had failed to cut off the enemy at Farm- 
ville, apprehended that it might be Lee’s purpose to sweep southwestward- 


ly by rapid marches, heading the pursuing columns, and, regaining the Dan- 
ville Road, follow up his original plan of joining Johnston in North Carolina. 


He therefore sent his cavalry in that direction. Reaching Prince Edward 
Court-house and discovering no traces of the enemy, he sent his divisions to 


reconnoitre in various directions to find the whereabouts of Lee’s army. 


Crook, crossing the Appomattox, struck the main body near Farmville, as- 


sailed their trains, was repulsed, and recrossed the river. On the morning 
of the 8th the cavalry was concentrated at Prospect Station. Here Sheridan 


was informed by one of his scouts that at Appomattox Station, twenty-eight 
miles distant, were four trains of cars laden with provisions for Lee’s army. 
The report of this scout, as the event proved, gave shape to the events of 
the two closing days of the campaign. It showed just whither Lee was now 
heading. Instead of aiming at Danville, he was moving straight for Lynch- 
burg. The cavalry were forthwith pushed forward to seize these trains, 
Custer, who was in the advance, reached Appomattox Station at midnight. 
The Confederate van had reached the point just before, and had gone into 
camp. Dashing upon the rear of the trains, Custer cut them off from return- 
ing to Lynchburg, captured them, sent them to the rear, and then, without 
even waiting to reform, burst upon the Confederate force, and drove it pell- 
mell northward toward Appomattox Court-house, capturing, besides the 
trains, twenty-five guns and a park of wagons. Sheridan was little behind. 
He sent back word to Ord and Griffin, who, with their infantry corps, were 
behind, that if they only pressed on there was no escape for the enemy. 
Meanwhile he disposed of his cavalry in such a manner as to cover the roads 
toward Lynchburg, resolving to contest them step by step until the infantry 
could come up. 

The Confederates having, on the evening of the 7th as it seemed, fairly 
shaken off the attack of Humphreys on their rear, pressed forward all that 
night and the next day with renewed hopes. If one from a balloon could 
have overlooked the region lying directly under his eye, he would have seen 
at a glance that the whole issue turned upon the relative speed of the pur- 
suers and pursued for a few hours. Lee’s line of retreat lay along a narrow 
neck of land between the Appomattox and the J. ames, which here ran paral- 
lel at a distance of seven or eight miles. The only avenue of escape was to 
the west, for on the north was the J ames, the bridges over which had all been 
destroyed two months before to prevent the march of Sheridan; on the south 
was the Appomattox, difficult of passage, and covered on its opposite side by 
Ord, Griffin, and Sheridan; eastward, and pressing after in the rear, were 
Humphreys and Wright. For the first few hours of the day the retreating 
army moved slowly along by-paths running through thickets of oak and 
pine. At noon they struck the main road, and then moved rapidly. Every 
hour they appeared to be gaining upon the pursuers, for the noise of a single 
gun could not be heard in their rear. When, as night was falling, the head 
of the column came to Appomattox Station, the rear being but four miles 
behind, they went into camp with a feeling of security to which they had 
long been strangers. The wearied soldiers lay down to rest, while the bands 
played merrily. Just then, like a thunderbolt, Custer’s cavalry burst upon 
them. Orders were hastily given that all the extra artillery should be cut 
down and the commands disbanded. 


Apnrit, 1865. ] THE RETREAT AND SURRENDER OF LEE. 769 


But in the gathering darkness the extent of the peril could only be con- 
jectured. There was certainly a Federal force right in their front; but it 
was apparently only cavalry, through which a way might most likely be 
forced. So, gathering together his army as best he might, Lee made prepar- 
ations to attempt the passage at dawn. Gordon, who had brought up the 
rear, was sent to the front, passing the remnants of the wagon train, around 
which lingered thousands of men who, too weak to carry their arms, had 
flung them away along every mile of the road from Amelia Court-house. 
Karly in the morning Gordon made reconnoissances in his front. He could 
see nothing but a line of dismounted cavalry to oppose his march. At ten 
o’clock his line was ordered to advance. Sheridan had directed his troops 
to fall back slowly, keeping a steady front, until Ord and Griffin, who had 
been marching all night,should come up and form in their rear. Gordon 
pressed on, flushed with what seemed an easy victory, when all at once 
Sheridan’s dismounted cavalry moved to one side, like the withdrawing of a 
curtain, and disclosed a long line of infantry bearing straight down, while at 
the same moment the troopers sprang to saddle, ready to charge upon the 
flank of the unarmed men in the centre of the Confederate column. Had 
that charge been made, the whole Confederate force would have been ridden 
over like stubble. Gordon sent word to Lee in the rear that he was being 
driven back. What was to be done in such a case had already been de- 
cided. Lee mounted his horse and rode back toward the Union lines, while 
Gordon sent a flag of truce to the front, asking for a suspension of hostili- 
ties, for negotiations for surrender were then in progress. 

Sheridan was in no mood for trifling. He had just been assailed; the 
smoke of the guns fired at him had hardly lifted. He had no wish to shed 
more blood; but, before he would order a suspension of an attack, the issue 
of which was patent to all, he must have positive assurance that a surren- 
der was decided upon. Gordon came to the front and gave the required 
assurance. In a few moments officers of high rank upon both sides were 
mingling in friendly concourse, as though for four long years they had not 
confronted each other on a hundred battle-fields, There were men on each 
side who had been cadets together at West Point, and who had since fought 
side by side during the Mexican War, and later in the wearisome operations 
on the wide frontier. Now, bridging over the fatal four years, they could at 
last meet as friends. War has its amenities as well as its hostilities. 

Lee, accompanied by two aids, was riding toward the Federal lines to 
meet Grant, prepared at this supreme moment to give an unconditional sur- 
render of what remained of the remnant of the great army which had so 
long been under his command; for to this issue it had at last come. He 
hoped, indeed, to gain favorable terms, and in this hope he was encouraged 
by what had within a day or two occurred between himself and the com- 
mander of the Federal forces. The surrender of the Confederate Army of 
Northern Virginia had for some days been a foregone conclusion on both 
sides. On the 6th, directly after the disaster at Sailor’s Creek, such of the 
Confederate generals as could come together met at Anderson’s tent, and 
concluded that the end was at hand, and the surrender must soon take place. 
They would take upon themselves the sole responsibility of advising the 
surrender. Pendleton was deputed to see that this opinion was presented 
to Lee; if possible, Longstreet was to be induced to act as intermediary. 
Events following closely after rendered superfluous any direct action upon 
this suggestion. 

On the 7th Grant took the initiative. To Lee he wrote: “The result of 
the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of farther resistance on 
the part of the Army of Northern Virginia,” and so, to shift from himself 
the responsibility of more bloodshed, he asked that Lee should surrender the 
army under his immediate command. Lee replied diplomatically, and in 
phrases which perhaps were meant to bear a double sense. He was not en- 
tirely of the opinion that farther resistance was hopeless; but yet, hoping to 
avoid useless bloodshed, he asked the terms which would be offered to him 
on condition of surrender. Grant, understanding this to be an offer of sur- 
render, replied that peace being his only desire, the sole terms he would in- 
sist upon were that the men surrendered should not again take up arms 
against the government of the United States until properly exchanged; and 
he was ready to arrange with Lee, either personally or by representatives, 
for the definite terms of surrender. Lee’s answer could not well be other 
than a surprise to Grant. He had not intended to propose to surrender, but 
only to ask the terms which Grant would propose. Indeed, “ to be frank,” 
he said, “I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for surrender.” 
Se, : He could not, therefore, meet Grant with a view to surrender his army, but 
Y 24 N would be pleased to meet him to talk over the subject of the restoration of 

bys peace, “which should be the sole object of all.” To understand Lee’s mo- 
\ “ey tive in this reply, it is only necessary to look at the operations of the day. 

‘OD He had flung back the assault upon his rear, and was, to all appearance, 
wii /y } safely on his way toward Lynchburg, and at least temporary safety. This 
| Da y) was by no means the first time in which an attempt had been made to in- 

ss i) INA duce Grant to transcend his authority and undertake to make peace. He, 


# mh 
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“tng, 


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by A A.—Lee’s original design was to move from Amelia Court-house, through 


Burkesville, and thence on to Danville, seventy miles southwestward, where he ex- 
Lynchburg, and thence through the passes of the Blue Mountains into the Valley 


pected to be joined by Johnston. Headed off at Jettersville, he next proposed to go to 
of Virginia. 


and Farmville to Appomattox Court-house.—From near Farmyille the corps of Hum- 
phreys and Wright followed directly after Lee, in the line from that point indicated 


oe Se —" _ 


THE RETREAT AND PURSUIT OF LEE. 


Pye we Se Te 


wht us Oh 


followed by Griffin and Ord, from Jettersville 


f the left column, Ord’s command, along the 
Burkesville, and thence to Farmville. —E E 


JAMES RIVER 
S 
g 
aS 


—-- * 


with Griffin's, Humphreys’s, and Wright’s divisions, to 


A A indicates the line of Lee’s retreat, the two columns from Richmond and Peters- 
burg joining at Chesterfield Court-house.—B B indicates the march of Grant’s right 


Jettersville.—D D shows the route o' 
Southside dr Lynchburg Railroad to 
shows the march of Sheridan's cavalry, 


This plan represents, in a general way, the routes pursued in the retreat and pursuit. 
column, Sheridan's cavalry, 


SOUTH SIDE.R.R. 


“LYNCHBURG 


ooo 


} 


Seale of miles 


Typ 
o  eLD 
ss 


P¢\-\-\\ 
Henan 


Zh 1) 5 | 

if co | /9 ; indeed, knew clearly the limits of his functions. Moreover, if more had been 
\ iw a, Wy ba needed, he had the express order of the President prohibiting him from 
mi ic - ] Wy dealing with the general question of the restoration of peace. So to Lee’s 
hy eH ‘ Mi alls letter Grant responded sharply, but still with a kindly addition which left 
OM, aa the way open for each military commander to do what he properly might. 
2 I have no authority, he said, to treat on the subject of peace, and so the 
% meeting which you propose would do no good; but the terms upon which 
peace can be had are well understood: the South has only to lay down its 

arms. 
So matters rested through the 8th of April and the night following. As 
day dawned on the 9th, raw and gusty, three Confederate generals sat around 


\ 
(| 
\\ 


ss 


lien line 


SS |. |. ee. 


= as 


a — a. 


} 


Apri, 1865. ] 


a camp-fire. They were Lee, dressed in a new uniform just donned, and 
contrasting with the rough garb by which he had long been best known in 
the army ; Longstreet, his arm still in a sling, his old Wilderness wound yet 
unhealed ; and Mahone, perhaps the best of Longstreet’s surviving subordi- 
nates, who had come up from the rear to hold part in the informal council 
there assembled. These three were to decide upon what could be and must 
be done. Mahone, being junior officer, according to army rules was to speak 
first. His own division, he said, and one or two others, were able to fight; 
the rest of the army was so worn out as to be fit only for surrender. Long- 
street corroborated this statement; yet both declared that the Army of 
Northern Virginia should surrender only upon honorable terms. Lee then, 
for the first time, imparted to his subordinates the substance of what had 
passed between himself and Grant. The terms proposed were honorable ; 
but now, after two days’ rejection, 1t was not certain that they would be con- 
ceded. Then—for some hours had passed in deliberation—came the mes- 
sage from Gordon that he was overmatched and falling back. The crisis 
had come and gone. Surrender on the best terms that could be obtained 
was all that was left. ‘General Longstreet,” said Lee, ‘I leave you in charge 
here; Lam going to hold a conference with General Grant.” How that con- 
ference must result was no longer a matter of doubt. It must be surrender 
at all events, no matter upon what terms, for the remnant of the Confeder- 
ate army, outnumbered, worn out, and surrounded, could neither fight nor 
fly. Its only alternative was to die or surrender. And so Gordon in front 
was warranted in assuring Sheridan that the surrender was now a foregone 
conclusion. The last shot fired by the Army of Northern Virginia was by 
the Richmond Howitzers, who had fired the first gun at Bethel just four 
years before, lacking a month and a day. 

Lee rode to that part of the Union line where he expected to find Grant. 
Here he was met by Grant’s note declining an interview to treat of the gen- 
eral question of peace. Grant had gone to meet Sheridan. Lee wrote a 
hasty note: “I received your note on the picket-line, whither I had come 
to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your 
proposition of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. I 
now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your 
letter of yesterday for that purpose.” ‘Two hours passed, and noon came 
before this request reached Grant. He returned a courteous reply, explain- 
ing the delay, and expressing his readiness to meet Lee at any point which 
he should select. 

Appomattox Court-house, a hamlet of a half score houses, which had 
now become neutral ground, was the place chosen. The best house, that 
of Mr. McLean, was fixed upon for the interview. The owner was natu- 
rally astounded at the honor thus suddenly thrust upon him. The two 
great commanders, after due introduction, seated themselves at a little table 
in his quiet parlor to settle what each knew was in effect to end the war. 
The two men had certainly seen each other before, for both had served 
under Scott almost a score of years before at the capture of Mexico. Most 
likely Grant remembered Lee, but Lee could hardly be expected to remem- 
ber Grant. The brilliant Virginian, the favorite of the commander, and 
already looked upon as the rising man of the army, could hardly be ex- 
pected to have taken special note of a certain second lieutenant Grant, act- 
ing as regimental quartermaster, even though he was breveted first lieu- 
tenant for ‘‘ meritorious services” at Molino del Rey; and a few days after- 
ward, at Chapultepec, as was duly reported by General Worth and Colonel 
Garland, “acquitted himself most nobly” under the observation of his regi- 
mental, brigade, and division commanders. 

The afternoon was wearing away when the interview began. There was 
really little to be said, and both men had the faculty of not spending words 
upon trifles. Grant’s original proposition embraced all the terms that Lee 
could ask. The question was, were these still open to acceptance. Grant 
still offered them; Lee said they were lenient, and he would leave to Grant 
to express them in form. Lee asked a few explanations respecting certain 
phrases used in the formal agreement. Both commanders understood them 
alike. The purport of the whole was that this Confederate army surren- 
dered, giving up all public property, the officers retaining their side-arms, 
baggage, and their own horses. Officers were to give their personal paroles 
not to take up arms against the government of the United States until prop- 
erly exchanged, and also to give a like parole for the men under their com- 
mand. This being done, every officer and man might return to his home, 
“not to be disturbed by the United States authority so long as they ob- 
serve their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.” Terms 
so magnanimous were never before offered and accepted. So clearly were 
they defined, that never, amid all the complications that have ensued, has 
there been any question as to their import, or any serious dispute as to the 
exact fulfillment of the terms of surrender." 


1 The following—mere formal terms of courtesy being omitted—is the text of the correspondence 
between Grant and Lee: 

I. Grant To Lux, April7. ‘*The result of the last week must convince you of the hopeless- 
ness of farther resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel 
that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any farther effusion 
of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army known as 
the Army of Northern Virginia.” 

Il. Ler ro Grant, April7. ‘‘I have received your note of this date. Though not entertain- 
ing the opinion you express on the hopelessness of farther resistance on the part of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before 
considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.” 

I. Grant to Ler, April 8. ‘Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of same date, asking 
the conditions on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just re- 
ceived. In reply I would say, that peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would 
insist upon, namely, That the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms 
again against the government of the United States until properly exchanged. I will meet you, or 
will designate officers to meet any officers you may name for the same purpose at any point agree- 
able to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army 
x Northern Virginia will be received.” 

iV. Lee ro Grant, April 8. ‘I received at a late hour your note of to-day. In mine of yes- 


THE RETREAT AND SURRENDER OF LEE. 771 


The momentous interview which virtually closed the war lasted hardly 
an hour, for it wanted but ten minutes of noon when Grant, miles away, 
received the letter of Lee asking for a meeting, and at half past three the 
Confederate commander rode quietly back to his quarters. There was no 
need of inquiring what had been done. All saw at a glance that the sur- 
render had been made. Officers and men rushed up to bid farewell to their 
leader. He received their greeting quietly. “We have fought through 
the war together,” he said, “and I have done the best I could for you.” 
The next day he issued a formal address to his army, and then rode off to- 
ward Richmond. On the afternoon of the 12th, attended by half a dozen 
of his staff, he rode into the smoking city which he had so long and stoutly 
defended. Entering his home, he disappeared from the history of the war, 
of which his surrender had, indeed, been the actual conclusion, though nom- 
inally it lasted a few weeks longer. 

The surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia was virtually perform- 
ed by the two men who sat quietly together in McLean’s parlor at Appo- 
mattox Court-house. All that remained to be done was performed as qui- 
etly. There were to be none of the formal ceremonies heretofore practiced 


terday I did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the 
terms of your proposition. ‘To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the 
surrender of the army; but as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of all, I desire to 
know whether your proposals would lead to that end. I can not, therefore, meet you with a view 
to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia; but, as far as your proposal may affect the Confeder- 
ate States forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to 
meet you at 10 A.M. to-morrow, on the old stage road to Richmond, between the picket-lines of the 
two armies.” 

V. Grant To Len, April 9, ‘Your note of yesterday is received. I have no authority to treat 
on the subject of peace; the meeting proposed for 10 A.M. to-day could lead to no good. I will 
state, however, general, that I am equally anxious for peace with yourself, and the whole North en- 
tertains the same feeling. ‘The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By the 
South laying down their arms they will hasten that most desirable event, and save thousands of 
human lives, and hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed. Seriously hoping that all our 
difficulties may be settled without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself, etc.” 

VI. Ler to Grant, April9. ‘‘T received your note this morning on the picket-line, whither I 
had come to meet you, and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yes- 
terday with reference to the surrender of this army. I now ask an interview in accordance with 
the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.” 

VII. Grant to Len, April 9. ‘‘ Your note of this date is but this moment, 11 50 A.M., re- 
ceived. In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburg Road to the 
Farmville and Lynchburg Road, I am at this writing about four miles west of Walter’s Church, 
and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. Notice sent to me on this road 
where you wish the interview to take place will meet me.” 

VIII. Grant to Lex, April9, ‘‘In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 
8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia upon the follow- 
ing terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given 
to me, the other tc be retained by such officers as you may designate. The officers to give their in- 
dividual paroles not to take up arms against the government of the United States until properly ex- 
changed, and each company or regimental officer to sign a like parole for the men of their com- 
mands. ‘The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the 
officers appointed by me to receive them. ‘This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor 
their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their 
homes, not to be disturbed by the United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and 
the laws where they may reside.” 

IX. Ler to Grant, April9. ‘‘I received your letter of this date, containing the terms of the 
surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As they are substantially the 
same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th instant, they are accepted. I will proceed to des- 
ignate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect.” 

The last two documents, though put in the form of letters, the former dated at ‘‘ Appomattox 
Court-house,” the latter at the ‘* Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia,” were drawn up and 
signed by Grant and Lee at their meeting at McLean’s residence, near the Court-house. 

The paroles were in the following form: 

‘¢ We, the undersigned, prisoners of war ‘belonging to the Army of Northern Virginia, having 
been this day surrendered by General R. A. Lee, commnding the said army, to Lieutenant General 
Grant, commanding the armies of the United States [in the officers’ parole for the men the read- 
ing was, I, the undersigned, commanding , do, for the within-named prisoners of war this day 
surrendered, etc., give my solemn parole of honor that the within-named shall not], will not here- 
after serve in the armies of the Confederate States, or in any military capacity whatever [in parole 
for privates, In military or any capacity whatever] against the United States of America, or render 
aid to the enemies of the latter, until properly exchanged in such manner as shall be mutually ap- 
proved by the respective authorities.” 

This parole was countersigned by the provost-marshal: ‘‘ The above officer or officers [in the 
parole for privates, the within-named] will not be disturbed by the United States authorities so 
long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside.” 

Lee’s formal parting address to his army, issued on the 10th, the day following the surrender, 
was as follows : 

‘* After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army 
of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need 
not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that 
I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and devotion could 
accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuation 
of the contest, I have determined to ayoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services haye en- 
deared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to 
their homes, and remain there until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that pro- 
ceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly pray that a merciful 
God will extend to you His blessing and protection. With an unceasing admiration of your con- 


stancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous con- 
sideration of myself, I bid you an affectionate farewell.” 


Yue Last sHor, 


4 


~T 
~T 
bo 


EDMUND KUFFIN. 


when an army laid down its arms—the vanquished general courteously 
delivering his sword to the victor, to be as courteously returned to him. 
Neither Lee nor Grant even appeared on the scene. Gibbon’s infantry and 
McKenzie’s cavalry, of Ord’s command, with the Fifth Corps—the victors 
of Five Forks, now under Griffin—remained at Appomattox Court-house to 
take charge of the surrendered property. The remainder of the army 
marched back to Burkesville, for it seemed that one more blow might have 
to be struck, whereby Johnston’s army should share the fate of that of Lee. 
Sheridan with his cavalry, and an infantry corps, Wright’s being chosen, 
was to march to aid Sherman. They had fairly started on the way when 
tidings came that Johnston had surrendered to Sherman. 

Meanwhile the commissioners appointed by Grant and Lee had been 
busily at work making out the list of prisoners to be paroled. Their work 
was completed on the 11th, and on the next day the Confederate Army of 
Northern Virginia had its last formal parade. It marched to the place ap- 
pointed, stacked its arms, and piled up its accoutrements. The list of pa- 
roled prisoners contained 27,805 names, but of these scarcely 8000 had arms 
in their hands. Thirty cannon and three hundred and fifty wagons were 
turned over. ‘These comprised all the material and munitions left to this 
Confederate army. A week before it had set out on its retreat with fully 
two hundred cannon and more than a thousand wagons, bearing ammuni- 
tion and material, all save food, sufficient for an army of 100,000 men. 

The military history of the Confederacy covers exactly four years. On 
the 9th of April, 1861, the Confederate commissioners, in view of the pro- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[APRIL, 1865, 


posed provisioning of Fort Sumter, formally announced to the government 
of the United States that this could not be accomplished without the effu- 
sion of blood; and that they, “in behalf of their government and their peo- 
ple, accept the gage of battle thus thrown down to them.”! On the 9th of 
April, 1865, Lee signed the surrender to Grant. On the 12th of April, 
1861, fire was opened upon Fort Sumter by Edmund Ruffin, a Virginian 
of threescore and ten, who asked permission thus to open the war. On the 
12th of April, 1865—just four years to a day—the army of Northern Vir- 
ginia laid down its arms and dispersed, thereby in effect formally closing 
the war. .A few weeks later Ruffin committed suicide, leaving behind him 
a memorandum that he preferred to die rather than to live under the gov- 
ernment of the United States, 

There was to be one more formal review of Confederates in Virginia. For 
two years there had been a band of partisans under Mosby, operating in 
Northeastern Virginia. It consisted at the outset of only a few score men, 
but gradually accumulated to a considerable force. They received no pay, 
but were allowed to keep all the plunder which they could secure, and this 
formed an inducement for many reckless individuals to join the band. They 
were kept in subjection by their leader by the understanding that for any 
failure in obedience they would be sent to the regular army, which was “ re- 
garded in the light ofa Botany Bay.” Even after the complete annihilation 
of Early’s command, they managed to maintain themselves in the valley east 
of the Blue Ridge. Their depredations became so annoying that one of the 
last acts of Sheridan in the Department of Washington was to order the 
complete devastation of the region in which they operated. All forage and 
subsistence was to be destroyed, all barns and mills burnt, and all stock driy- 
en off; no buildings, however, were to be burnt, and no personal violence 
offered to citizens. “The ultimate result of the system of guerrilla warfare,” 
said Sheridan, “is the total destruction of all private rights in the country 
occupied by such parties. This destruction may as well commence at once, 
and the responsibility of it must rest upon the authorities at Richmond, who 
have acknowledged the legitimacy of guerrilla bands.”* This band, at the 
time of Lee’s surrender, numbered about 600 men, all well mounted. On 
the 15th of April, having been informed of the surrender of Lee, Mosby 
wrote to Hancock, then commanding this department, that, while he thought 
there had not arisen any emergency which would justify the surrender of 
his men, he was yet indisposed “to cause the useless effusion of blood, or to 
inflict on a war-worn population any unnecessary distress.” He therefore 
proposed an armistice until he could communicate with his own authorities, 
and obtain sufficient information to determine his farther action. Hancock 
replied that he might have reasonable time, but that he could not commu- 
nicate with Lee, who was no longer in command. Grant, having been com- 
municated with, directed Hancock: ‘You may receive all rebel officers and 
soldiers who surrender to you on exactly the same terms that were given to 
General Lee, except have it distinctly understood that all who claim homes 
in states that never passed ordinances of secession have forfeited them, and 
can only return on compliance with the amnesty proclamation. Maryland, 
Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri are such states. They may return to 
West Virginia on their parole.” On the 21st of April Mosby assembled his 
band for their last review. ‘“TI have,” he said, ‘summoned you together 
for the last time. The vision that we cherished of a free and independent 
country has vanished, and that country is now the spoil of the conqueror. 
I disband your organization in preference to surrendering to our enemies, 
I am no longer your commander.’” 


$=, 


° November 27, 1864. 


1 Ante, p. 52. * Scott’s Partisan Life with Mosby, 395. 
° Partisan Life with Mosby, 476, 


* Sheridan’s Report, 47. 


Hi LAST REVIEW. 


— 


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SS ee 


Apnut, 1865.] JOHNSTON'S 


CHAPTER LVIIL 
JOHNSTON’S SURRENDER. 


Sherman’s Preparations for an advance on Raleigh.—Contemporaneous Events.—Change of Plan 
after the Capture of Richmond.—Johnston retreats Westward.—Sherman enters Raleigh. —John- 
ston puzzled.—He inquires of Sherman as to Terms of Surrender.—The Reply.—Sherman’s 
Letters to Grant.—Conference with Johnston, April 17th.—The Latter explains his Situation. 
—He offers, on favorable Terms, to surrender all the remaining Confederate Armies.—Confer- 
ence renewed on the 18th.—Semi-political Nature of the Conversation.—Breckinridge admitted 
to the Conference.—Reagan’s Memorandum ruled out.—Sherman pens one of his own.—‘‘ Glit- 
tering Generalities.”—Substance of the Memorandum.—Sherman’s Position in the Matter,— 
Letters to Washington.—The Cabinet Meeting.—Rejection of the Memorandum.,—Grant goes 
to Morehead City.—His Consideration for Sherman.—Johnston’s Surrender.—Secretary Stan- 
ton’s Telegrams.—Injustice to Sherman.—Halleck’s Interference.—Sherman’s Indignation,— 
Surrender of Taylor and Kirby Smith.—The End of the War. 


T the close of March, 1865, Sherman’s army was being reorganized at 
Goldsborough, and awaiting the repair of railroads and the accumula- 
tion of supplies and clothing preliminary to an advance against General 
Johnston, who then covered Raleigh with an army of over 40,000 men. 
The Twenty-third and Tenth corps were united under the designation of 
the Army of the Ohio. Slocum’s command was now styled the Army of 
Georgia, while Howard’s retained its former title. Wilson’s and Stone- 
man’s expeditions were in full and successful operation, and General Canby 
was investing the defenses of Mobile. 

Sherman’s preparations could not be completed before the 10th of April. 
In the mean time Mobile had fallen; Selma had been occupied by Wilson, 
who was fast approaching Montgomery ; Stoneman had broken up the rail- 
road west of Lynchburg, and had pushed down to the Catawba River, in 
North Carolina, destroying the railroad through Greensborough and Salis- 
bury; Richmond and Petersburg had been abandoned, and the Confederate 
Army of Northern Virginia had been routed and captured. 

Tidings of the battles about Petersburg reached Sherman on the 6th. Up 
to this time Sherman’s plan was to make a feint on Raleigh, cross the Roan- 
oke, and, securing by the Chowan River communication with Norfolk as a 
base of supplies, to strike for Burkesville, interposing between Johnston and 
Lee. But the Army of the Potomac, under General Grant’s leadership, had 
eliminated Lee’s army from the problem to be solved. This led General 
Sherman to change his plan. On the 5th Grant warned him that Lee would 
attempt to reach Danville, and urged an immediate movement against John- 
ston. ‘ Rebel armies now,” he writes, “‘ are the only strategic points to strike 
at.” Instead of making a feint on Raleigh, Sherman, on the 11th, made a 
real movement on that place. Hearing of Lee’s surrender in the mean time, 
Johnston had retreated westward, and on the morning of the 13th Sher- 
man’s army entered the capital of North Carolina. 

Johnston had but a single line of retreat left—that by Greensborough and 
Charlotte. Of course it was folly for him to venture a battle with Sherman. 
He could not retreat as an organized army. He had therefore to choose be- 
tween the surrender and the disbandment of his forces. The consequence 
of the latter step would be to let loose upon the citizens of North Carolina 
40,000 men with arms in their hands, who would inaugurate a reign of ter- 
ror. Johnston looked upon farther opposition as criminal. But how to 
dispose of his army was a perplexing problem. Lee’s army had been de- 
feated on the field of battle—in effect, it had been actually surrounded and 
captured, and in this case no such considerations had been involved as now 
presented themselves to Johnston. ‘To the army of the latter escape was 
possible by disorganization; it had not been defeated or surrounded. The 
same considerations applied with equal force to Dick Taylor’s and Kirby 
Smith’s armies. As soon as it was fully realized that farther resistance was 
hopeless, immediate disorganization would follow, and the Confederate ar- 
mies would resolve themselves into armed bands of lawless, irresponsible 
marauders, scattered over the entire South, unless some motive was offered 
sufficient to hold these armies until they could be paroled and disarmed. 

Sherman had taken measures to cut off Johnston’s retreat southward 
when, on the 14th, he received by flag of truce a letter from the Confederate 
commander, asking an armistice, and information as to the best terms on 
which he would be permitted to surrender his army. Sherman replied that 
he was willing to confer with him as to the terms of surrender, and added : 
“That a basis of action may be had, I undertake to abide by the same terms 
and conditions entered into by Generals Grant and Lee at Appomattox 
Céurt-house, Virginia, on the 9th instant.” Arrangements were made for a 
conference on the 17th. 

Up to this time Sherman had entertained no other terms of surrender than 
those proposed by Grant in the case of Lee’s army. After Lee’s surrender, 
he wrote to the lientenant general: ‘The terms you have given Lee are 
magnanimous and liberal. Should Johnston follow Lee’s example, I shall, 
of course, grant the same.” The very day after he had agreed to meet and 
confer with Johnston, he again wrote: “TI will grant the same terms as Gen- 
eral Grant gave General Lee, and be careful not to complicate any points of 
civil policy.” 

During the interval between the first correspondence between Sherman 
and Johnston and their meeting on the 17th, no movement was made by 
either army.! At noon of the day appointed, the two generals met at a 
house five miles from Durham Station under a flag of truce. They had nev- 
er met before in person, though for two years they confronted each other on 


1 T was both willing and anxious thus to consume a few days, as it would enable Colonel 
Wright to finish our railroad to Raleigh. Two bridges had to be built, and 12 miles of new road 
made. We had no iron except by taking up that on the branch from Goldsborough to Weldon. 
Instead of losing time, I gained in every way, for every hour of delay possible was required to re- 
construct the railroad to our rear, and improve the condition of our wagon roads to the front, so 
desirable in case the negotiations failed, and we be forced to make the race of near 200 miles to 
head off or catch Johnston, then retreating toward Charlotte.” —Sherman’s Report. 


9K 


SURRENDER, 773 
many battle-fields. The interview, says Sherman, was frank and soldier-like. 
Johnston freely acknowledged that the war was at an end, and that every 
sacrifice of life after Lee’s surrender was simply murder. He admitted that 
the terms conceded to Lee were magnanimous. He had no right to ask 
any better conditions for himself. But the situation of his army was pecul. 
iar. ‘The sudden revelation of the hopelessness of farther resistance was 
likely to operate on the fears and anxieties of his soldiers. The conse- 
quence would be to relax military restraint. He therefore asked that some 
general concessions might be made which would enable him to maintain his 
control over his troops until they could be got back to the neighborhood of 
their homes. He suggested, also, that the proposition agreed upon should 
extend to all the Confederate armies then existing. Sherman asked John- 
ston what authority he had as to the armies beyond his own command. 
Johnston admitted he had no such power, but thought he could obtain it. 
He did not know where Davis was, but he could find Breckinridge—the 
Confederate Secretary of War—whose orders would be every where respect- 
ed. It.was then agreed to postpone the farther consideration of the subject 
till noon on the next day. 

Sherman returned to Raleigh and conferred with his general officers, every 
one of whom pronounced in favor of a conclusion of the war upon terms 
which seemed so favorable, and which involved no sacrifice of the national 
honor. 

The conference with Johnston was renewed on the 18th. The territory 
within the immediate command of Johnston comprised the states of North 
and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He was now able to satisfy Sher- 
man of his power to disband also the armies in Alabama, Mississippi, Loui- 
siana, and Texas. He then asked Sherman what he was willing to do. 
Sherman replied that he could only deal with belligerents—that no military 
man could go beyond that. He was willing to make terms for the Confed- 
erate soldiers in accordance with President Lincoln’s amnesty proclamation ; 
that is, all of the rank of colonel and under should have pardon upon con- 
dition of taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. He was also 
willing to go farther than this—he would grant what had been conceded to 
Lee’s army, that every officer and soldier who would return home, observe 
his parole and obey the laws, should be free from disturbance by United 
States authority. But Johnston did not seem to be quite satisfied. He ex- 
pressed great solicitude lest the Southern States should be dismembered, 
and denied representation in Congress or any separate political existence ; 
also, lest the absolute disarming of his men might leave the South power- 
less, and exposed to the depredations of assassins and robbers. Sherman 
listened with great courtesy to all this, which both commanders equally 
well knew lay outside the scope of a military surrender. In reply, he sim- 
ply expressed his own personal assurance that if the Southern people sub- 
mitted to the lawful authority of the nation, as defined by the Constitution, 
the courts, and the authorities of the United States, supported by the courts, 
there would be no occasion for solicitude; they would ‘regain their position 
as citizens of the United States, free and equal in all respects.” 

While the conversation was thus drifting off from the main question, 
Johnston suggested that Breckinridge be allowed to come in. Sherman 
was never fond of politicians, and had very good reasons for not being par- 
tial to this one in particular. He reminded Johnston that it had been agreed 
that the negotiation must be confined to belligerents. Johnston replied that 
he understood that perfectly. ‘‘ But,” said he, ‘ Breckinridge, whom you do 
not know, save by public rumor, as the secretary of state, is, in fact, a major 
general. Have you any objection to his being present as a major general ?” 
Sherman then consented, and Breckinridge came in; and though it was un- 
derstood that he was only present as a part of Johnston’s personal staff, he 
joined in the conversation. Soon a courier entered and handed Johnston a 
package of papers, over which he and Breckinridge held a conversation, and 
then put the papers in their pockets. One of these was a memorandum, 
written, as Johnston told Sherman, by the Confederate Post-master General 
Reagan. It was preceded by a preamble, and concluded with some general 
terms. Sherman read it, and, being the court in this case, ruled it out. 

The conversation then became general, touching upon slavery, which was 
acknowledged “to be as dead as any thing can be,” and upon reconstruction. 
Then it occurred to General Sherman—possibly it may have been suggested 
by Reagan’s document—to write out a memorandum consisting of some gen- 
eral propositions, meaning little or much, according to the construction of 
parties, and send them to Washington for the assent or rejection of the goy- 
ernment. No delay would result from this, as he would be obliged to com- 
municate with his government in any case, in order to obtain authority by 
which he could receive the surrender of armies beyond the limits of his 
proper department. 

These propositions Sherman himself calls “ glittering generalities.” The 
following is the substance of the memorandum : 

The contending armies were to remain as they then were, but the armis- 
tice would cease forty-eight hours after a notice to that effect should be 
given by either commander to the other. All the Confederate armies were 
to be disbanded and conducted to their several state capitals, where their 
arms were to be deposited in the state arsenal, subject to the control of the 
general government. There, also, each officer and man was to be paroled. 
The several state governments of the South were to be recognized by the 
President on their officers and Legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the 
Constitution of the United States. The people of these states were to be 
guaranteed their political rights and franchise, and their rights of person and 
property, as defined by federal and state Constitutions. They were not to 
be disturbed so long as they lived peaceably and obeyed the laws. The 

| war was to cease, and a general amnesty to be granted, on condition of tno 


774 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


disbandment and disarmament of the Confederate armies, and the resump- 
tion by the soldiers of their peaceful pursuits, 

This memorandum was signed by Generals Johnston and Sherman, who, 
recognizing their want of authority to carry its terms into effect, pledged 
themselves to promptly obtain such authority, and to endeavor to carry out 
the programme indicated.? 

So far as Sherman allowed himself to take a political view of the crisis 
then upon the nation, this memorandum doubtless expressed, though some- 
what crudely, his real sentiments. He said, some time afterward, “I stand 
by the memorandum.” He put his signature to the document meaning 
thereby to give to its propositions all the sanction he could. He had hastily 
penned the memorandum. The act was wholly due to the suggestion of a 
moment; it had not been the subject of an hour’s deliberation. From the 
beginning of the conference he had steadily resisted the encroachment of 
politics upon the negotiation for surrender. He would have persisted in 
this resistance if Johnston’s army alone had been concerned. But Johnston 
had made a proposition for the surrender of all the Confederate armies from 
the Roanoke to the Rio Grande. This proposition Sherman would have 
rejected at once if it had not been backed by authority which seemed to him 
sufficient, or if it could possibly have been intended as a ruse on the part of 
the enemy to gain time. He had neither motive for its rejection. He was 
confident that the authority supporting the proposition would be respected 
by every Confederate soldier, and he was equally confident of its sincerity. 
It was, moreover, a proposition which, from its very terms, was not made to 
him, but through him to the United States government. Its rejection by 
him without reference to the government, and without a sufficient military 
motive, would have been as clearly a usurpation of authority as its accept- 
ance would have been without such reference. 

But why not submit the proposition to the government in the simplest 
terms and unaccompanied by the memorandum? Simply because the prop- 
osition was not thus submitted to him. Johnston had admitted that the 
terms granted to Lee’s army were sufficiently magnanimous, but had begged 
that some official assurance might be given by the general government in 
regard to its future treatment of Southern citizens. Some general conces- 
sions were asked which might prevent the Confederate soldiers from resort- 
ing to a species of guerrilla warfare, from which the people of the South 
must suffer heavily. It must be remembered, also, that from Kentucky al- 
most to Virginia, General Sherman was the military commander of the 
South, and that from the first the regulation of civil affairs had, in a large 
measure, been committed to military commanders within their several de- 
partments. The consideration of civil affairs—the regulation of trade, of 
the affairs of freedmen, of municipal government—was a part of the mani- 
fold duties of department commanders. On two previous occasions—in a 
letter to the mayor of Atlanta, and subsequently in a communication ad- 
dressed to a citizen of Savannah—General Sherman had expressed his sen- 
timents as to the policy which would be adopted by the government upon 
the return of the South to its allegiance. “Both these letters,” says Sher- 
man, “asserted my belief that, according to Mr. Lincoln’s proclamations and 
messages, when the people of the South had laid down their arms and sub- 
mitted to the lawful power of the United States, ipso facto, the war was over 
nas to them; and furthermore, that if any state in rebellion would conform 
to the Constitution of the United States, ‘cease war,’ elect senators and rep- 
resentatives to Congress, if admitted (of which each house of Congress alone 
is the judge), that state becomes instanter as much in the Union as New 
York or Ohio. Nor was I rebuked for these expressions, though it was 
universally known and commented on at the time. And again, Mr.Stanton 
in person, at Savannah, speaking of the terrific expense of the war, and dif- 
ficulty of realizing the money necessary for the daily wants of the govern- 
ment, impressed me most forcibly with the necessity of bringing the war to 
a close as soon as possible for financial reasons.” 

Some memorandum must accompany the submission of Johnston’s propo- 
sition, in order that the government might understand what concessions 
were expected: once before the government, this basis might be modified, 
Bc eee eee 

’ The following is a copy of the memorandum in full: 


“ Memorandum, or Basis of Agreement, made this, the 18th day of April, A. D. 1865, near Dur- 
ham’s Station, in the State of North Carolina, by and between General Joseph E.. Johnston, com- 
manding the Confederate Army, and Major General W. T. Sherman, commanding the Army of 
the United States, both present. 


“*T. ‘The contending armies now in the field to maintain the status quo until notice is given by 
the commanding general of any one to his opponent, and reasonable time, say forty-eight hours, 
allowed. 

“IL. The Confederate armies now in existence to be disbanded and conducted to their several 
state capitals, there to deposit their arms and public property in the state arsenal; and each offi- 
cer and man to execute and file an agreement to cease from acts of war, and to abide the action of 
both state and federal authorities. The number of arms and munitions of war to be reported to 
the chief of ordnance at Washington City, subject to the future action of the Congress of the United 
States, and in the mean time to be used solely to maintain peace and order within the borders of 
the states respectively. 

*‘III. The recognition by the executive of the United States of the several state governments, 
on their officers and Legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States; 
and where conflicting state governments have resulted from the war, the legitimacy of all shall be 
submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States, 

“IV. The re-establishment of all federal courts in the several States, with powers as defined by 
the Constitution and laws of Congress. 

‘*“V. The people and inhabitants of all states to be guaranteed, so far as the executive can, their 
political rights and franchise, as well as their rights of person and property, as defined by the Con- 
stitution of the United States and of the states respectively. 

“VI. The executive authority or government of the United States not to disturb any of the 
people by reason of the late war, so long as they live in peace and quiet, and abstain from acts of 
armed hostility, and obey the laws in existence at the place of their residence. 

‘VII. In general terms, it is announced that the war is to cease ; a general amnesty, so far as 
the executive of the United States can command, on condition of the disbandment of the Confed- 
erate armies, the distribution of arms, and the resumption of peaceful pursuits by officers and men 
hitherto composing said armies, 

“‘Not being fully empowered by our respective principals to fulfill these terms, we individually 


and officially pledge ourselves to promptly obtain authority, and will endeavor to carry out the 
above programme,” 


[APRIL, 1866. 


entirely changed, or rejected altogether, There was nothing final, nothing 
in the nature of an ultimatum about the memorandum. 

In the midst of the negotiations with Johnston, Sherman had heard of the 
murder of the President, but saw in that event no reason to modify these 
negotiations. In that respect it probably had no more influence over him 
than did the information received from General Halleck that a man by the 
name of Clark had been detailed for his own assassination. 

Major Hitchcock, an officer on Sherman’s staff, proceeded to Washington 
to lay the memorandum before President Johnson. No moment could have 
been more unfavorable for the consideration of concessions to be granted to 
rebels than that which witnessed Major Hitchcock’s arrival at Washington. 
The country was buried in a sea of sorrow—a sea which, while it moaned 
in hopeless regret for one lost, whose need was now felt more than ever be- 
fore, boiled also with indignation against the spirit of treason which had im- 
pelled the assassin’s blow. It was, perhaps, too much to be expected of our 
poor human nature that President Johnson and his cabinet, meeting under 
these circumstances, would consider fairly and calmly the propositions sub- 
mitted by Sherman. The document was read, and every word was listened 
to very much as if it had been a proclamation of pardon to Booth and his 
fellow-conspirators. Sherman, the scourge, with the fire and the sword, was 
the man for that moment, not Sherman, the liberal-minded soldier, who dis- 
dained to strike a fallen foe. No one seemed able to preserve calmness save 
Lieutenant General Grant, who was present at the meeting, and who, while 
he disapproved of the propositions submitted, was not willing to denounce 
his brother commander. 

General Grant offered to go in person to Raleigh, and notify Sherman of 
the disapproval of the memorandum by the government. He arrived at 


Morehead City on the evening of the 23d, and from that point communica- 


ted with General Sherman. The latter gave Johnston notice of the close 
of the armistice, informed him of the fate of their agreement, and demanded 
the surrender of his army on the same terms which had been granted to 
General Lee. On the 26th Johnston complied with this demand.?_ So great 
confidence had General Grant in Sherman’s ability to manage his own com- 
mand, that, during these final negotiations, Johnston was not aware of his 
presence at Raleigh. 

a a me 


* The following letters were written by General Sherman on the 18th to Washington—the first 
to accompany the memorandum, and the second haying reference to President Lincoln’s assassin- 
ation : 

No. 1. 


‘Headquarters Middle Department of the Mississippi, in the Field, Raleigh, N. C., April 18, 1865. 
“To Lieutenant General U. 8. Grant, or Major General HAx.eck, Washington, D. C.: 


‘* GENERAL,—I inclose herewith a copy of an agreement made this day between General Joseph 
E. Johnston and myself, which, if approved by the President of the United States, will produce peace 
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. Mr. Breckinridge was present at the conference in the ca- 
pacity of a major general, and satisfied me of the ability of General Johnston to carry out to the 
full extent the terms of this agreement; and if you will get the President to simply indorse the 
copy, and commission me to carry out the terms, I will follow them to the conclusion. You will 
observe that it is an absolute submission of the enemy to the lawful authorities of the United States, 
and disperses his armies absolutely ; and the point to which I attach most importance is, that the 
disposition and dispersement of the armies is done in such a manner as to prevent them breaking 
up into a guerrilla crew. On the other hand, we can retain just as much of an army as we please. 
I agree to the mode and manner of the surrender of armies set forth, as it gives the states the 
means of suppressing guerrillas, which we could not expect them to do if we strip them of all 
arms. 

‘Both Generals Johnston and Breckinridge admitted that slavery was dead, and I could not in- 
sist on embracing it in such a paper, because it can be made with the states in detail. I know that 
all the men of substance South sincerely want peace, and I do not believe they will resort to war 
again during this century. I have no doubt but that they will in the future be perfectly subordi- 
nate to the laws of the United States. The moment my action in this matter is approved, I can 
spare five corps, and will ask for and leave General Schofield here with the Tenth Corps, and go 
myself with the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-third Corps, via 
Burkesyille and Gordonsville, to Frederick or Hagerstown, there to be paid and mustered out. 

‘* The question of finance is now the chief one, and every soldier and officer not needed ought to 
go home at once. I would like to be able to begin the march north by May Ist. 

‘I urge on the part of the President speedy action, as it is important to get the Confederate 
armies to their homes, as well as our own. I am, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

**W. T. SHERMAN, Major General Commanding.” 


No. 2. 
‘* Headquarters Military Department of the Mississippi, in the Field, Raleigh, N. C., Apuil 18, 1865. 
“* General H. W. HaLieck, Chief of Staff, Washington, D.C. : 

‘‘GENERAL,—I received your dispatch describing the man Clark detailed to assassinate me. 
He had better be in a hurry or he will be too late. The news of Mr. Lincoln’s death produced a 
most intense effect on our troops. At first I feared it would lead to excesses, but now it has soft- 
ened down, and can easily be quieted. None evince more feeling than General J: ohnston, who ad- 
mitted that the act was calculated to stain his cause with a dark hue; and he contended that the 
loss was most severe on the South, who had begun to realize that Mr. Lincoln was the best friend 
the South had. 

“*T can not believe that even Mr. Davis was privy to the diabolical plot, but think it the emana- 
tion of a lot of young men of the South, who are very devils. I want to throw upon the South the 
care of this class of men, who will soon be as obnoxious to their industrious class as to us. 

‘* Had I pushed Johnston’s army to an extremity, it would have dispersed and done infinite mis- 
chief. Johnston informed me that General Stoneman had been at Salisbury, and was now about 
Statesville. I have sent him orders to come to me. 

“General Johnston also informed me that General Wilson was at Columbus, Ga., and he wanted 
me to arrest his progress. I leave that to you. Indeed, if the President sanctions my agreement 
with Johnston, our interest is to cease all destruction. Please give all orders necessary, according 
to the views the executive may take, and inform him, if possible, not to vary the terms at all, for 
I have considered every thing, and believe that the Confederate armies are dispersed. We can ad- 
just all else fairly and well. I am yours, etc., 

““W.'T. Suerman, Major General Commanding.” 


* “Terms of a Military Convention entered into this twenty-sixth (26th) day of April, 1865, at 
Bennett's House, near Durham's Station, North Carolina, between General Joseph E. Johnston, 
commanding the Confederate Army, and Major General W. T. Sherman, commanding the United 
States Army in North Carolina. 


“* All acts of war on the part of the troops under General Johnston’s command to cease from 
this date. All arms and public property to be deposited at Greensborough, and delivered to an 
ordnance officer of the United States army. Rolls of all officers and men to be made in duplicate, 
one copy to be retained by the commander of the troops, and the other to be given to an officer to 
be designated by General Sherman. Each officer and man to give his individual obligation in 
writing not to take up arms against the government of the United States until properly released 
from this obligation. The side-arms of officers, and their private horses and baggage, to be re- 
tained by them. 

**'This being done, all the officers and men will be permitted to return to their homes, not to be 
disturbed by the United States authorities so long as they observe their obligations and the laws 
in force where they may reside. : 

‘W. 'T. Suerman, Major General Commanding the Army of the United 
** States in North Carolina. 

‘J. E. Jounsron, General Commanding Confederate States Army in 
‘* North Carolina, 


‘* Approved: U.S. Grant, Lieutenant General. 
‘* Raleigh, N. C., April 26, 1865.” 


% 


* 


eh elie 


Aprit, 1865. ] 


JOHNSTON’S SURRENDER. 


775 


STE 


JAMES BENNET1'S HOUSE, WHERE JOUNSTON SURRENDERED. 


The fact that only about 30,000 men and some 10,000 small-arms were 
included in the surrender shows that Johnston’s apprehensions as to the 
scattering of his command were well founded. 

The conduct of the lieutenant general in this affair between the govern- 
ment and Sherman was noble and characteristic. Unfortunately, some of 
the officers in the cabinet, in their treatment of General Sherman in this con- 
nection, were neither just nor generous. It was perfectly proper for the gov- 
ernment to reject the basis of agreement between Sherman and Johnston. 
But the very reasons given for this repudiation, and which must have been 
published by official authority, the terms of the memorandum not having 
yet been made public, cast reflections upon General Sherman’s patriotism. 


_ These reasons were thus reported in the newspapers of April 22d: 


“Ist. It was an exercise of authority not vested in General Sherman, and 
on its face shows that both he and Johnston knew that General Sherman 
had no authority to enter into any such arrangement. 

“2d. It was an acknowledgment of the rebel government. 

“3d. It is understood to re-establish rebel state governments that had been 
overthrown at the sacrifice of many thousands of loyal lives and immense 
treasure, and placed arms and munitions of war in the hands of rebels, at 
their respective capitals, which might be used as soon as the armies of the 
United States were disbanded, and used to conquer and subdue loyal states. 

“4th. By the restoration of the rebel authority in their respective states, 
they would be enabled to re-establish slavery. 

“Oth. It might furnish a ground of responsibility, by the federal govern- 
ment, to pay the rebel debt, and certainly subjects loyal citizens of the reb- 
el states to debts contracted by rebels in the name of the states. 

“6th. It put in dispute the existence of loyal state governments, and the 
new State of Western Virginia, which had been recognized by every depart- 
ment of the United States government. 

“7th. It practically abolished the confiscation laws, and relieved rebels of 
every degree who had slaughtered our people from all pains and penalties 
for their crimes. 

“8th. It gave terms that had been deliberately, repeatedly, and solemnly 
rejected by President Lincoln, and better terms than the rebels had ever 
asked in their most prosperous condition. 

“9th. It formed no basis of true and lasting peace, but relieved the rebels 
from the pressure of our victories, and left them in condition to renew their 
effort to overthrow the United States government, and subdue the loyal 
states, whenever their strength was recruited, and any opportunity should 
offer.” 

In the first place, the people were led to suppose that Sherman had ac- 
tually usurped authority, which was not the case. The assertion that the 
memorandum in any way recognized the Confederate government was en- 
tirely without foundation, Nor did the memorandum re-establish Confed- 
erate state governments except in the same way that President Lincoln had 
re-established the state government of Virginia.! Indeed, Sherman had in- 


* On the 6th of April (three days before Lee’s surrender), President Lincoln wrote to General 
Weitzel: ‘‘It has been intimated to me that the gentlemen who have acted as the Legislature of 
Virginia in support of the rebellion, may now desire to assemble at Richmond and take measures 
to withdraw the Virginia troops and other support from resistance to the general government. If 


troduced this feature into his memorandum on the basis of President Lin- 
coln’s action in the case of Virginia. It was not until after the rejection of 
his own scheme that he heard that the invitation accorded to the Virginia 
Legislature had been retracted. 

Again, the arms to be deposited in the state capitals were subject to the 
control of the United States, and it could only be through the fault of the 
government that they could be used in another rebellion. 

There was not a word or phrase in the memorandum that indicated by 
the remotest suggestion the liability of the United States for the Confederate 
debt, or any thing which might be a basis for such liability. Nor did it ac- 
knowledge the legitimacy of the obligations of that debt as binding upon 
the citizens of the states which had incurred it. The recognition of the 
state governments in no way legalized their contracts made during the re- 
bellion any more than it sanctioned their repudiation of debts due to North- 
ern citizens, ‘ 

Instead of putting in dispute the existence of West Virginia, the memo- 
randum left that matter to be settled by proper authority. Nor was the 
Confiscation Bill passed by Congress in any way touched by the guarantee 
of the rights of person and property to Southern citizens, so far as such 
guarantee could be given by the executive, for the President is bound to ex- 
ecute the laws of Congress. It relieved no one of the penalty of their crimes 
any farther than Grant’s terms with Lee had done. 

The assertion that the memorandum was contrary to the policy of Presi- 
dent Lincoln was so far from being true, that it was exactly false in every 
particular. And President Johnston’s subsequent policy of reconstruction 
is a curious comment on his rejection of Sherman’s memorandum. 

The final reason given is simply absurd. If the memorandum left the 
Confederate armies in a favorable situation for a renewal of the war, pray 
where did it find those armies? It certainly did not increase their efficiency 


they attempt it, give them permission and protection, until, if at all, they attempt some action hos- 
tile to the United States, in which case you will notify them, give them reasonable time to leave, 
and at the end of which time arrest any who remain. Allow Judge Campbell to see this, but do 
not make it public.” 

Thus authorized, General Weitzel approved a call for the meeting of the Virginia Legislature. 
This was after Lee’s surrender. The call approved by General Weitzel read thus: 

‘The undersigned, members of the Legislature of the State of Virginia, in connection with a 
number of citizens of the state, whose names are attached to this paper, in view of the evacuation 
of the city of Richmond by the Confederate government and its occupation by the military authori- 
ties of the United States, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, and the suspension of 
the jurisdiction of the civil power of the state, are of the opinion that an immediate meeting of the 
General Assembly of the state is called for by the exigencies of the situation. The consent of the 
military authorities of the United States to a session of the Legislature of Richmond, in connection 
with the governor and lieutenant governor, to their free deliberation upon the public affairs, and to 
the ingress and departure of all its members under safe-conduct, has been obtained. 

*“The United States authorities will afford transportation from any point under their control to 
any of the persons before mentioned. 

“*The matters to be submitted to the Legislature are the restoration of peace to the State of Vir- 
ginia, and the adjustment of the questions involving life, liberty, and property, that have arisen in 
the state as a consequence of war. 

‘“ We therefore earnestly request the governor, lieutenant governor, and members of the Leg- 
islature to repair to this city by the 25th of April, instant. 

“We understand that full protection to persons and property will be afforded in the state, and 
we recommend to peaceful citizens to remain at their homes and pursue their usual ayocations with 
confidence that they will not be interrupted. 

“* We earnestly solicit the attendance in Richmond, on or before the 25th of April, instant, of 
the following persons, citizens of Virginia, to confer with us as to the best means of restoring peace 
to the State of Virginia. We have secured safe-conduct from the military authorities of the United 
States for them to enter the city and depart without molestation.” 


776 


tii, 


oon 
Ti ~_ | | 


ian 
l 


JOHNSTON'S SURRENDER. 


by disbanding them, sending them home, and rendering their arms subject 
to the disposition of the United States. 

The memorandum ought to have been rejected, on the ground that the 
subject of reconstruction could not be settled except by the deliberate action 

- of the executive and Congress, and should not, therefore, be introduced in 
connection with the surrender of the Confederate armies. But the reasons 
for its rejection which were published then by official sanction not only had 
no validity, but almost seem to have been chosen for publication because of 
their reflections upon General Sherman. 

On the same day that these reasons were published, Secretary Stanton 
telegraphed to General Dix : 

“Yesterday evening a bearer of dispatches arrived here from General 
Sherman. An agreement for a suspension of hostilities, and a memoran- 
dum of what is called ‘a basis of peace,’ had been entered into on the 18th 
instant by General Sherman with the rebel General Johnston, the rebel Gen- 
eral Breckinridge being present at the conference. 

‘““A cabinet meeting was held at 8 o’clock in the evening, at which the 
action of General Sherman was disapproved by the President, by the Secre- 
tary of War, by General Grant, and by every member of the cabinet. Gen- 
eral Sherman was ordered to resume hostilities immediately, and he was di- 
rected that the instructions given by the late president, in the following tel- 
egram, which was penned by Mr. Lincoln himself, at the Capitol, on the night 
of the 8d of March, were approved by President Andrew Johnson, and were 
reiterated to govern the action of military commanders. 

“On the night of the 3d of March, while President Lincoln and his cabi- 
net were at the Capitol, a telegram from General Grant was brought to the 
Secretary of War, informing him that General Lee had asked for a conference 
to make arrangements for terms of peace. The letter of General Lee was 
published in a message of Davis to the rebel Congress. General Grant’s 
telegram was submitted to Mr. Lincoln, who, after pondering a few minutes, 
took up his pen, and wrote with his own hand the following-reply, which 
he submitted to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of War. Itwas then 
dated, addressed, and signed by the Secretary of War, and telegraphed to 


General Grant: 


“*¢ Washington, March 3, 1865, 12 30 P.M. 
*** Lieutenant General GRANT: 


“The President directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no 
conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General 
Lee’s army, or some minor and purely military matters. He instructs me 
to say you are not to decide or confer upon any political questions. Such 
questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no 
military conference or conditions. Meantime you are to press to the utmost 
your military advantages. Epwin M. Sranron, Secretary of War.’ 


“The orders of General Sherman to General Stoneman to withdraw from 
Salisbury and join him, will probably open the way for Davis to escape to 
Mexico or Europe with his plunder, which is reported to be very large, in- 
cluding not only the plunder of the Richmond banks, but previous accumu- 
lations. A dispatch received by this department from Richmond says: 

‘Tt is stated here by respectable parties that the amount of specie taken 
south by Jefferson Davis and his partisans is very large, including not only 
the plunder of the Richmond banks, but previous accumulations. They 
hope, it is said, to make terms with Sherman, or some other Southern com- 
mander, by which they will be permitted, with their effects, including the 
gold plunder, to go to Mexico or Europe. Johnston’s negotiations look to 
this end.’ 

“ After the cabinet meeting last night, General Grant started for North 
Carolina, to direct future operations against Johnston’s army.” 

This telegram was sent to General Dix for the purpose of publication. It 
would have been courteous in the secretary to have withheld this report 
until the circumstances under which Sherman had acted were more fully 
known. In the first place, it was implied, though not stated, that the same 
instructions had been received by Sherman which, on the 3d of March, had 
been addressed to the lieutenant general. This would naturally be inferred 
from the date of those instructions. Thus Sherman was somewhat cruelly 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[APRIL, 1865. 


exposed, for a time at least, to a suspicion of disobedience of orders, But 
Sherman had not received these instructions. The statement that Grant had 
gone to North Carolina to direct future operations against Johnston’s army 
was also likely to be misunderstood. Grant had gone to Raleigh to com- 
municate to General Sherman the action of the government in regard to the 
memorandum. Of course, if more than that was necessary, Grant would do 
more. As lieutenant general, he directed the operations of all the national 
armies. Any instructions from Secretary Stanton could give him no power 
which he had not before. But he never for a moment contemplated the ne- 
cessity of interference with, or personal direction of, Sherman’s movements 
—and, in fact, did not interfere or direct. Unfortunately, Stanton’s dispatch 
implied, and was popularly understood to imply, that Grant’s presence at 
Raleigh was necessary. 

But the matter did not end here. On the 26th of April, General Halleck, 
then at Richmond in command of the Military Division of the James, dis- 
patched to Secretary Stanton that he had ordered Generals Meade, Sheridan, 
and Wright to move into Shermans proper department, and pay no regard 
to either the orders or truce of the latter. He also advised that Sherman’s 
own subordinates should receive similar orders. The pretext given for 
moving into Sherman’s department was “to cut off Johnston’s retreat.” 
Now Johnston was not retreating, and could not retreat if he would, on ac- 
count of the disposition which Sherman had already made of his forces. 

This dispatch also was sent by Stanton to Dix for publication. A few 
hours later the public was informed through the same channel that the Sec- 
retary of War had instructed General Thomas, and, through him, his sub- 
commanders, to disregard Sherman’s orders. These bulletins, succeeding 
each other with such rapidity, excited at once serious apprehension and a 
tumult of indignation. Every body read and wondered. What had Sher- 
man been doing? Had he allied himself with traitors? Could he no longer 
be trusted? For a time some terrible danger was supposed to hang like the 
sword of Damocles over the republic. It did not seem possible that the 
government could itself thus excite popular apprehension without good 
reason. Where orders were given to violate a truce—an act punishable 
with death by the laws of war—certainly there must be some peril impend- 
ing which could only thus be averted. For a brief period a storm of de- 
nunciation was directed against General Sherman. And while all this was 
going on in the North, it must be remembered that Sherman was accepting 
Johnston’s surrender, and that not one word had been said or written to him 
indicating the displeasure of the government.' He received the announce: 
ment of the rejection of the memorandum with entire good feeling. He 
wrote to Stanton on the 25th admitting his “folly in embracing in a mili- 
tary convention any civil matters.” He adds: “T had flattered myself that, 
by four years of patient, unremitting, and successful labor, I deserved no re- 
minder such as is contained in the last paragraph of your letter to General 
Grant.”? It was not until several days afterward that Sherman saw Stan: 
ton’s bulletins, and then his indignation was aroused, especially against Hal- 
leck, with whom he refused to have any friendly intercourse. 


* The following were the instructions which Grant received from Stanton when he started for 
Raleigh, and which were there shown to General Sherman: 

‘*GENERAL,—The memorandum or basis agreed upon between General Sherman and General 
Johnston having been submitted to the President, they are disapproved. You will give notice of 
the disapproval to General Sherman, and direct him to resume hostilities at the earliest moment, 

‘“The instructions given to you by the late President, Abraham Lincoln, on the 3d of March, by 
my telegram of that date addressed to you, express substantially the views of President Andrew 
Johnson, and will be observed by General Sherman. A copy is herewith appended. 

“The President desires that you proceed immediately to the headquarters of General Sherman, 
and direct operations against the enemy.” 

? See previous note. 

* The following extract from General Sherman’s report shows the manner in which he regarded 
the treatment which he had received : 

‘*On the evening of the 2d of May I returned to Hilton Head, and there, for the first time, re- 
ceived the New York papers of April 28th, containing Secretary Stanton’s dispatch of 9 A.M. of 
the 27th of April to General Dix, including General Halleck’s, from Richmond, of 9 P.M. of the 
night before, which seems to have been rushed with extreme haste before an excited public, name- 
ly, morning of the 28th. You will observe from the dates that these dispatches were running back 
and forth from Richmond and Washington to New York, and there published, while General Grant 
and I were together in Raleigh, North Carolina, adjusting, to the best of our ability, the terms of 
surrender of the only remaining formidable rebel army in existence at the time east of the Missis- 
sippi River. Not one word of intimation had been sent to me of the displeasure of the government 
with my official conduct, but only the naked disapproval of a skeleton memorandum sent properly 
for the action of the President of the United States. 

‘*'The most objectionable features of my memorandum had already (April 24th) been published 
to the world in violation of official usage, and the contents of my accompanying letters to General 
Halleck, General Grant, and Mr, Stanton, of even date, though at hand, were suppressed, 

**In all these letters I had stated clearly and distinctly that Johnston’s army would not fight, 
but, if pushed, would ‘ disband’ and ‘ scatter’ into small and dangerous guerrilla parties, as injurious 
to the interests of the United States as to the rebels themselves; that all parties admitted that the 
rebel cause of the South was abandoned, that the negro was free, and that the temper of all was 
most favorable to a lasting peace. I say all these opinions of mine were withheld from the public 
with a seeming purpose; and I do contend that my official experience and former services, as wel] 
as my past life and familiarity with the people and geography of the South, entitled my opinions to 
at least a decent respect. 

‘* Although this dispatch (Mr, Stanton’s of April 27th) was printed ‘ official,’ it had come to me 
only in the questionable newspaper paragraph headed ‘ Sherman’s Truce Disregarded.’ 

“‘T had already done what General Wilson wanted me to do, namely, had sent him supplies of 
clothing and food, with clear and distinct orders and instructions how to carry out in Western 
Georgia the terms for the surrender of arms and paroling of prisoners made by General Johnston’s 
capitulation of April 26th, and had properly and most opportunely ordered General Gillmore to oc- 
cupy Orangeburg and Augusta, strategic points of great value at all times, in peace or war; but, as 
the secretary had taken upon himself to order my subordinate generals to disobey my ‘ orders,’ I 
explained to General Gillmore that I would no longer confuse him or General Wilson with ‘ orders’ 
that might conflict with those of the secretary, which, as reported, were sent, not through me, but 
in open disregard of me and of my lawful authority. 

“*Tt now becomes my duty to paint in justly severe character the still more offensive and danger- 
ous matter of General Halleck’s dispatch of April 26th to the Secretary of War, embodied in his to 
General Dix of April 27th. ; 

“* General Halleck had been chief of staff of the army at Washington, in which capacity he must 
have received my official letter of April 18th, wherein I wrote clearly that if Johnston’s army about 
Greensborough were ‘ pushed,’ it would ‘ disperse,’ an event I wished to prevent. About that time he , 
seems to have been sent from Washington to Richmond to command the new Military Division of 
the James, in assuming charge of which; on the 22d, he defines the limits of his authority to be the 
‘Department of Virginia, the Army of the Potomac, and such part of North Carolina as may not 
be occupied by the command of Major General Sherman.’ (See his General Orders, No.1.) Four 
days later, April 26th, he reports to the secretary that he has ordered Generals Meade, Sheridan, 
and Wright to invade that part of North Carolina which was occupied by my command, and pay 
“no regard to any truce or orders of’ mine. They were ordered to ‘ push forward, regardless of 


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SMALL-ARMS SURRENDERED BY JOINSTON, 


The surrender of Johnston included all the Confederate forces east of the 
Chattahoochee River, numbering altogether about 50,000 men. On the 4th 
of May Dick Taylor surrendered to General Canby all the remaining Con- 
federate forces east of the Mississippi. On the 26th of May Kirby Smith 
surrendered his army. The war was concluded. 


CHAPTER LIX. 
FLIGHT AND CAPTURE OF DAVIS. 


A memorable Sabbath.—Dayis receives a startling Message.—Richmond must be abandoned.— 
Panic in the City.—Dayis, with his Cabinet, fly by night.—Incidents of the Journey.—Danvyille 
enjoys a brief Celebrity as the Capital of the Confederacy.—Semmes’s Marine Guard.—Tren- 
holm’s Treasury Department.—Davis’s Proclamation to his People.—Tidings of Lee’s Surren- 
der.—Evacuation of Danville.—The Flight resumed.—Interview with Johnston at Greensbor- 
ough.—The Confederacy in a Railroad Car.—Dispersion of the Cabinet.—Flight through Geor- 
gia.—General Wilson’s Arrangements for the Capture of Davis.—Harnden gets upon the Track 
of the Fugitives. —Close Pursuit.—Pritchard anticipates Harnden, and captures the Confederate 
Party near Irwinsville, Georgia.—Incidents connected with the Capture.—General Wilson’s Re- 
port. 


E now turn back to that memorable Sabbath—April 2, 1865—which 
suddenly disclosed to the Confederate capital its inevitable fate. The 
battle of Five Forks had been fought on Saturday, and its loss by the Con- 
federates involved the woful necessity of evacuating Richmond. The dis- 
aster was unknown in Richmond except to Davis and his cabinet, and even 
these had no full knowledge of the situation, having no other intimation of 
what had happened than what was contained in a brief but ominous tele- 
gram received early in the morning from General Lee. The President and 
his cabinet, with the exception of J. P. Benjamin, who was an Israelite, were 
all at their respective places of worship at the usual hour of morning serv- 
ice. Davis was at St. Paul’s, looking care-worn, but still confident. Mal- 
lory attended mass at St.Peter’s. Reagan was at the Baptist church. Ben- 
jamin was probably enjoying his pipe on the veranda of his mansion in 
Main Street. 

During the service at St. Paul’s the sexton walked up to Davis’s pew, and 
whispered a few words in the ear of the President. Another dispatch had 
come, and his presence was wanted immediately. The members of the cab- 
inet received a similar call. Thus, from church to church, the note of warn- 
ing was communicated, and those who were only spectators were agitated 
with apprehensions which were certainly not less fearful because they were 


any orders save those of Lieutenant General Grant, and cut off Johnston’s retreat.’ He knew at 
the time he penned that dispatch and made out those orders that Johnston was not retreating, but 
was halted under a forty-eight hours’ truce with me, and was laboring to surrender his command 
and prevent its dispersion into guerrilla bands, and that I had on the spot a magnificent army at 
my command, amply sufficient for all purposes required by the occasion. 

“The plan for cutting off a retreat from the direction of Burkesville and Danville is hardly 
worthy one of his military education and genius. When he contemplated an act so questionable as 
the violation of a ‘truce’ made by competent authority within his sphere of command, he should 
have gone himself and not sent subordinates, for he knew I was bound in honor to defend and 
maintain my own truce and pledge of faith, even at the cost of many lives. 

** When an officer pledges the faith of his government, he is bound to defend it, and he is no sol- 
dier who would violate it knowing\y. 

** As to Davis and his stolen treasure, did General Halleck, as chief of staff or commanding offi- 
cer of the neighboring military division, notify me of the facts contained in his dispatch to the sec- 
retary? No, he did not. If the Secretary of War wanted Davis caught, why not order it, instead 
of, by publishing it in the newspapers, putting him on his guard to hide away and escape? No 
orders or instructions to catch Davis or his stolen treasure ever came to me; but, on the contrary, 
I was led to believe that the Secretary of War rather preferred he should effect an escape from the 
country, if made ‘unknown’ to him. But even on this point I inclose a copy of my letter to Ad- 
miral Dahlgren, at Charleston, sent him by a fleet steamer from Wilmington, on the 25th of April, 
two days before the bankers of Richmond had imparted to General Halleck the important secret as 
to Davis’s movement, designed doubtless to stimulate his troops to march their legs off to catch 
their treasure for their own use. 

**T know now that Admiral Dahlgren did receive my letter on the 26th, and had acted on it be- 
fore General Halleck had even thought of the matter ; but I do not believe a word of the treasure 
story—it is absurd on its face—and General Halleck or any body has my full permission to chase 
Jeff. Davis and cabinet with their stolen treasure through any part of the country occupied by my 
command. 

“The last and most obnoxious feature of General Halleck’s dispatch is wherein he goes out of 
his way and advises that my subordinates, Generals Thomas, Stoneman, and Wilson, should be in- 
structed not to obey ‘ Sherman’s’ commands. 

“This is too much; and I turn from the subject with feelings too strong for words, and merely 
record my belief that so much mischief was never before embraced in so small a space as in the 
newspaper paragraph headed ‘ Sherman’s Truce Disregarded,’ authenticated as ‘ official’ by Mr. Sec- 
retary Stanton, and published in the New York papers of April 28th.” OL 


FLIGHT AND CAPTURE OF DAVIS. 777 


D BY JOUNSTON, 


based upon no definite information. The dispatch which met Mr. Davis at 
the door of St. Paul’s conveyed to him intelligence of a startling character. 
That morning the outer defenses of Petersburg had been carried. A single 
interior line still resisted Grant’s approach, but that could be held but a few 
hours longer. In the mean time, both Petersburg and Richmond must be 
evacuated. By two o’clock every body in Richmond knew that the city 
was to be abandoned, and a scene of dismay and confusion followed. Al- 
ready the orders had been issued for the removal of the archives of the goy- 
ernment, and for the destruction of stores for which there was no transport- 
ation. ‘This must be completed by 7 o’clock P.M., and by 8 the military 
and civil authorities of the capital were to meet Davis at the Danville dé- 
pot. By the railroad to Danville a way of escape was still open, but how 
long it would continue open was uncertain. 

The panic in the city was almost universal. The negroes alone were jol- 
ly, and they worked with a hearty good will to help off as much of the Con- 
federacy as they could. But, while these were placid and satisfied, nearly 
all others were either helpless with consternation, or were preparing to 
leave the city without exactly knowing where they were going. All the 
coaches in Richmond were waiting at the doors of private houses, and, as the 
afternoon wore away, the streets were filled with voluntary exiles. Of 
course there was transportation for a very small fraction of those who crowd- 
ed toward the dépét. The rest were compelled to return to the pandemo- 
nium from which they could not escape. The presidential party with diffi- 
culty made its way through the excited crowd which thronged and blocked 
the streets. At the dépét the scramblers were concentrated in an almost 
impenetrable mass, which was kept back from the platform only by military 
force. Davis and his cabinet took their seats in a close car. Among this 
party were Adjutant General Samuel Cooper and a few other military off- 
cers. In an adjoining car were the heads of bureaus. <A. privileged few 
were admitted to fill up the train. In a car between the engine and that 
occupied by Davis was a guard of 200 picked men. The principal Confed- 
erate officers were spurred, and horses were ready for them in another car 
in case of an emergency. At 10 o’clock the train left the dépdt, leaving im- 
mediately behind it indescribable tumult, and farther behind in the city an 
uncontrollable mob, which had already begun to sack the city. When 
Weitzel entered Richmond the next morning he found the city in flames. 

Very soon the fugitive Confederacy—for it was all crowded into this 
train—ubi Davis ibi Confederatio—was beyond observation of the havoc it 
had left behind in the doomed city. To Davis and his fellow-conspirators 
the events of the last few hours must have seemed like a dream. Twen- 
ty-four hours ago Richmond was deemed an impregnable fortress. For four 
years it had been the Confederate capital, and had withstood five separate 
attempts made by large armies for its capture, and had, during a siege of 
nine months, repulsed every assault made upon Petersburg, its outpost. Sev- 
eral times its doom had been anticipated, but the fatal day had been so long 
postponed, it was thought that day might never come. Davis and his con- 
federates, under as calm a sky as ever overarched Virginia, on this night 
of disaster vigorously rubbed their eyes, but could not escape the reality of 
the fate of Richmond or of their own flight. In a few hours the national 
flag would float over the rebel capital, and as to themselves the immediate 
future was misty and dark. But the dream of empire is not easily dissi- 
pated. Davis was troubled, but he did not yet despair. The hope and con- 
solation which he had administered to his followers after the loss of Vicks- 
burg and Atlanta he now whispered to his own agitated soul after the fall 
of Richmond. His capital was gone, but he said to himself, “ All is not 
lost,” and even as he fled he dreamed of newly-mustered armies that should 
rise at his bidding. Davis was not a matter-of-fact man. Probably no man 
was ever called to hold so important a position as he had held who had less 
appreciation of facts or knowledge of men. He did not reflect upon the 
actual circumstances of his present situation. He never asked himself 
whence these armies of his imagination were to come. He forgot that, if 
marshaled at all, their ranks must be filled with the old and the decrepit, 
beardless boys, and Southern amazons. His determination outran his judg- 
ment and transgressed common sense. He could only understand fate when 
he was crushed by her final blow. 


778 


After a ride of 28 miles the train stopped abreast of Petersburg. Here 
Breckinridge left the party to go to Lee’s headquarters. Then the flight 
was resumed. Benjamin was soon asleep, and Mallory followed his exam- 
ple. Whether Davis slept or not there is no chronicler to tell us, but, 
whether asleep or awake, he still dreamed of the impossible. Burkesville 
was reached shortly after daybreak. As the train approached Danville, the 
question of destination for the first time began to be discussed. Hitherto 
the only concern of the party had been to get beyond the reach of Sheri- 
dan’s cavalry. Where was the new capital to be established? Davis ex- 
pressed his determination to cling to Virginia to the last, and, after some dis- 
cussion, Danville was honored with all the glory which had departed from 
Richmond, It was a small town, incapable of receiving the full weight of 
honor which had been thrust upon it, and it was accordingly settled that the 
subordinate officials should proceed to Charlotte, North Carolina, 

The fugitives were received with great hospitality at Danville, and on the 
4th of April they began to establish the new seat of government. Trenholm 
opened the Treasury at one of the banks, and delighted the citizens of Dan- 
ville by dispensing silver in return for Confederate notes, one dollar for sev- 
enty. In two days $40,000 in coin was disposed of in this way. Eligible 
structures were. impressed for the other departments. Admiral Semmes or- 
ganized a brigade of marines for the defense of the new capital, and mount- 
ed guns on all the hills about the town. Thousands of fugitives had fol- 
lowed the President from Richmond in subsequent trains, and all the able- 
bodied men among these were armed with muskets and pressed into the 
service. 

On the 5th Davis issued a proclamation to his people. He announced 
that General Lee had been compelled to make movements which uncovered 
Richmond, the loss of which had, he admitted, inflicted moral and material 
injury upon the Confederate cause. But the energies of the people must 
not falter, nor their efforts be relaxed. LLee’s army—“ the largest and the 
finest in the Confederacy”—had been for months trammeled by the necessi- 
ty of protecting Richmond. ‘It is for us, my countrymen,” he urged, “to 
show, by our bearing under reverses, how wretched has been the self-decep- 
tion of those who have believed us less able to endure misfortune with for- 
titude than to encounter dangers with courage. We have now entered upon 
a new phase of the struggle. Relieved from the necessity of guarding par- 
ticular points, our army will be free to move from point to point, to strike 
the enemy in detail far from his base. Let us but will it, and we are free. 
Animated by that confidence in spirit and fortitude which never yet failed 
me, I announce to you, fellow-countrymen, that it is my purpose to main- 
tain your cause with my whole heart and soul; that I will never consent to 
abandon to the enemy one foot of the soil of any one of the states of the 
Confederacy. That Virginia—noble state—whose ancient renown has been 
eclipsed by her still more glorious recent history; whose bosom has been 
bared to receive the main shock of this war; whose sons and daughters have 
exhibited heroism so sublime as to render her illustrious in all time to come 
—that Virginia, with the help of the people and by the blessing of Provi- 
dence, shall be held and defended, and no peace ever be made with the infa- 
mous invaders of her territory. Ifby the stress of numbers we should ever 
be compelled to a temporary withdrawal from her limits, or those of any oth- 
er border state, again and again will we return, until the baffled and ex- 
hausted enemy shall abandon in despair his endless and impossible task of 
making slaves of a people resolved to be free. Let us, then, not despond, 
my countrymen; but, relying on God, meet the foe with fresh defiance, and 
with unconquered and unconquerable hearts.” 

Brave words, but vain, uttered in the face of defeat, and falling upon the 
ears like the sound of the droppings of dust upon numberless graves, to be 
filled by a useless strife which could have no other name but murder! The 
words of this proclamation could not reach the ears of Davis’s “ country- 
men” before events, already near their consummation, would expose their 
ludicrous insignificance. For three whole days Davis had not heard one 
word of tidings from General Lee or his army. This suspense continued un- 
til the 10th, and then came the startling intelligence that Lee had been de- 
feated, and had surrendered his army. Then at Danville, on a diminished 
scale, was repeated the scene which had been witnessed eight days before at 
Richmond. The new capital was abandoned amid just such tumult as had 
attended the evacuation of Richmond. Narrowly escaping a raiding party, 
the presidential train reached Greensborough, North Carolina, on the 11th, 
bearing with it the disastrous tidings. Here Johnston and Beauregard met 
Davis. Breckinridge soon arrived with the details of Lee’s surrender. The 
four officers then held a consultation on the slope of a hill where Nat. Green, 
of Revolutionary memory, had held his council of war the night before the 
battle of Guilford Court-house. Davis thought the struggle ought to be con- 
tinued, and even ordered Johnston to fight. That general, however, did not 
agree with him, and refused obedience. Davis was powerless. He distrust- 
ed Johnston, and left Breckinridge with him to foil any movement which he 
might make to the prejudice of the Confederate cause. How Johnston act- 
ed afterward has already been told in these pages. 

The people of Greensborough, unlike those of Danville, did not recognize 
the presence of the Confederate chief, or tender to him any offer of hospital- 
ity. The Confederacy was, therefore, now cooped up in a railroad car! On 
the 14th it left inhospitable Greensborough, uncertain of its destination, but 
too painfully conscious of the gad-fly Necessity, which urged it to “ move 
on.” A good part of the way to Charlotte was passed in wagons. At the 
latter place the news of Johnston’s surrender and Lincoln’s murder reached 
the fugitives. Here Breckinridge rejoined the party. From this point Da- 
vis threw off the semblance of authority which he had partially sustained 


thus far. The movement of the entire party was henceforth simply a flight. | 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


7 


[ APRIL, 1865. 


Davis now conceived the idea of reaching Texas. With his cabinet and 
staff, he left Charlotte under a cavalry escort of 2000men. On the way te 
the Catawba River, Trenholm, the Secretary of the Treasury, and George Da: 
vis, attorney general, resigned their positions, and left the President to hig 
fate. The flight was continued through Abbeville, South Carolina, Wash 
ington, Georgia, and then past Milledgeville and Macon southward, as if 
making for the coast of Florida. No one showed respect to the ruined Pres: 
ident. Benjamin left the party before it reached Washington, and Mallory 
soon afterward. Breckinridge also broke away, and only Reagan was left 
of the whole cabinet. 

Davis had started from Charlotte shortly after the expiration of the truce 
made between Johnston and Sherman. Preparations on an extensive scale 
were then made for his capture by General Wilson. Stoneman’s three bri- 
gades—Brown’s, Miller’s, and Palmer’s—then in Western North Carolina, 
were ordered to start in pursuit. These forces were commanded by Gener- 
al Palmer in Gillem’s absence. They succeeded in crossing the Savannah 
River in Davis’s front, and thus cut off his retreat toward the Mississippi. 
Wilson’s cavalry was stretched over the whole country, from Kingston in 
Georgia to Tallahassee in Florida. In the mean time, also, a reward of 
$100,000 had been offered by President Johnson for the apprehension of 
Davis, as an accomplice of Booth in the assassination of Lincoln. Stone- 
man’s and Wilson’s cavalry now formed a network through whose meshes 
Davis could hardly hope to escape. 

On the evening of May 7th, four days after Davis left Washington, Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Henry Harnden, of the First Wisconsin Cavalry—belonging 
to Wilson’s command—ascertained at Dublin, on the Oconee, that during the 
day the fugitives had crossed the river, and were moving on the Jackson- 
ville Road. Harnden followed close the next day, and at night reached the 
camp which had four hours before been occupied by Davis between the 
forks of Alligator Creek. He pursued the trail to Gum Swamp Creek, and 
there encamped for the night. On the 9th he pushed on to the Oemulgee, 
crossed at Brown’s Ferry, and at Abbeville learned that Davis had left that 
place at one o’clock that morning, and was now on the way to Irwinsyville. 
Colonel Pritchard, of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry—also belonging to Wil- 
son’s command—had by this time reached Abbeville, and, taking a more di- 
rect route than was followed by Harnden’s detachment, reached Irwinsville 
at two A.M. on the 10th, where he learned that Davis was encamped about 
a mile from the town, on another road leading to Abbeville. Sending a part 
of his force to the north to intercept Davis’s return to Abbeville, he cautious- 
ly approached the camp from both sides, completely cutting off all escape. 
At daylight he surprised the encampment, and captured Davis, with his fam- 
ily, Postmaster General Reagan, two aid-de-camps, Davis’s private secretary, 
four other officers, and eleven soldiers. Various details have been publish- 
ed in connection with the capture of the Confederate President. It was re- 
ported, soon after the event, that Davis was captured in female attire, and a 
recent official report by General Wilson confirms the report.! 


* General Wilson’s report here referred to is dated January 17, 1867, and gives the following 
details of the capture of Davis: : 

‘<The first direct information which I received of Davis’s movements was on the 23d or 24th 
of April, from a citizen who had seen him at Charlotte, N. C., only three or four days before, and 
had learned that he was on his way, with a train and an escort of cavalry, to the South, intending 
to go to the trans-Mississippi Department. ‘This information was regarded as entirely reliable, 
and hence the officers in charge of the different detachments afterward sent out were directed to 
dispose of their commands so as to have all roads and crossings vigilantly watched. It was thought 
at first that Davis would call about him a select force, and endeavor to escape by marching to the 
westward through the hilly country of Northern Georgia. To prevent this, Colonel Eggleston was 
directed to watch the country in all directions from Atlanta. Brevet Brigadier General A. J. 
Alexander, with the second brigade of Upton’s division, having reached Atlanta in advance of the 
division, was directed by General Winslow to scout the country to the northward as far as Dalton, 
or until he should meet the troops under General Steedman in that region. On beginning his 
march from Macon, General Alexander was authorized to detach an officer and twenty picked men, 
disguised as rebel soldiers, for the purpose of trying to obtain definite information of Dayis’s moye- 
ments. This party was placed under the command of Lieutenant Joseph O. Yoeman, First Ohio Cay- 
alry, and at the time acting inspector general of the brigade. Verbal instructions were also given to 
other brigade and division commanders to make similar detachments. General Croxton was di- 
rected to send a small party toward Talladega, by the route upon which he had marched from that 
place, while Colonel Eggleston was directed to send a party by rail to West Point. By these 
means it was believed that all considerable detachments of rebels would be apprehended, and that 
such information might be obtained as would enable us to secure the principal rebel leaders if they 
should undertake to pass through the country in any other way than as individual fugitives. 

**Tn declaring the armistice of Sherman null and void, the Secretary of War had directed that 
my command should resume active operations and endeavor to arrest the fugitive rebel chiefs. 
I accordingly notified him and General Thomas by telegraph of the dispositions I had made, and 
that I had no doubt of accomplishing the desired object ; but having forwarded the records of my 
command to the Adjutant General’s Department, as required by army regulations, and haying been 
denied copies of the documents relating to these matters, I can not now fix the exact dates of these 
dispatches. 

“¢ After a rapid march toward the upper crossings of the Savannah River, in Northwestern Geor- 
gia, Lieutentant Yoeman’s detachment met and joined Davis’s party, escorted by Debrill and Fer- 
gurson’s divisions of cavalry, probably under Wheeler in person, and continued with them several 
days, watching for an opportunity to seize and carry off the rebel chief. He was frustrated by the 
vigilance of the rebel escort. At Washington, Ga., the rebel authorities must have heard that At- 
lanta was occupied by our troops, and that they could not pass that point without a fight. They 
halted, and for a short time acted with irresolution in regard to their future course. The cavalry 
force which had remained true to Davis, estimated at five brigades, and probably numbering two 
thousand men, now became mutinous, and declined to go any farther. They were disbanded and 
partially paid off in coin which had been brought to that point in wagons. Lieutenant Yoeman 
lost sight of Davis at this time, but, dividing his party into three or four detachments, sought again 
to obtain definite information of his movements, but for twenty-four hours was unsuccessful, Per- 
severing in his efforts, he became convinced that Davis had relinquished his idea of going into Al- 
abama, and would probably try to reach the Gulf or South Atlantic coast and escape by sea. 
Couriers were sent with this information to General Alexander, and by him duly transmitted to 
me at Macon. The same conclusion had already been forced upon me by information derived 
from various other sources, and from the nature of the case it seemed quite probable. With rail- 
road communication through most of Northern Georgia, and with a division of four thousand na- 
tional cavalry operating about Atlanta, it would have been next to impossible for a party of fugi- 
tives, however small, to traverse that region by the ordinary roads. This must have been clear to 
the rebels. From these circumstances I became convinced that Davis would either flee in dis- 
guise and unattended, or endeavor to work his way sonthward into Florida. With the view of inter- 
cepting him in this attempt, I directed the crossings of the Ocmulgee River to be watched with renew- 
ed vigilance all the way from the neighborhood of Atlanta to Hawkinsyille, and on the evening of May 
6th I directed Brigadier General Croxton to select the best regiment in his division and send it, under 
its best officer, with orders to march eastward, via Jeffersonville, to Dublin, on the Oconee River, with 
the greatest possible speed, scouting the country well to the northward, and leaving detachments 
at the most important cross-roads with instructions to keep a sharp look-out for all detachments 
of rebels. By these means it was hoped that Dayis’s line of march would be intersected and his 


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About the same time Alexander H. Stephens and Secretary Mallory were 
captured by other portions of General Wilson’s command. Before the close 
of the month Davis was confined in Fortress Monroe, where he remained for 
two years, subject to trial. He was indicted for treason, but the trial was 
postponed time after time, and at length he was released upon bail of 


movements discovered, in which event the commanding officer was instructed to follow it, wherever 
it might lead, until the fugitives should be overtaken and captured. General Croxton selected for 
this purpose the First Wisconsin Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Harnden, an 
officer of spirit, experience, and resolution. During that day and the next the conviction that Da- 
vis would try to escape into Florida became so strong that I sent for General Minty, commanding the 
Second Division, and in person directed him to select his best regiment, and order it to march with- 
out delay to the southeastward along the right bank of the Ocmulgee River, watching all the cross- 
ings between Hawkinsville and the mouth of the Ohoopee River. In case of discovering the trail of 
the fugitives, they were directed to follow it to the Gulf coast, or till they should overtake and capture 
the party of whom they were in pursuit. General Minty selected for this purpose his own regiment, 
the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin D. Pritchard, an ex- 
cellent and dashing officer. In the mean time General Upton, at Augusta, had sent me a dispatch 
advising me to offer a reward of $100,000 for the capture of Davis, urging that the Secretary of 
War would approve my action, and that it would induce even the rebels to assist in making the 
capture. Not caring, however, to assume the responsibility of committing the government in this 
way, I authorized him to issue a proclamation offering a reward of $100,000, to be paid out of such 
money as might be found in the possession of Davis or his party. ‘This was done, and copies scat- 
tered throughout the country as early as the 6th of May. ; 

‘* As soon as it was known at Atlanta that Davis’s cavalry escort had disbanded, General Alex- 
ander, with five hundred picked men and horses of his command, crossed to the right or northern 
bank of the Chattahoochee River, occupied all the fords west of the Atlanta and Chattanooga 
Railroad, watched the passes of the Altoona Mountains and the main crossings of the Etowah Riv- 
er, and with various detachments of his small command patrolled all the main roads in that region 
day and night, until he received news of Davis’s capture in another quarter. : 

“<The final disposition of my command may be described as follows: Major General Upton, 
with parts of two regiments, occupied Augusta, and kept a vigilant watch over the country in that 
vicinity, and informed me by telegraph of every thing important which came under his observation. 
General Winslow, with the larger part of that division, occupied Atlanta, and scouted the country 
in all directions from that place. General Alexander, with five hundred picked men, patroled the 
country north of the Chattahoochee, while detachments occupied Griffin and Jonesboro, closely 
watching the crossings of the Ocmulgee, and scouting the country to the eastward. Colonel Eg- 
gleston, commanding the post of Atlanta, had also sent a detachment to West Point, to watch the 
Alabama line in that quarter. ; 

** General Croxton, with the main body of the First Division in the vicinity of Macon, had sent a 
detachment under my direction to the mountain region of Alabama, marching by the way of Car- 
rolton to Talladega, and another through Northeastern Georgia toward North Carolina, and was 
also engaged in watching the Ocmulgee from the right of the Fourth Division to Macon, and in 
scouting the country to his front and rear. General Minty, commanding the Second Division, was 
scouting the country to the southeast, watching the lower crossings of the Ocmulgee, and had 
small parties at all the important points on the Southwestern Railroad, and in Western and South- 
western Georgia. Detachments of the Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry occupied-Cuthbert, Eufaula, 
Columbus, and Bainbridge, and kept a vigilant watch over the Lower Flint and Chattahoochee. 
While General McCook, with a detachment of his division at Albany, and 700 men between there and 
Tallahassee, Florida, was scouting the country to the north and eastward, we also had rail and tel- 
egraphic communication from my headquarters at Macon with Atlanta, Augusta, West Point, 
Milledgeville, Albany, and Eufaula. By inspecting the map herewith it will be seen that my force 
of nearly 15,000 cavalry, well mounted and vigilant, were occupying a well-defined and almost con- 
tinuous line from Kingston, Georgia, to Tallahassee, Florida, with detachments and scouts well out 
in all directions to the front and rear. From this it will be difficult to perceive how Davis and his 
party could possibly have hoped to escape. , 

‘* From the time they were reported at Charlotte till their final capture I was kept informed of 
their general movements, and was enabled thereby to dispose of my command in such a manner 
as to render the capture morally certain. As reported by General Winslow, rumors came in from 
all directions, but by carefully weighing them, the truth became sufficiently manifest to enable me 
to act with confidence. It is to be regretted now, however, that the hurry of events precluded the 
use of written orders. In nearly every instance my instructions were given verbally to the division 
commanders, and by them, in turn, transmitted verbally to their subordinates. Such written dis- 
patches and orders as were given are preserved in the records pertaining to the cavalry corps, Mil- 
itary Division of the Mississippi, now on file in the Adjutant General’s office. 

‘‘In pursuance of my instructions to General Croxton, heretofore recited, Lieutenant Colonel 
Henry Harnden, with three officers and one hundred and fifty men of the First Wisconsin Cavalry, 
left Macon, Ga., on the evening of May 6, 1865, and marched rapidly via Jeffersonville toward Dub- 
lin, on the Oconee River. At Jeffersonville Colonel Harnden left one officer and thirty men, with 
orders to scout the country in all directions for reliable information as to Davis’s flight. With the 
balance of his command he continued the march all night, and the next day, about seven P.M., 
reached Dublin. During the night and day he had sent out scouts and small parties on all the 
side roads, in the hope of finding the trail of the party for whom he was looking. Nothing of im- 
portance occurred until after he had bivouacked for the night. ‘The white inhabitants of that place 
expressed entire ignorance and indifference in regard to the movement of important rebels, but 
were unusually profuse in their offers of hospitality to Colonel Harnden. This, together with the 
conduct of the colored servants, excited his suspicions, though he gained no valuable intelligence 
till about midnight, at which time he was informed by a negro man, who went to his camp for that 
purpose, that Davis, with his wife and family, had passed through Dublin that day, going south on 
the river road, The negro reported that the party in question had eight wagons with them, and 
that another party had gone southward on the other side of the Oconee River. His information 
seems to have been of the most explicit and circumstantial character. He had heard the lady 
called ‘ Mrs. Davis,’ and a gentleman spoken of as ‘ President Davis,’ and said that Mr. Davis had 
not crossed the river at the regular ferry with the rest of the party, but had gone about three miles 
lower down, and crossed on a small flat-boat, and rejoined the party with the wagons near the out- 
skirts of the town, and that they had all gone toward the south together. The colored man re- 
ported Mr. Davis as mounted on a fine bay horse, and told his story so circumstantially that Col- 
onel Harnden could not help believing it. The ferryman was called up and examined, but, either 
through stupidity or design, succeeded in withholding whatever he knew in regard to the case. 
But in view of the facts already elicited, after detailing Lieutenant Lane and sixty men to remain 
at Dublin, and to scout the country in all directions, Colonel Harnden, at an early hour in the 
morning, began the pursuit of the party just mentioned. Five miles south of Dublin he obtained 
information from a woman which left him no room to doubt that he was on the track of Da- 
vis in person. He dispatched a messenger to inform General Croxton of his good fortune, and 
pushed rapidly in pursuit. The trail led southward through a region of pine forests and cypress 
swamps, almost uninhabited, and therefore affording no food for either men or horses. The rain 
began to fall, and, as there was no road, the tracks of the wagon-wheels upon the sandy soil were 
soon obliterated. A citizen was pressed, and compelled to act as guide till the trail was again discoy- 
ered. The pursuit was continued with renewed vigor, but as the wagon-tracks were again lost in 
the waters of the swamp bordering on Alligator Creek, the pursuing party were again delayed till 
a citizen could be found to guide them to the road upon which the trail was again visible. Colo- 
nel Harnden reports this day to have been one of great toil both to men and horses ; they had 
marched forty miles through an almost trackless forest, much of the way under the rain, and in 
water up to their saddle-girths. They bivouacked after dark on the borders of Gum Swamp, and 
during the night were again drenched with rain. Before daylight of the 9th they renewed their 
march, their route leading almost southwest through swamp and wilderness to Brown’s Ferry, 
where they crossed to the south side of the Ocmulgee River. In his anxiety to ferry his command 
over rapidly, Colonel Harnden allowed the boat to be overloaded ; a plank near the bow was sprung 
loose, causing the boat to leak badly, and, as no means were at hand with which to make repairs, 
lighter boat-loads had to be carried. This prolonged the crossing nearly two hours. Colonel Harn- 
den learned from the ferryman that the party he was pursuing had crossed about one o’clock that 
morning, and were only a few hours ahead of him on the road leading to Irwinsyille. At Abbe- 
ville, a village of three families, he halted to feed, and, just as he was renewing his march, he met 
the advance party of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, Lieutenant Colonel B. D. Pritchard command- 
ing, moying on the road from Hawkinsville. Ordering his detachment to continue its march, Col- 
onel Harnden rode to meet Colonel Pritchard, and gave him such information in regard to Davis's 
movements as he had been able to gather. This was about three P.M. After a conversation be- 
tween these officers, the precise details of which are variously reported, they separated, Colonel 
Harnden to rejoin his command, already an hour or more in advance, and Colonel Pritchard con- 
tinuing his march along the south side of the Ocmulgee. It will be remembered that Colonel 
Pritchard had begun his march from the vicinity of Macon on the evening of May 7, under verbal 
orders given him by General Minty, in pursuance of my instructions. His attention was particu- 
larly directed to the crossings of the Ocmulgee River, between Hawkinsville and Jacksonville, near 
the mouth of the Ohoopee, with the object of intercepting Davis and such other rebel chiefs as 
might be making their way out of the country by the roads in that region. He had not gone more 
than three miles before he obtained such additional information in regard to the party as convinced 
him that it was his duty to join in the pursuit. In this he was clearly right, and had he done oth- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


4 


[ APRIL, 1865. 


$100,000, exactly the same amount which was awarded to his captors. The 
Confederate Vice-President A. H. Stephens was also confined for a brief peri- 
od in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. 

Thus closed at once the official and military career of the Confederacy. 


erwise would havo been censurable for negligence and want of enterprise. Colonel Harnden hay- 
ing informed him that he had force enough to cope with Davis, Colonel Pritchard determined to 
march another road, leading to Irwinsville by a more circuitous route. Why he did not send a 
courier on the trail pursued by Colonel Harnden to notify the latter of his intentions has not 
been explained. This would probably have prevented the collision which afterward occurred be- 
tween his regiment and that of Colonel Harnden, and would not have rendered the capture of Da- 
vis less certain. This is not intended to reflect upon the conduct of Colonel Pritchard, for it is be- 
lieved that this omission was simply an oversight which might have occurred to any confident and 
zealous officer. In carrying out the plan which he had adopted, Colonel Pritchard selected from 
his regiment seven officers and one hundred and twenty-eight men, and at four o’clock began the 
march, leaving the balance of his regiment under command of Captain Hathaway, with orders to 
picket the river and scout the country in accordance with previous instructions. ‘The route pur- 
sued by Colonel Pritchard led down the river nearly twelve miles to a point opposite Wileox’s Mill, 
and thence southwest for a distance of eighteen miles, through the pine forest to Irwinsville. He 
reached this place at one A.M. of the 10th, and by representing his command as the rear-guard 
of Davis’s party, he succeeded in learning from the citizens that the party he was searching for had 
encamped that night at dusk about a mile and a half out on the road toward Abbeville. Having 
secured a negro guide, he turned the head of his column toward that place, and after moving to 
within half a mile of the camp, halted and dismounted twenty-five men under Lieutenant Purin- 
ton. This party were directed to move noiselessly through the woods to the north side of the 
camp, for the purpose of gaining a position in its rear and preventing the possibility of eseape. In 
case of discovery by the enemy, they were directed to begin the attack from wherever they might 
be, while Colonel Pritchard would charge upon the camp along the main road. Lieutenant Pu- 
rinton having reached the point assigned him without exciting an alarm, the attack was delayed 
until the first appearance of dawn, at which time Colonel Pritchard put his troops in motion, and 
continued his march to within a few rods of the camp undiscovered. Having assured himself of 
his position, he dashed upon the camp without delay, and in a few moments had secured its occu- 
pants and effects, and placed a guard of mounted men around the camp, with dismounted sentries 
at the tents and wagons. No resistance was offered, because the enemy had posted no sentries, 
and were therefore taken completely by surprise. 

‘* Almost simultaneously with the dash of Colonel Pritchard and his detachment sharp firing be- 
gan in the direction of Abbeville, and only a short distance from the camp. ‘This turned out to 
be an engagement between the party under Lieutenant Purinton and the detachment of the First 
Wisconsin Cavalry, which, it seems, had followed the rebel trail the night before till it was no lon- 
ger distinguishable in the dark, had gone into camp only two or three miles behind the party they 
had been pursuing so long, and had renewed the pursuit as soon as they could see to march. 

“* Both Colonel Pritchard and Colonel Harnden were informed that Davis had been reported as 
having with him a well-armed body-guard of picked men, variously estimated at from ten to fifty. 
They therefore expected desperate resistance, and hence, in the collision which occurred, the men of 
both detachments seemed inspired by the greatest courage and determination. It was several min- 
utes before either party discovered they were fighting our own people instead of the enemy. In 
this unfortunate affair two men of the Fourth Michigan were killed and one officer wounded, while 
three men of the First Wisconsin were severely and several slightly wounded. It is difficult, under 
the circumstances as detailed, to perceive how the accident could have been avoided. Colonel 
Harnden certainly had no means of knowing, and no reason to suspect that the party whom he 
found in his front were any other than the rebels he had been pursuing, while Colonel Pritchard 
claims that he had cautioned Lieutenant Purinton particularly to keep a sharp look-out for the 
First Wisconsin, which he knew would approach from that direction. ‘The hurry with which my 
command was subsequently mustered out of service, and the absence of the principal officers, pre- 
vented an investigation of the details of this affair, and the circumstances which led to it. At this 
late day nothing more can be said of them than what is contained in the official documents already 
submitted, except that not the slightest blame was ever intended to be cast by me upon Colonel 
Harnden, as seems to have been assumed by the commission convened by the Secretary of War for 
the purpose of awarding the prize offered for the capture of Davis. 

‘* During the firing of the skirmish referred to, the adjutant of the Fourth Michigan, Lieutenant 
J. G. Dickinson, after having looked to the security of the rebel camp, and sent forward a number 
of the men who had straggled, was about to go to the front himself, when his attention was called 
by one of the men ‘to three persons dressed in female attire,’ who had apparently just left one of 
the large tents near by, and were moving toward the thick woods. He started at once toward 
them, and called out ‘ Halt!’ but, not hearing him, or not caring to obey, they continued to move 
off. Just then they were confronted by three men under direction of Corporal Munger, coming 
from the opposite direction. ‘The corporal recognized one of the persons as Davis, advanced cara- 
bine, and demanded his surrender, ‘The three persons halted, and by the actions of the two, who 
afterward turned out to be women, all doubt as to the identity of the third person was removed. 
The individuals thus arrested were found to be Miss Howell, Mrs. Davis, and Jefferson Davis. As 
they walked back to the tent from which they had tried to escape, Lieutenant Dickinson observed 
that Davis’s high top-boots were not covered by his disguise, which fact probably led to his recog- 
nition by Corporal Munger. 

‘* As the friends of Davis have strenuously denied that he was disguised as a woman, it may not 
be improper to specify the exact articles of woman’s apparel which he had upon him when first seen 
by Lieutenant Dickinson and Corporal Munger. The former states that he was one of the three 
persons ‘ dressed in woman’s attire,’ and had a ‘black mantle wrapped about his head, through the 
top of which could be seen locks of his hair.’ Captain G. W. Lawton, Fourth Michigan Cavalry, 
who publishes an account of the capture in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1865, states ex- 
plicitly, upon the testimony of the officers present, that Davis, in addition to his full suit of Confed- 
erate gray, had on ‘a lady’s waterproof (cloak), gathered at the waist, with a shawl drawn over 
the head, and carrying a tin pail.’ 

‘*Colonel Pritchard says in his official report that he received from Mrs. Davis, on board the 
steamer Clyde, off Fortress Monroe, ‘a waterproof cloak or robe,’ which was worn by Davis as a 
disguise, and which was identified by the men who saw it on him at the time of the capture. He 
secured the balance of the disguise the next day. It consisted of a shawl, which was identified in 
a similar manner by both Mrs. Davis and the men. From these circumstances there seems to be 
no doubt whatever that Davis sought to avoid capture by assuming the dress of a woman, or that 
the ladies of the party endeavored to pass him off upon his captors as one of themselves. 

‘In addition to Davis and his family, Colonel Pritchard’s detachment captured at the same time 
John H. Reagan, rebel postmaster-general, Colonel B. N. Harrison, private secretary, Colonels Lub- 
bock and Johnson, aids-de-camp to Davis, four inferior officers, and thirteen private soldiers, be- 
sides Miss Howell, two waiting-maids, and several colored servants. 

“As soon as breakfast could be prepared, Colonel Pritchard, preceded by Colonel Harnden, be 
gan his march, with prisoners and wagons, for Macon, about 120 miles to the northwest of Irwins 
ville. The next day he met a courier with copies of the President’s proclamation offering a re 
ward of $100,600 for the capture of Davis. This proclamation had been received and promulgated 
by me on the 9th, and hence the officers in pursuit of Davis were in no way inspired by the promise 
which it contained. They performed their part from a higher sense of duty, and too much praise 


can not be awarded to Colonels Pritchard and Harnden, and the officers and men of their regi- 


ments who participated in the pursuit. Colonel Pritchard arrived at Macon on the afternoon of 
the 13th, and reported at once with his prisoners at corps headquarters. Arrangements had been 
already made, under instructions from the Secretary of War, for forwarding Davis to the North, 
via Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah. Colonel Pritchard, with a detachment of his regiment, was 
directed to deliver his prisoner safely into the custody of the Secretary of War. I also placed in 
his charge the person of Clement C, Clay, Jr., for whose arrest a reward had also been offered by 
the President. Mr. Clay surrendered himself to me at Macon about the 11th of May, having in~ 
formed me by telegraph from Western Georgia the day before that he would start for my head- 
quarters without delay. A. H. Stephens was arrested by General Upton, at Crawfordsville, about 
the same time, and also placed in charge of Colonel Pritchard. 

“Brevet Major General Upton was charged with making the necessary arrangements for for- 
warding the prisoners and escort safely to Savannah, in the department of General Gillmore. 
These arrangements were successfully carried out, and the prisoners delivered at Fortress Monroe 
for safe keeping on the 22d of May. 

‘*My command had also arrested Mr. Mallory, the rebel Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Hill, sena~ 
tor, and Joseph E. Brown, governor of Georgia. Breckinridge and Toombs managed to escape by 
traveling alone and as rapidly as possible, the former having passed through Tallahassee, Florida, 
only a few hours before the arrival of General McCook at that place. 

‘Immediately after the capture of Davis, the small detachments and scouting parties of my com- 
mand were assembled by their respective brigade and division commanders, and after paroling the 
bulk of the rebel forces, amounting to about 59,000 men that had been serving in Florida, Georgia, 
North and South Carolina, the various regiments were ordered to be mustered out. , 

‘‘ From the foregoing narrative, it will be seen that the first perfectly reliable information in re- 
gard to the movements of Davis was sent in by Lieutenant Ji oseph O. Yoeman, of General Alexan- 
der’s staff; that the route actually pursued by Davis and his party after leaving Washington was 
first discovered by Lieutenant Colonel Harnden at Dublin, and that the capture was actually made 
one and a half miles north of Irwinsville, Georgia, at dawn of May 10, by Lieutenant Colonel Ben- 
jamin D, Pritchard, with a detachment of 7 officers and 128 men of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry.” 


ii atten atin 


Aprit, 1865.) 


Mi ‘an 


LINCOLN 


CHAPTER LX. 
THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. 


The Mission of Abraham Lincoln.—His Conservatism.—Characteristic Peculiarities. —Charitable 
Disposition toward the Southern People.—Closing Days of Lincoln’s Life.—His second Inau- 
gural,—Visit to City Point.—Entrance into Richmond. — The last Day. —The Evening at 
Ford’s Theatre.—Lincoln’s Assassination.—His Death-bed.—Attempt to Assassinate Secretary 
Seward.—The Effect upon the Country.—The Fate of the Conspirators.—Death of John Wilkes 
Booth.—The Trial before the Military Commission.—Flight and final Capture of John H. Sur- 
ratt.—Connection of the Conspiracy with the Confederate Government.—Burial of President 
Lincoln, 


EVER before, in the history of the world, was a single fortnight so 
thronged with events of thrilling interest, concerning not alone one 
continent, but commanding the attention of the world, as that which com- 
menced on the 1st, and ended with the 14th of April, 1865. As, in the de- 
nouement of a great tragedy, events which have hitherto crept along, in 
light or darkness, leap forward, thronging and culminating toward their con- 
clusion, so was it in the closing period of that antagonism in which, for four 
years, the republic had met, grappled, and finally put under its feet the re- 
bellion of states against its sovereignty. This national drama had had its 


9M 


THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. 781 


AT HOME. 


prelude in years of plotting and conspiracy on the part of Southern states- 
men, who sought to array their states against the general government. Still 
its first outward act was a violent shock. ‘The American people was raised 
clean off the ground; but it soon regained its footing, and saw that the crisis 
upon it ought not to have been a surprise. It was a long time before the 
intense violence of the rebellion was understood; but at length the nation 
put on its complete armor, and gathered up its full strength. From that 
moment doubt was thrust aside, and victory crowned its banners. But Get- 
tysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta, Nashville, and Savannah, although great na- 
tional victories, had not been crushing defeats to the Confederate armies. 
Then within the confines of Virginia and North Carolina was marshaled the 
combined strength of both antagonists. The curtain uplifted to disclose the 
last act of the drama. It disclosed Grant’s army in motion. One blow from 
the national arm swept away the defenses of Lee’s army and uncovered the 
Confederate capital. A second blow crushed the finest army of the Confed- 
eracy, and its fragments were left at the mercy of the conqueror. The Con- 
federate President was a fugitive, bearing with him to Greensborough the 
tidings of terrible disaster, the very weight of which crushed and crumbled 
Johnston’s army. The rebel government, with its armies, vanished like the 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| APRIL, 1865. 


PY FALE 
TATA NAT REAL 


Trreres 


=| ys LE Bn 
| 


debtbih 
USE TAG | 


LINCOLN'S UOME, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. 


The winter of national discontent was passed, fol- 
The national colors floated on innumerable 
eminences, wafting fragrance more grateful than that of flowers, Exultation 
filled the whole atmosphere, and pervaded the hearts of all men. It was 
like a heaven from which Satan and his angels had been thrust out into the 
abyss. Strong men wept for joy. Inspired with awe, the people expressed 
their triumph, not in shouts, but in anthems. 

In this sublime awe, in this inspiration of joyous triumph, Lincoln had 
participated not as others. He was wrapped in a cloud of glory which no 
man could penetrate. It was a glory which was hid from his own eyes, in 
which he was somehow buried, but which bad not yet blossomed into the 
full flower. He had been chosen of God for great ends. When the Repub- 
lican National Convention assembled at Chicago on the 16th of May, 1860, 
it was almost universally assumed that William H.Seward would be nomi- 
nated for President. On the first ballot he stood far ahead of Lincoln; on 
the second he was three votes ahead; but on the third Lincoln stood fifty- 
one votes ahead of Seward, and his nomination was then made unanimous. 
The people were scarcely as yet familiar with the name of Lincoln. They 
soon learned that he was an awkward, ungainly man, one who had risen 
from obscurity by perseverance, a man shrewd in debate and plain in speech, 
and who was known simply as “ Honest old Abe.” But this awkward, plain 
man, without culture, and without that despotism of genius which commands 
admiration, God had taken by the hand, and had chosen as the champion of 
the republic at the most critical moment of its history. His very election 
was made the pretext for rebellion. But he accomplished nobly and wisely 
his great mission. Against the violence of rebellion he opposed the firm- 
ness of national authority, supported by the strong arms of patriots. The 
subtle machinations of those who opposed his administration were foiled by 
his good sense. Thus he won the confidence of the people. He had no 
love of arbitrary power, and indulged no radical or revolutionary theories 
which could tempt him to such use of power. He was a conservative in 
the best sense of that term: not a conservator of party, but of national in- 
tegrity. Thus he was the better fitted to accomplish his divine mission. 
For it must be remembered that God, the great Disposer of all events, 
works not with the haste of man. Tares and wheat He lets grow together 
until the harvest, lest by rooting up the tares upon impulse He uproot the 
wheat also. While Lincoln never vacillated, he was never in haste. He 
hesitated long before he issued his proclamation of emancipation. He laid 
it away, and weeks passed before he signed it—and then he acted in accord- 
ance with a solemn vow which he had made to God. Even after he is- 
sued this document he doubted whether the system of gradual and compen- 
sated emancipation might not be more just and better for the slaves. He 
looked on every side of every question, and was therefore slow in reaching 
conclusions. In Lincoln thought and prayer were mingled, and thus the 
final word which came in answer to thought and prayer sounded solemnly 
in his ears like the commandment of God. Following that voice, he had no 
doubt as to results: it was, “This do, and thou shalt be saved.” 

In no life, perhaps, more than in Lincoln’s, did the outward appearance 
contradict the inward fact and experience. A casual acquaintance with him 
would lead to the inference that he looked upon every subject only as the 
oceasion of a joke or the point for an anecdote. But those who came near- 


clouds of an April day. 
lowed by glorious summer. 


er to him, or who carefully study the man, can not thus judge. Upon no 
man ever fell the weight of sadder care than upon him. Day by day he 
labored under a burden which he could not lay aside. Thus to his intimate 
friends he always seemed weary and sorrowful. In an equal degree his ex- 
ternal awkwardness curiously contrasted with an inward grace and sweet- 
ness not common among men. He was as gentle as a woman. His com- 
passion was infinite. As the hour of victory approached, when the enemies 
of the nation would lie prostrate at its feet, the desire nearest to his heart 
was to heal the wounds which the strife left open and bleeding, to pardon 
and restore. ‘Thus, when the summer of triumph came, its glory wrapped 
him all about. He saw a nation restored, a race emancipated. He saw the 
seal of God set upon all which he had done. He looked upon a people in- 
spired with solemn joy, and as their souls went up in anthems, his rose su- 
preme above them all, crowned with an aureola such as never graced the 
head of Czesar or king. 

But how easily is the summer sky overcast with gloom! ‘The serpent’s 
head has been bruised, but his venomous fangs have not been plucked. 
Treason, which wears the semblance of honor on the battle-field, and whose 
proud crest flashing at the head of armies is an image of something glori- 
ous, is, after all, a creeping thing with a devilish instinct. And thus it is 
that at one moment we look upon the great leader of the people crowned 
with the highest honors which the hands or hearts of his countrymen can 
bestow, and the next are called to witness his martyrdom. 

On the 4th of March Lincoln had been reinaugurated President. On that 
occasion he thus alluded to the war, and to the two parties engaged in it: 

“Kach looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and 
astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each 
invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should 
dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat 
of other men’s faces. But let us judge not that we be not judged. The 
prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered 
fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world be- 
cause of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that 
man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American 
slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs 
come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills 
to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as 
the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein 
any departure from these divine attributes which the believers in a loving 
God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that 
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills 
that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred 
and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of 
blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, 
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘ The judgments 
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’ 

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the 
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s 
wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow 
and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a last- 
ing peace among ourselves and with all nations.” 


Aprit, 1865. ] 


FORD'S THEATRE, WASITING TON, 


A few days afterward he went to City Point, and was there when Grant 
defeated Lee. The day after Richmond was taken he entered that city, 
coming, not as the conqueror, but the deliverer, and was welcomed with ac- 
clamation, especially by the poor negroes, who kissed the hands which had 
broken their bonds. After Lee’s surrender he returned to Washington. 
Tfere, on the evening of the 11th, in the midst of the universal rejoicings, he 
addressed his fellow-citizens, calling upon them to remember Him to whom 
they owed the preservation of the nation, and the soldiers and sailors who, 
under God, had won the victory. He also, on this occasion, announced his 


purpose to issue another proclamation to the people of the South, in order 


to hasten the work of restoration. 
On the morning of the 14th—the last day of Lincoln’s life—his son Rob- 
ert breakfasted with him, and told him all the details of Lee’s surrender, 


from the scene of which he had just returned. The President then spent 


an hour with Schuyler Colfax, speaker of the House. The conversation nat- 
urally turned upon the immediate future of the nation, and every word ut- 
tered by Lincoln breathed a pardon toward repentant rebels. After a brief 
interview with some of his old Illinois friends, the President met his cabi- 
net between 11 and 12 o’clock. He seemed more joyous than was his wont. 
The lieutenant general was also present. 
out with Mrs, Lincoln, and conversed of the happier days which seemed in 


store for them. He seemed to be looking forward to four years of peaceful 


administration, and after that to retirement and a quiet conclusion of an 
eventful life in the midst of old and familiar scenes. 
weapon of death in the hands of the assassin was laden with the fatal bul- 


let. A peace such as the world can not give was nearer to the weary heart 


of Lincoln than he then dreamed. 


Tn the evening he met Colfax again, with George Ashmun, who had pre- 


sided at the Chicago Convention which nominated him for the presidency. 


It was well understood in Washington that the President and General Grant 
would that evening attend Ford’s Theatre, and a private box had been es- 


pecially prepared and decorated for the presidential party. General Grant, 


owing to another engagement, could not attend. Mr. Colfax was invited to 


accompany the party, but declined, to his subsequent regret.1_ The Presi- 


dent himself was reluctant, as his mind was on other things, but he was not 
willing to disappoint the people in this hour of public rejoicing. At nine 


o’clock, with his wife, Mr. Lincoln reached the theatre, and, as usual, was re- 


ceived with an outburst of applause. The other members of the party were 


Miss Harris, daughter of Senator Harris, of New York, and Major Rathbun, 


of the regular army. The play for the evening was “Our American Cous- 
The American flag drooped over Lincoln’s head, and his thoughts were 


in.” 


occupied with a grander drama than that which was presented to the audi- 


ence, Four years ago this day the flag had been hauled down from Fort 


Sumter, and this very day the same old flag had been restored by the hands 
of Major Anderson. It was natural, therefore, that the President’s mind 
should range over the weary years which had intervened, and of which he 
was so great a part. His face wore a happy smile, such as had not been 
there since the beginning of the war. 

But still another play was in progress of which neither Lincoln nor the 
audience knew. Shortly after the President entered the theatre three men 
were noticed by one Sergeant M. Dye, who was sitting in front of the the- 
atre. They seemed to be in earnest consultation, and to be waiting for some 
one to come out. They went to a neighboring saloon, and in a few minutes 
returned. One was a well-dressed gentleman, another was a rough-looking 
fellow, and the third was a younger man than either of the other two. This 
latter stepped up and called out the time, and then started up the street. 
Soon he reappeared and called out “ten minutes after ten,” this time louder 
than before. The well-dressed gentleman then entered the theatre by the 
door in the rear leading to the stage. He passed up the stairs and through 
eee eee ee ee ee eee 

* In a speech at Chicago, April 30th, Colfax said: 

“«* * * * My mind has since been tortured with regrets that I had not accompanied him, If 
the knife which the assassin had intended for Grant had not been wasted, as it possibly would not 
have been, on one of so much less importance in our national affairs, perhaps a sudden backward 
look at that eventful instant might have saved that life, so incalculably precious to wife, and chil- 
dren, and country ;_ or, failing in that, might have hindered or prevented the escape of his murder- 
er. ‘The willingness of any man to endanger his life for another’s is so much doubted that I scarce- 
ly dare to say how willingly I would have risked my own to preserve his, of such priceless value to 
us all, But if you can realize that it is sweet to die for one’s country, as so many scores of thou- 
sands, from every state, and county, and hamlet have proved in the years that are pasty you can 
imagine the consolation there would be to any one, even in his expiring hours, to feel that he had 


saved the land from a funeral gloom which, but a few days ago, settled down upon it from ocean 
to ocean and from Capitol to cabin, at the loss of one for whom even a hecatomb of yictims could 


not atone,” 


THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. 


Then, in the afternoon, he drove 


But even then the 


783 


the gallery leading to the box occupied by the President, and overlooking 
the stage on its right. He stood for a moment surveying the audience, and 
then, taking out a card, gave it to the President’s messenger, and immedi- 
ately followed the latter into the box. As he entered he fired, taking uner- 
ring aim at the President’s head. Major Rathbun attempted to seize the 
assassin, but was thrust aside, receiving at the same time a wound in the 
breast. The assassin advanced to the front brandishing his knife, and leaped 
upon the stage, shouting “Sic semper tyrannis,” the motto of Virginia. In 
a moment he was gone. 

Lincoln was carried, unconscious, from the theatre to Mr. Peterson’s house 
opposite, where he was laid upon a bed. In ten minutes all Washington 
was apprised of the deed which had been committed, but the extent of the 
injury was yet unknown. Surgeon General Barnes was hastily summoned, 
and the members of the cabinet were assembled in the death-chamber of the 
President. There also were Senator Sumner and Speaker Colfax. The 
wound which had been received in the back of the head was probed by the 
surgeon general and pronounced mortal. As the fatal word was uttered, 
the hearts of all present sank within them. “Oh no! general, no!” cried out 
Stanton, and, sinking into a chair, he wept like a child. Sumner, who held 
the hand of the martyred President, sobbed as if his great heart would break 
with sorrow. It was the night of Good Friday, and it seemed as if another 
had been crucified, the just for the unjust! 

All night the watchers stood about the death-bed. Lincoln remained un- 
conscious to the last. His wife and son Robert several times entered the 
chamber, but in their grief could not bear the scene, and they remained most 
of the time in an adjoining room. Lincoln lived until twenty-two minutes 
past seven o’clock on the morning of the 15th. 

The same hour that the President was shot, a man appeared at the door 
of Secretary Seward and pretended that he was a messenger from the physi- 
cian who was then attending upon the secretary. Being refused admit: 
tance, he forced his way to the secretary’s chamber. Frederick Seward and 
an attendant rushed to the rescue, but were both severely wounded. The 
assassin—probably the rough-looking fellow observed by Sergeant Dye in 
front of Ford’s Theatre—entered the chamber and inflicted several wounds 
upon the secretary, and then escaped. It had been intended by the assas- 
sins to kill Secretary Stanton, Lieutenant General Grant, and Vice-President 
Johnson, and thus paralyze the government. But even if all this had been 
accomplished the conspirators would have been disappointed. Secretary 
Seward survived the blows inflicted upon him, but to his dying day will 
wear the honorable scars which associate him in the thoughts of the people 
with the martyrdom of their President. 

The tidings of the assassination spread rapidly over the country. In all 
history there was never national sorrow to be compared with this. Literally 
the whole people wept. Thousands there were who would willingly have 
received the fatal bullet in their own hearts if thereby they could have 
saved the precious life of their leader. Even those who had for four years 
reviled Lincoln, who had called him a boor and a despot, now vied with his 
friends in their adulation. A few rejoiced in the murder, but their lips were 
closed partly from fear and partly from the universal expression of sorrow 
which struck them dumb. 

But who and where were the murderers? The assassin of the President, 
as he escaped across the stage, was recognized by one of the actors as John 
Wilkes Booth. Other evidence was soon found which fixed upon this per- 
son the guilt of the murder. But, though he left traces of his guilt behind, 
he was not to be found. The rendezvous of the conspirators was discoy- 
ered. It was the house of Mrs. M. E. Surratt, located in the very heart of 
Washington, On the night of April 17th the officers of the government 
proceeded thither and arrested the occupants—Mrs. Surratt, her daughter 
Anna, Miss Fitzpatrick, and Miss Holahan. Before leaving the house a 
light knock was heard at the door. It was opened, and a young man ap- 
peared, evidently in disguise. He was dressed like a common laborer, and 
carried a pick upon his shoukler. But his hands were white and soft, ap- 
parently unused to labor, and his aaswers to questions put to him were un- 
satisfactory, During the investigation he pruduced the certificate of an oath 
of allegiance, purporting to have been taken by Lewis Payne, of Fauquier 
County, Virginia. He was arrested, and it was afterward proved that he 
was the man who had attempted to murder Secretary Seward, and that his 
real name was Powell. Three days later George A. Atzerott was captured 


4 
by 
j 
t 
i 
1 | 
| 
RW A 
oN 
thy ae) 


ee 
PLAN OF THE BOX OCOUPIED BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN AT FORD'S THEATRE, APRIL 14, 1865. 
O. Dark Corridor leading from the Dress Circle to Box.—H. Entrance to Corridor.—I. The Bar used by Booth to 


prevent entrance from without.—J. Dress Circle.—K. The Parquette.—L. The Foot-lights.—M. The Stage.—F, 
Open door to the President's Box.—G, Closed door.—N, Place where Booth vaulted over to the Stage below, 


784 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, 


[ApRIL, 1865. 


near Middleburg, in Maryland. He had on the 14th of April occupied a 
room in the Kirkwood House, Washington, where Vice-President Johnson 
was staying. In this room a revolver was found the next day, hid under 
the pillow of the bed, and some bowie-knives between the mattressés. There 
was also found evidence of his complicity with Booth. 

The principal assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was not found until eleven 
days after the murder. When he leaped upon the stage at Ford’s Theatre, 
his foot became entangled in tue folds of the flag decorating the box occu- 
pied by Lincoln, and his leg was broken. He had engaged one of the swift- 
est steeds in Washington, which was held by one of the attendants of the 
theatre during the accomplishment of the crime. Limping across the stage 
with great difficulty, he mounted his horse and was joined by one Harold, 
who had been on the look-out. They crossed the navy-yard bridge and rode 
to Surrattsville, ten miles beyond. Here they called upon a Mr. Lloyd, who 
occupied a hotel leased to him by Mrs. Surratt, and obtained two carbines 
which had been left there about six weeks before for just this emergency. 
That very afternoon Mrs. Surratt had driven to Mr. Lloyd’s and warned him 
that these weapons would be called for that night. She had also brought a 
field-glass for Booth’s use. From this point Booth and his companion hur- 
ried to the house of Dr. Mudd, on the eastern shore of the Potomac. Here 
Booth’s leg was set, and the two criminals were concealed:in the neighbor- 
hood for nearly a week. Then they crossed the Potomac into Virginia. 
The detectives employed by the government, under Colonel Baker’s direc- 
tion, and a small squad of cavalry, were already close upon them. They 
crossed the Potomac, and from Captain Jett, a Confederate, extorted infor- 
mation as to Booth’s hiding-place. On the night of April 25th they found 
Booth and Harold secreted in a tobacco-house on Garrett's farm, a short dis- 
tance from Port Royal. It was the intention of the officers to take Booth 
alive. ‘The barn was surrounded, and the inmates were summoned to sur- 
render. Colonel Baker made the demand, and suggested as an alternative 
“a bonfire and a shooting-match.” Harold came out, but Booth wanted 
“fair play,” and proposed that the officers stand off and give him a chance 


for his life. 
Booth made a desperate plunge toward the door, and at that moment was 


As he persisted in his refusal to surrender, the barn was fired. 
shot in the back of the head by Sergeant Boston Corbett. This act of Cor- 
bett was clearly a disobedience of orders. 

Booth was taken out of the barn, and was laid upon the grass in a dying 
condition. The wound which he had received was in its location very simi- 
lar to that which he had inflicted upon the President, but it did not deprive 
him of consciousness. Water was given him, and he revived. Baker put 
his ear close to the murmuring lips of the dying man, and heard him say, 
“Tell mother I die for my country.” He was carried to the veranda of 
Garrett's house. Here he again revived, and said, “I thought I did for the 
best.” He asked that his hands might be raised so that he could see them. 
As he looked upon them he muttered, “ Useless! useless!” These were his 
last words. Ay, indeed, wretched man, how useless! 

Upon Booth’s body a diary was found, with some of its leaves torn out, 
and containing some photographs of female acquaintances. The pages re- 
moved were at the beginning of the book, and as the diary purported to be 
one for 1864, they probably related to events preliminary to his bloody act, 
and of which he did not care to leave behind him a record. What was left 


pertained solely to the assassination, and implicated no one else in the mur- 


der. The words written were those of a man who felt that a curse rested 
upon him—a mark like that which was set upon Cain. In almost the same 
breath he commends himself as haying done well, and yet doubts if there 
can be pardon for him in heaven. 


* The following is a copy of the writing, which was in pencil, found in this diary : 

“Te amo, April 13-14. Friday, the ides. f 

** Until to-day nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country’s wrongs. For six months 
we had worked to capture; but our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be 
done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart. I 
struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his 
friends, and was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his side. I shouted “Sie semper ! 
before I fired. In jumping, broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night 
with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent it, though we hated 
to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his 
punishment. The country is not (April, 1865) what it was. This forced Union is not what I have 


SS 


Aprir, 1865. ] 


BOSTON CORBETT. 


There was a post-mortem examination of the body, which was taken to 
Washington. This examination took place on board the Montauk, on the 


loved. I care not what becomes of me. Ihave no desire to outlive my country. This night, be- 
fore the deed, I wrote a long article and left it for one of the editors of the National Intelligencer, 
in which I fully set forth our reasons for our proceeding. He or the government— 

** Friday, 21st. After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being 
chased by gun-boats till I was forced to return, wet, cold, and starving, with every man’s hand 
against me, I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for, what 
made Tella hero. And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked 
upon as a common cut-throat. My action was purer than either of theirs. One hoped to be 
great; the other had not only his country’s, but his own wrongs to avenge. I hoped for no gain. 
I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country, and that at once; a country that groaned be- 
neath this tyranny and prayed for this end. And yet now behold the cold hand they extend to 
me. God can not pardon me if [have done wrong. Yet I can not see my wrong, except in sery- 
ing a degenerate people. The little, the very little I left behind to clear my name, the government 
will not allow to be printed. So ends all. For my country I have given up all that makes life 
sweet and holy ; brought misery upon my family, and am sure there is no pardon in the Heaven for 
me, since man condemns me so. I have only heard of what has been done, except what I did my- 
self, and it fills me with horror. God, try and forgive me, and bless my mother. To-night I will 
once more try the river, with the intent to cross, though I have a greater desire and almost a mind 
to return to Washington and in a measure clear my name, which I feel I can do. I do not repent 
the blow I struck. I may before my God, but not to man. I think I have done well, though I am 
abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon— When, if the world knew my heart, that one blow 
would have made me great, though I did desire no greatness. To-night I try to escape these 
blood-hounds once more. Who—who can read his fate? God’s will be done. Ihave too great a 
soul to die like a criminal. May He spare me that and let me die bravely. I bless the entire 
world ; have never hated or wronged any one. This last was not a wrong unless God deems it so, 
and it’s with Him to damn or bless me. Hard for this brave boy with me, who often prays—yes, 
before and since, with a true and sincere heart. Was it crime in him? If so, why can he pray 
the same? I do not wish to shed a drop of blood, but I must fight the course. Tis all that’s left 


” 


me, 


Upon a piece of paper found in the diary, and supposed to have been torn from it, is written the 
following : 

‘*My dea [piece torn out.] Forgive me, but I have some little pride. I can not blame you for 
want of hospitality ; you know your own affairs. I was sick, tired, with a broken limb, and in need 
of medical advice. I would not have turned a dog from my door in such a plight. However, you 
were kind enough to give us something to eat, for which I not only thank you, but, on account of 
the rebuke and manner in which to [piece torn out.] It is not the substance, but the way in which 
kindness is extended that makes one happy in the acceptance thereof. The sauce to meat is cer- 
emony. Meeting were bare without it. Be kind enough to accept the inclosed five dollars, al- 
though hard to spare, for what we have received. 

** Most respectfully, from your obedient servant.” 

A letter had been (November, 1864) left by Booth in the hands of his brother-in-law, J. 8. Clarke. 
It was opened by the latter on the Monday after the assassination, and was published in the Phila- 
delphia Press of April 19th. The following is a copy : 


THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. 785 


Potomac. On the night of the 27th of April a small row-boat received the 
remains of the murderer. The place and manner of his sepulture were for 


‘¢____, —_—.,, 1864. 

**My DEAR Str,—You may use this as you think best. But as some may wish to know when, 
who, and why, and as I know not how to direct, I give it (in the words of your master)— 

***'To whom it may concern :’ 

“Right or wrong, God judge me, not man. For, be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am 
sure, the lasting condemnation of the North. 

‘*T love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years have 
I waited, hoped, and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sun- 
shine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved 
as idle as my hopes. God’s will be done. I go to see and share the bitter end. 

‘*T have ever held the South were right. ‘The very nomination of Abraham Lincoln four years 
ago spoke plainly war—war upon Southern rights and institutions. His election proved it. ‘ Await 
an overt act.’ Yes; till you are bound and plundered. What folly! The South were wise. Who 
thinks of argument or patience when the finger of his enemy presses on the trigger? In a foreign 
war, I too could say, ‘ Country, right or wrong.’ But in a struggle such as ours (where the brother 
tries to pierce the brother’s heart), for God’s sake choose the right. When a country like this spurns 
justice from her side, she forfeits the allegiance of every honest freeman, and should leave him, un- 
trammeled by any fealty soever, to act as his conscience may approve. 

‘* People of the North, to hate tyranny, to love liberty and justice, to strike at wrong and oppres- 
sion, was the teaching of our fathers. ‘The study of our early history will not let me forget it, and 
may it never, 

‘“‘This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And, looking upon African 
slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our Constitution, I, for one, have ever 
considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed 
upon a favored nation. Witness heretofore our wealth and power; witness their elevation and en- 
lightenment above their race elsewhere. Ihave lived among it most of my life, and have seen less 
harsh treatment from master to man than I have beheld in the North from father to son. Yet, 
Ileaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way 
to still better their condition. 

“* But Lincoln’s policy is only preparing the way for their total annihilation. The South are not, 
nor have they heen, fighting for the continuance of slavery. The first battle of Bull Run did away 
with that idea, Their causes since for war haye been as noble and greater far than those that urged 
our fathers on. Even should we allow they were wrong at the beginning of this contest, cruelty 
and injustice have made the wrong become the right, and they stand now (before the wonder and 
admiration of the world) as a noble band of patriotic heroes. Hereafter, reading of their deeds, 
Thermopyle will be forgotten. 

““ When I aided in the capture and execution of John Brown (who was a murderer on our west- 
ern border, and who was fairly tried and convicted before an impartial judge and jury, of treason, 
and who, by the way, has since been made a god), I was proud of my little share in the transaction, 
for I deemed it my duty, and that I was helping our common country to perform an act of justice. 
But what was a crime in poor John Brown is now considered (by themselves) as the greatest and 
only virtue of the whole Republican party. Strange transmigration! Vice to become a virtue 
simply because more indulge in it! 

“I thought then, as now, that the Abolitionists were the only traitors in the land, and that the 
entire party deserved the same fate as poor old Brown; not because they wish to abolish slavery, 
but on account of the means they have ever endeavored to use to effect that abolition. If Brown 
were living, I doubt whether he himself would set slavery against the Union. Most, or many in the 
North do, and openly, curse the Union, if the South are to return and retain a single right guaran- 
teed to them by every tie which we once revered as sacred. ‘The South can make no choice. It 
is either extermination or slavery for themselves (worse than death) to draw from. I know my 
choice. 

“*Thave also studied hard to discover upon what grounds the right of a state to secede has been 
denied, when our yery name, United States, and the Declaration of Independence, both provide for 
secession. But there is no time for words. I write in haste. I know how foolish I shall be 
deemed for undertaking such a step as this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and every 
thing to make me happy, where my profession alone has gained me an income of more than twenty 
thousand dollars a year, and where my great personal ambition in my profession has such a great 
field of Jabor. On the other hand, the South have never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place 
now where IJ have no friends except beneath the sod; a place where I must either become a private 
soldier or a beggar. To give up all of the former for the latter, besides my mother and sisters 
whom I love so dearly (although they so widely differ with me in opinion), seems insane; but God 
is my judge. I love justice more than I do a country that disowns it; more than fame and wealth; 
more (Heaven pardon me if wrong)—more than a happy home. I have never been upon a battle- 
field; but oh! my countrymen, could you all but see the reality or effects of this horrid war as I 
haye seen them (in every state save Virginia), I know you would think like me, and would pray the 
Almighty to create in the Northern mind a sense of right and justice, even should it possess no sea- 
soning of mercy), and that he would dry up this sea of blood between us, which is daily growing 
wider, Alas! poor country, is she to meet her threatened doom? Four years ago I would have 
given a thousand lives to see her remain (as I had always known her) powerful and unbroken. 
And even now I would hold my life as naught to see her what she was. Oh! my friends, if the 
fearful scenes of the past four years had never been enacted, or if what has been had been but a 
frightful dream, from which we could now awake, with what overflowing hearts could we bless our 
God and pray for his continued favor! How I have loved the old flag can never now be known. 
A few years since, and the entire world could boast of none so pure and spotless. But I have of 
late been seeing and hearing of the bloody deeds of which she has been made the emblem, and would 
shudder to think how changed she had grown. Oh! how I have longed to see her break from the 
mist of blood and death that circles round her folds, spoiling her beauty and tarnishing her honor. 
But no, day by day has she been dragged deeper and deeper into cruelty and oppression, till now 
(in my eyes) her once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of heayen. I look now 
upon my early admiration of her glories as a dream. My love (as things stand to-day) is for the 
South alone. Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man, 
to whom she owes so much of misery. If success attend me I go penniless to her side. They say 
she has found that ‘last ditch’ which the North have so long derided and been endeavoring to forca 
her in, forgetting they are our brothers, and that it is impolitic to goad an enemy to madness. 
Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die in 
that same ‘ditch’ by her side. 


** A Confederate doing duty upon his own responsibility. J. Witxes Booru.” 


= = : 
ON RUINS OF GARRETT'S BARN AND OUT-HOUSES NEAR PORT ROYAL, WHERE bOOTH WAS SHOT, 


86 


WN en mi We 
] 


l 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, 


[APRIL, 1865, 


LEWIS PAYNE (POWELL). 


a long time unknown to the world. It were better that thus it should re- 
main forever. This man had attempted to build his fame upon the ruins 
of the government. There was an ancient villain—Erostratus by name— 
who deliberately purposed to perpetuate the memory of his name among 
men by shocking sacrilege, and he burned the temple of the Ephesian Diana. 
John Wilkes Booth once remarked to a company of his friends that this 
man’s name had survived, while that of the builder of the temple was for- 
gotten. It was thus that Booth sought to leave his name to posterity, pre- 
ferring to be detested rather than not be remembered at all. By bringing 
a whole nation to tears, he would secure immortality for himself. It is not 
probable that either he or his fellow-conspirators in the inception of their 
scheme contemplated murder. But it soon came to that. It is evident that 
Booth attempted to poison the President in the summer of 1864, but failed. 
In a room of the McHenry House, Meadville, Pennsylvania, there was found 
on the pane of window-glass the following inscription in Booth’s hand- 
writing: “ Abe Lincoln departed this life, Aug. 13th, 1864, by the effects of 
poison.” A conspiracy long existed which contemplated the capture of 
Lincoln, but was at length given up. At last, when the defeat of the Con- 
federate armies was an accomplished fact, the conspirators reverted to assas- 
sination as the surest means of destroying the government, and inaugurating 
a period of anarchy in which, as they confidently believed, the Confederates 
would, under the leadership of some master mind, gain by murder what they 
had lost in battle. There is no doubt that when this scheme was adopted 
it was a matter of deliberation ; hor can there be any question but the chief 
accomplices— Harold, Powell, Atzerott, Mrs. Surratt and her son John H. 
Surratt—were, at least for some hours previous to the murder, aware of 
oa intention, and were thus, in their several ways, participators in his 
guilt. 

John Wilkes Booth was the third son born in America of the eminent 
English tragedian. Junius Brutus Booth. There were three brothers, Junius 
Brutus Jr., Edwin, and John Wilkes, all of whom inherited a predilection 
for the stage. Of these three, Edwin alone has attained an eminent dis- 
tinction as an actor, and he is probably unsurpassed by any living man. 
No suspicion rests upon his loyalty, and after the assassination, the sympathy 


elicited in his behalf was only equaled by the popular abhorrence of his 
unworthy brother. John Wilkes, the assassin, was born in 1839, and was 
only twenty-six years of age at the date of his crime. He had never 
achieved any marked success upon the stage, and but for his connection 
with the death of Lincoln, would never be known by even the next genera- 


z . f : > 
Dre f 
xe Oe ae Ss oS 
ie ee pet fs ep 


tion. In his soul inhered no nobility which could relieve his crime. He 
was an advocate of human slavery, and his dissolute life culminated in an 
act alike cowardly and despicable. Only the blank, vulgar act of murder 
remains as the basis of his unenviable fame. Instances there have been 
where brutality, allied with intellect and power, has formed the pedestal for 
a monument, But here the case was different: here brutality stood forth 


i Tera an 


Aprit, 1865.] 


in its nakedness; men shrank away from the monster, and cared not to 
know the place of his sepulture. 

The other conspirators were tried in Washington by a military commis- 
sion, and on the 6th of July they received their sentence. The next day 
four of them—Harold, Atzerott, Powell, and Mrs. Surratt—were hung. Dr. 
Mudd, O’Loughlin, and Arnold were committed to a life-long imprisonment, 
and Spangler! was imprisoned for a term of six years. John H. Surratt had 
escaped, but he also was finally overtaken by justice, and while we write he 
awaits his second trial. He fled to Canada after the assassination, and there 
remained until September, 1865, when he started for Liverpool. In the 
spring of 1866 Mr. Seward was informed by Mr. King, at Rome, that Surratt 
had enlisted in the papal guards under the name of John Watson. He was 
arrested at Teroli, in Italy, but managed to escape by plunging down a ra- 
vine, making a leap of twenty-three feet. Wounded by his fall, he crawled 
off to a hospital, and after a few days resumed his flight. He went to 
Egypt, and was there again captured by our minister, Mr. Hale, and sent to 

? The charge against O’Loughlin was that he designed the murder of Lieutenant General Grant. 


Arnold was charged with having rendered assistance to Booth, Powell, Atzerott, and O'Loughlin ; 
and Spangler with haying assisted in Booth’s escape. 


DAVID GO. HAROLD, 


THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. 


JOHN H- SUBRATT. 


787 


| 


this country. He every where boldly acknowledged his connection with 
the assassination, and seemed to think that the world had not only forgiven 
the crime, but admired its atrocity. 

On the morning of Mr. Lincoln’s death Andrew Johnson was inaugurated 
President. A few days afterward—on the 2d of May—he issued a procla- 
mation offering large rewards for the capture of Jefferson Davis, Jacob 
Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, George N. Saunders, and Wil- 
liam C. Cleary, on the ground that they were implicated in the assassination 
by evidence then in the possession of the Bureau of Military Justice.’ It 


“* By the President of the United States of America : 
‘* 4 PROCLAMATION, 

‘* Whereas, it appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice that the atrocious mur- 
der of the late President, Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of the Honorable 
William H. Seward, Secretary of State, were incited, concerted, and procured by and between Jef- 
ferson Davis, late of Richmond, Virginia, and Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, 
George N. Saunders, William C. Cleary, and other rebels and traitors against the government of 
the United States, harbored in Canada : 

‘* Now, therefore, to the end that justice may be done, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the 
United States, do offer and promise for the arrest of said persons, or either of them, within the 
limits of the United States, so that they can be brought to trial, the following rewards: 

“* One hundred thousand dollars for the arrest of Jefferson Davis. 

‘* Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of Clement C. Clay. 


a TIN LIE — 
MMI WULLLAT — 


MES. SURRATT'S HOUSE, WASHINGTON, 


788 


was afterward proved that a cipher found in Booth’s trunk corresponded to 
that used by the Confederate Secretary of State, J.P. Benjamin, and that 
Jefferson Davis had referred to his Secretary of War for consideration a let- 
ter from one L. W. Alston, who proposed to rid the Confederacy “ of some 
of her deadliest enemies, by striking at the very heart’s blood of those who 


seek to enchain her in slavery.”? 
In the mean while the people were burying their president. As soon as 
his death was known, business for a time ceased. Every house, from the 


palatial mansion to the lowest hovel, was draped with mourning. The na- 
tion was one vast funeral. From every pulpit, on the following Sabbath, 
there was uttered a funeral sermon. On Monday, April 17th, all the mem- 
bers of Congress then at Washington met at the Capitol to make arrange- 
ments for the funeral. It was finally determined that the remains of the 
President should be taken to his old home at Springfield, Illinois, and a Con- 
gressional Committee was appointed to accompany them, consisting of the 
entire Illinois delegation, and one member from each other state and each 
territory. The consignment of Lincoln’s remains to Illinois was due to the 
urgent request of Governor Oglesby, Senator Yates, and others of that state. 
Sumner and many others desired that the body should be placed under the 
dome of the Capitol, at Washington, where a vault had been prepared for 
the Father of his Country, but had not been used for that purpose. 

On Wednesday, the 19th, the funeral services were held in the east room 
of the White House. The coffin rested upon a canopied catafalque, and was 
decorated with wreaths of moss and evergreen, with white flowers and lilies. 
Around the catafalque at noon were gathered the late President’s family, 
the officiating clergymen, the cabinet, the governors of several states, the Su- 


‘Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of Jacob Thompson, late of Mississippi. 

** Twonty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of George N. Saunders. 

‘ Twonty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of Beverly Tucker. 

“Ten thousand dollars for the arrest of William C. Cleary, late clerk of Clement C. Clay. 

‘“The Provost-marshal General of the United States is directed to cause a description of said 
persons, with notice of the above rewards, to be published. 

“Tn testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States 
to be affixed. 

‘* Done at the City of Washington, this second day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand 

eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the independence of the United States of America the 
[t.8.] eighty-fifth. ANDREW JOHNSON. 

‘* By the President: W. Hunter, Acting Secretary of State.” 

‘ The following is an abstract of a portion of the evidence relating to this subject, offered before 
the Military Commission at the trial of the conspirators : 

Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, testified that he went to Richmond April 6, and 
there found in Benjamin’s office the key to an official cipher. It is a machine about a foot long 
and eight inches high, and consists of a cylinder of wood which has a paper envelope inscribed with 
letters ; the cylinder revolves on pivot-holes at each end, and a bar across the top contains wooden 
indices pointing down to the letters. 

Major Eckert then being sworn, testified that a cipher found in Booth’s trunk corresponded 
with that of which Dana had spoken. Rebel dispatches of October 18th and 19th (1860) had fallen 
into his hand which were deciphered on the same principle. The following are the dispatches 
translated : 

“ October 13, 1864. 

‘“‘We again urge the necessity of our getting immediate advantages. Strain every nerve for 
victory. We now look upon the re-election of Lincoln in November as almost certain, and we 
need to whip his hirelings to prevent it. Besides, with Lincoln re-elected, and his armies victo- 
rious, we need not hope even for recognition, much less the help mentioned in our last. Holcomb 
will explain this. Those figures of the Yankee armies are correct to a unit. Your friend shall be 
immediately set to work as you direct.” 

October 19, 1864. 

‘* Your letter of the 13th is at hand. There is yet time enough to colonize many voters before 
November. A blow will shortly be stricken here. It is not quite time. General Longstreet is to 
attack Sheridan without delay, and then move north as far as practicable toward unprotected points. 
‘This will be made instead of the movement before mentioned. He will endeavor to assist the Re- 
publicans in collecting their ballots. Be watchful and assist him.” 


That of the 13th passed from Canada to Richmond; that of the 19th from Richmond to Canada. 

Robert A. Campbell, first teller of the Ontario Bank of Montreal, testified Jacob Thompson had 
kept an account with the bank from May 30,1864. The account closed April 11,1865. The ag- 
gregate amount of credit was $649,872 23; there was a balance due Thompson. Since March 
Ist he had drawn $300,000. Since the assassination Thompson had left Montreal. He said he 
was going overland to Halifax en rowte to Europe. This was about two weeks before navigation 
opened. ‘To Mr. Campbell it seemed strange that Thompson should have gone overland, when, by 
waiting two weeks, he could have taken a steamer. Booth also had a small account with the Onta- 
rio Bank. 

C. F, Hall testified that he had found the following paper, taken from a box marked ‘* Adjutant 
General’s Office. Letters received July to December, 864.” 

ce € j 4 ¥5 
“To his Excellency President C. 8. A. SRE oe 

**DerAR Srr,—I have been thinking for some time I would make this communication to you, but 
have been deterred from doing so on account of ill health. 

“* I now offer you my services, and if you will favor me in my designs, I will proceed, as soon as 
my health will permit, to rid my country of some of her deadliest enemies, by striking at the very 
heart's blood of those who seek to enchain her in slavery. I consider nothing dishonorable having 
such a tendency. All I want of you is to favor me by granting the necessary papers, ete., to travel 
on while in the jurisdiction of this government. I am perfectly familiar with the North, and feel 
confident that I can execute any thing I undertake. I have just returned now from within their 
lines. I am a lieutenant in General Duke’s command. I was on a raid last June in Kentucky, 
under General John A. Morgan. I and all my command, except two or three commissioned offi- 
cers, were taken prisoners ; but, finding a good opportunity while being taken to prison, I made my 
escape from them. In the garb of a citizen I attempted to pass out through the mountains, but, 
finding that impossible, narrowly escaping two or three times being retaken, directed my course 
north and west through the Canadas; by the assistance of Colonel J. P. Holcombe I succeeded in 
making my way round through the blockade; but, having taken the yellow fever, ete., at Bermuda, 
I have been rendered unfit for service since my arrival. Iwas reared up in the State of Alabama, 
and educated in its University. Both the Secretary of War and his assistant, Judge Campbell, are 
personally acquainted with my father, William J. Alston, of the Fifth Congressional District of 
Alabama, haying served in the time of the old Congress in 1849, 1850, and1851. IfIdo any thing 
for you I shall expect your full confidence in return. If you can give this, I can render you and 
my country very important service. Let me hear from you soon. Iam anxious to be doing some- 
thing, and haying no command at present, all or nearly all being in garrison, I desire that you favor 
me in this a short time. I would like to have a fersonal interview with you in order to perfect ar- 
rangements before starting. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, L. W. Axston. 

‘* Address me at the Springs, in hospital.” 


On the above letter were the following indorsements : 

“1. Brief of letter without signature. 

“2. Respectfully referred by direction of the President to Honorable Secretary of War. Burton 
N. Harrison, Private Secretary. Received November 29,1864. Record book A. G. O., December 


8, 1864, 
“3. A. G. for attention. By order, J. A. Campbell, A. S. W.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[ APRIL, 1865, 


preme Court, and the diplomatic corps. The Episcopal service for the dead 
was read by the Rev. Dr. Hall. Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, followed with a prayer. This portion of the service was most 
impressive, and, as the bishop concluded with the Lord’s Prayer, the whole 
audience, dissolved in tears, joined as with one voice. Rey. Dr. Gurley, pas- 
tor of the church which Mr. Lincoln and his family were in the habit of at- 
tending, preached the funeral discourse. Then the concluding prayer was 
offered by Rev. Dr. Gray, chaplain of the Senate. 

From the White House, at the close of the service, the procession passed 
up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, and up the steps, underneath the 
very spot from which, six months before, Iincoln had delivered his second 
inaugural, his funeral car was carried and deposited in the rotunda. Here 
the body remained until the 21st, when it was removed, under escort, to the 
dépét of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Then commenced the funeral 
procession of the President from Washington to Springfield—from the scene 
of his divinely-directed labors to his final resting-place. At each of the 
principal cities on the route—at Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New 
York, Albany, and Chicago—the body of the President lay for some hours 
in state, and hundreds of thousands of citizens were thus permitted to look 
upon the face which they had greeted four years before—then turned toward 
the national capital, now returning thence to meet the silence of the tomb. 
Then the malice of his foes had compelled Lincoln to proceed in disguise 
through Baltimore to Washington; now also he is in disguise, wearing the 
mask of death, through which all, bending over the silent features in loving 
reverence, discover his worthiness. His work has been all done, and this 
funeral procession is, after all, one of triumph. Well did Beecher say: 
“ And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when 
alive. ‘The nation rises up at every stage of his coming. Cities and states 
are his pall-bearers, and the cannon speaks the hours with solemn progres- 
sion. Dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Washington dead? Is Hamp- 
den dead? Is David dead? Is any man that was ever fit to live dead? 
Disenthralled of flesh, risen to the unobstructed sphere where passion never 
comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life is now grafted upon the in- 
finite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, thou that bast 
overcome! Your sorrows, oh people, are his peeans; your bells, and bands, 
and muffled drums sound triumph in his ears. Wail and weep here; God 
makes it echo joy and triumph there. Pass on! Four years ago, oh Illi- 
nois, we took from thy midst an untried man, and from among the people; 
we return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more, but the 
nation’s; not ours, but the world’s. Give him place, oh ye prairies. In the 
midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads 
who shall pilgrim to that great shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriot- 
ism. Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his 
requiem! Ye people, behold the martyr whose blood, as so many articu- 
late words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty !” 

As the procession moved through New York on the 25th, it was witnessed 
by nearly a million of peopite. Among the most interesting of the incidents 
connected with the lying in state at this city was the visit to the remains 
of the aged soldier, General Scott, who was soon to follow the President. 
The funeral train reached Springfield on the 8d of May. Since his depart- 
ure from that city in 1861, when he had asked his friends and neighbors to 
accompany him with their prayers, he had never returned till this time and 
in this manner. As it was beautifully expressed in one of the mottoes dis- 
played by the citizens: 


“* He left us borne up by our prayers, 
He returns embalmed in our tears.” 


Lincoln was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery, about two miles from Spring- 
field. The funeral oration was pronounced by Bishop Simpson. 

“Here,” said the bishop, “are gathered around his tomb the representa- 
tives of the army and navy, senators, judges, governors, and officers of all 
the branches of the government. Here, too, are members of civic proces- 
sions, with men and women from the humblest as well as the highest occu- 
pations. Here and there, too, are tears as sincere and warm as any that 
drop, which come from the eyes of those whose kindred and whose race 
have been freed from their chains by him whom they mourn as their deliy- 
erer. More persons have gazed on the face of the departed than ever look- 
ed upon the face of any other departed man. More races have looked on 
the procession for sixteen hundred miles or more—by night and by day— 
by sunlight, dawn, twilight, and by torchlight, than ever before watched the 
progress of a procession.” 

He concluded with the following Vale: 

“Chieftain, farewell! The nation mourns thee. Mothers shall teach thy 
name to their lisping children. The youth of our land shall emulate thy 
virtues. Statesmen shall study thy record and learn lessons of wisdom. 
Mute though thy lips be, yet they still speak. Hushed is thy voice, but its 
echoes of liberty are ringing through the world, and the sons of bondage 
listen with joy. Prisoned thou art in death, and yet thou art marching 
abroad, and chains and manacles are bursting at thy touch. Thou didst 
fall not for thyself. The assassin had no hate for thee. Our hearts were 
aimed at, our national life was sought. We crown thee as our martyr, and 
humanity enthrones thee as her triumphant son. Hero, martyr, friend, fare- 
well!” 


——— 


May, 1865.] 


CHAPTER LXL 


CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 


Grand Review at Washington.—Mustering out of the Troops.—The two Periods of the War.— 
Our Generals. —Connection of Negroes with the War.—The Foreign Element in our Armies.— 
Confederate Conscription.—The War Department and Secretary Stanton.—The Question of 
Supplies with the Confederates.—Sanitary Commissions.—Treatment of Prisoners.—Irregular 
Warfare.—Confederate Agents in Canada.—The War upon the Sea.—Anglo-Confederate Cruis- 
ers.—The Alabama Claims.—Withdrawal of the French from Mexico.—The Political Situation 
at the Close of the War, 


PON the surrender of the Confederate armies the war for the Union 
was concluded. The battles had been all fought, and the nation was 
victorious. It was, by reason of its victory, secure against traitors in arms. 
Treason might still remain, but it was a disarmed prisoner. The reward of 
four years of bitter strife had been grasped by a patriotic people. Peace 
had come, not through conciliation or compromise, but as a conquest. For 
a brief period the popular enthusiasm knew no bounds, until too soon it was 
tempered by the death of Lincoln. No one talked of political theories; all 
felt that such theories had no share in the glory of this triumph. The bat- 
tle had been won by blood and sacrifice. With one accord the nation turn- 
ed toward its armies, and showered its blessings upon them. The success. 
ful generals, the brave soldiers—these were the heroes of that time. Four 
years before, regiment after regiment had marched through our cities, with 
new banners, bright arms, and fresh, youthful faces. They were followed by 
hopes and prayers. ‘Two soldiers—Ladd and Whitney—in the van of this 
southward march, had been slain in the streets of Baltimore, and their death 
so impressed the people that they received a monument, and passed into his- 
tory sacredly, and by the association of time, linked with the revolutionary 
heroes of Lexington. These were the first victims of the war. They led 
that glorious march of the dead which, ere the end, numbered among its ranks 
over a quarter ofa million of just such heroes as they, victims, by disease or 
mortal wounds, of this protracted struggle for a nation’s life, Closing up 
the rear of this procession, thousands were still gathering from many hos- 
pitals.? But, though so large a number had disappeared by discharge, death, 
or wounds, their places had been filled by others, All together a million 
and a half of men had entered the United States service, and at the close of 
the war a million still remained,? of whom 650,000 were available for active 
duty. There were as many effective soldiers in the army when the Con- 
federate forces surrendered as when, in May, 1864, Grant and Sherman en- 
tered upon their final campaigns. 

Now the record of blood was all written, and the scene of four years ago 
was reversed. The soldiers were returning to their homes, and as they 
passed through our streets were welcomed back with grateful shouts. Their 
banners now were tattered, and their arms and uniform battle-soiled; many 
an absent one was mourned; and the fresh faces which went forth from us 
returned worn with the hardships of war. But they had served their coun- 
try, and their step was proud and triumphant. 

The armies of Grant and Sherman, who had shared in the latest struggle, 
as they passed through Washington, were marshaled in review. Over two 
hundred thousand soldiers made up the grand spectacle. They were as- 
sembled in one body for the first time. They were gathered together from 
every battle-field of the war—from the Ohio to New Orleans, from New 
Orleans to Olustee, and from Olustee to the Potomac. Those who looked 
upon that spectacle were reminded of that first stage of the war when the 
national capital was threatened, and when the first recruits rushed to its 
rescue. They looked upon a living, moving demonstration of the fact that 
treason in a republic cowld be subdued, though every rebel leader, from Davis 
and Stephens down to the most petty demagogue of the South, had prophe- 
sied to the contrary. There were some things to mar the triumph. <A gen- 
eral who had marched and fought his army from Chattanooga through the 
fortifications of Atlanta to the sea, and thence to Goldsborough and Wash- 
ington, still felt the wrong which had been studiously thrust upon him by 


1 Tt is estimated that during the war 56,000 national soldiers were killed in battle, while about 
85,000 died in hospital of wounds, and 184,000 by disease. The mortal casualties of the war, if we 
include those dying subsequent to their discharge, probably did not fall short of 300,000. ‘The 
Confederates lost less in battle, owing to the defensive character of the struggle on their part ; but 
they lost more from wounds and disease, on account of their inferior sanitary arrangements. The 
total loss of life caused by the rebellion must have been over half a million, while nearly as many 
more were disabled. 

2 ‘The calls made during the war amount to nearly three millions of men. The following table 
shows the date of the several demands, the length of the period of service required, and the number 
obtained : 


umbe riods of umber Number i 
Date of Call. called for. Tartien cinined. Date of Call. called for. riers 
April 15, 1861...... .-| 75,000 | 3 mos. October 17, 1863 .... 
May and July, 1861.. | 582,748 | 3 yrs. | 714,231 || February 1, 1864.... 
May and June, 1862.. 3 mos. 15,007 || March 14, 1864...... 
July 2, 1862 ......... | 300,000 | 3 yrs. 431,958 || April 23, 1864....... 
August 4, 1862....... | 300,000 | 9 mos, 87,588 || July 18, 1864........ 


December 19, 1864... 
NPOtALy visontenre | 2,690,401 


June 15, 1863.. 100,000 | 6 mos. 16,361 


The following table shows the number of men furnished by the several states, in the aggregate, 
and reduced to three years’ standard: 


Aggregate re- Aggregate re- 

Aggregate. | duced to Three States. Aggregate. | duced to Three 

Years’ Standard. Years’ Standard. 
Maine .........+ soe District of Columbia.... 16,872 11,506 
New Hampshire....... 30,8 Ohi 817,133 239,976 
195,147 152, 283 
Illinois ........ ec ccccee 258,217 212,694 
Michigan ........eeeees 80,865 
Wisconsin 78,985 
ses 19,675 
New Jersey ...+..+s.00. : . sees By 68,182 
Pennsylvania ........ vs 3 DD! i i 86,192 
Delaware .......+ Beeece Kentucky,......+ Seuec’ 70,348 
West Virginia......... . Kansas g 18,654 

Maryland ........+ss008 


Massachusetts . . 
Rhode IJsland.........++ 


Connecticut ...... wecces 


It is impossible to give an exact estimate of the number of different men who entered the sery- 
ice. It is generally conceded, however, to have been about a million and a half. Scarcely less than 
three quarters of a million different men entered the Confederate armies, not including state mili- 
tia. So that the number of men withdrawn from industrial pursuits by the war was over two 
millions. 

90 


- CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 789 


some Officers of the government. Sherman could not take Halleck by the 
hand. The soldiers also grievously missed the presence of Lincoln, who 
had called them to the conflict, and to whom they had always looked as 
father and friend. But may we not suppose that Lincoln, though with- 
drawn from the earth, looked down upon the sublime spectacle? Did he 
not, as one of our poets has imagined, marshal another host, composed of 
those who, like him, had been victims of this civil war, and who now par- 
ticipated in this grand review ?! 


* Henry Howard Brownell, in a poem originally published in the Atlantic Monthly—a poem 
which is certainly the greatest of the many called forth by the war—thus expresses this imagina- 
tion : 


** So, from the fields they win, 
Our men are marching home— 
A million are marching home! 
To the cannon’s thundering din, 
And banners on mast and dome 3 
And the ships come sailing in 
With all their ensigns dight, 
As erst for a great sea-fight. 
‘“¢ Let every color fly, 
Every pennon flaunt in pride; 
Wave, Starry Flag, on high! 
Float in the sunny sky, 
Stream o'er the stormy tide! 
For every stripe of stainless hue, 
And every star in the field of blue, 
Ten thousand of the brave and true 
Have laid them down and died, 
‘* And in all our pride to-day 
We think, with a tender pain, 
Of those so far away 
They will not come home again. 


“ And our boys had fondly thought, 
To-day, in marching by, 
From the ground go dearly bought, 
And the fields so bravely fought, 
To have met their Father's eye. 


** But they may not see him in place, 
Nor their ranks be seen of him; 
We look for the well-known face, 
And the splendor is strangely aim, 


* Perished ?—who was it said 
Our Leader had passed away? 
Dead? Our President dead? 
He has not died for a day! 


** We mourn for a little breath 
Such as, late or soon, dust yields‘ 
But the dark flower oz death 
3looms in the fadeless fields. 


** We looked on a cold, still brow, 
But Lincoln could yet survive}; 
He never was more alive, 
Never nearer than now. 


‘For the pleasant season found him, 
Guarded by faithful hands, 
In the fairest of Summer Lands + 
With his own brave staff around him, 
‘There our President stands. 


** There they are all at his side, 
The noble hearts and true, 
That did all men might do— 
Then slept, with their swords, and died. 


** Of little the storm has reft us 
But the brave and kindly clay— 
(Tis but dust where Lander lefi ua, 
And but turf where Lyon lay). 


‘‘There’s Winthrop, true to the end, 
And Ellsworth of long ago 
(First fair young head laid low !) 
There’s Baker, the brave old friend. 
And Douglas, the friendly foc. 


* (Baker, that still stood up 
When ’twas death on either hands 
‘*Tis a soldier’s part to stoop, 
But the senator must stand.’) 


‘The heroes gather and form— 
There’s Cameron, with J ‘> scars, 
Sedgwick, of siege and storm, 
And Mitchell, that joined his stars, 
“ Winthrop, of sword and pen, 
Wadsworth, with silver hair, 
Mansfield, ruler of men, 
And brave McPherson arc there. 


‘Birney, who led so long, 
Abbott, born to command, 
Elliott the bold, and Strong, 
Who fell on the hard-fought strand. 


‘Lytle, soldier and bard, 

And the Ellets, sire and son 5 
Ransom, all grandly scarred, 
And Redfield, no more on guard 

(But Allatoona is won!). 

* Reno, of pure desert, 

Kearney, with heart of flame, 
And Russell, that hid his hurt 

Till the final death-bolt came; 


‘Terrill, dead where he fought, 
Wallace, that would not yield, 
And Sumner, who vainly sought 
A grave on the foughten field 


‘(But died ere the end he saw, 
With years and battles outworn), 
There’s Harker of Kenesaw, 
And Ulric Dahlgren, and Shaw, 
That slept with his hope forlorn. 


‘t Bayard, that knew not fear 
(True as the knight of yore), 
And Putnam, and Paul Revere, 
Worthy the names they bore. 


** Allen, who died for others, 
Bryan, of gentle fame, 
And the brave New England brothers 
That have left us Lowell’s name. 


* Home, at last, from the wars— 
Steadman, the stanch and mild, 
And Janeway, our hero-child, 

Home, with his fifteen scars! 


‘‘ There's Porter, ever in front, 
True son of a sea-king sire, 
And Christian Foote, and Dupont 
(Dupont, who led his ships 
Rounding the first ellipse 
Of thunder and of fire). 


‘¢There’s Ward, with his brave death-wounds, 


And Cummings, of spotless name, 
And Smith, who hurtled his rounds 
When deck and hatch were aflame; 
“ Wainwright, steadfast and true, 
Rodgers, of brave sea-blood, 
And Craven, with ship and crew 
Sunk in the salt sea flood, 


* And, a little later to part, 
Our captain, noble and dear— 
(Did they deem thee, then, austere ? 
Drayton! O pure and kindly heart! 
Thine is the seaman’s tear). 


“ All such, and many another 
(Ah, list how long to name !), 
That stood like brother by brother, 
And died on the field of fame. 
** And around—(for there can cease 
This earthly trouble)—they throng, 
The friends that had passed in peace, 
The foes that have seen their wrong. 
** (But, a little from the rest, 
With sad eyes looking down, 
And brows of softened frown, 


With stern arms on the chest, 
Are two, standing abreast— 
Stonewall and Old John Brown.) 


“But the stainless and the true, 
These by their President stand, 
To look on his last review, 
Or march with the old command. 


“ And lo, from a thousand fields, 
From all the old battle-haunts, 
A greater army than Sherman wields, 
A grander review than Grant's! 
‘*Gathered home from the grave, 
Risen from sun and rain— 
Rescued from wind and wave 
Out of the stormy main— 
The legions of our brave 
Are all in their lines again! 

‘* Many a stout corps that went, 
Full-ranked, from camp and tent, 
And brought back a brigade; 

Many a brave regiment, 
‘That mustered only a squad, 
** The lost battalions, 
That, when the fight went wrong, 
Stood and died at their guns— 
The stormers steady and strong, 


* With their best blood that bought 
Scarp, and ravelin, and wall— 
The companies that fought 
Till a corporal’s guard was all. 


** Many a valiant crew, 
That passed in battle and wreck— 
Ah, so faithful and true! 
They died on the bloody deck, 
They sank in the soundless blue. 


** All the loyal and bold 
That lay on a soldier's bier— 
The stretchers borne to the rear, 
The hammocks lowered to the hold. 


‘The shattered wreck we hurried, 
In death-fight, from deck and port— 
The Blacks that Wagner buried— 
That died in the Bloody Fort! 


“Comrades of camp and mess, 
Left, as they lay, to die, 
In the battle’s sorest stress, 
When the storm of fight swept by; 
They lay in the Wilderness— 
Ah! where did they not lie? 


“*In the tangled swamp they lay, 
They lay so still on the sward!— 
They rolled in the sick-bay, 
Moaning their lives away— 
They flushed in the fevered ward. 


“They rotted in Libby yonder, 
They starved in the foul stockade— 
Hearing afar the thunder 
Of the Union cannonade! 


** But the old wounds all are healed, 
And the dungeoned limbs are free— 
The Blue Frocks rise from the fieid, 
The Blue Jackets out of the sea. 


‘They've ’scaped from the torture-den, 
They’ve broken the bloody sod, 
They're all come to life agen !— 
The third of a million men 
‘Vhat died for thee and for God! 


“A tenderer green than May 
The Eternal Season wears— 
The blue of our summer's day 
Is dim and pallid to theirs— 
The horror faded away, 
And 'twas heaven all unawares! 


“Tents on the Infinite Shore! 
Flags in the azuline sky, 
Sails on the seas once more! 
To-day, in the heaven on high, 
All under arms once more! 


‘* The troops are all in their lines, 
The guidons flutter and play; 
But every bayonet shines, 
For all must march to-day. 


‘* What lofty pennons flaunt? 
What mighty echoes haunt, 
As of great guns, o’er the main? 
Hark to the sound again— 
The Congress is all ataunt! 
The Cumberland’s manned again! 


** All the ships and their men 
Are in line of battle to-day— 
All at quarters, as when 
Their last roll thundered away— 
All at their guns, as then, 
For the fleet salutes to-day. 


“The armics have broken camp 
On the vast and sunny plain, 
The drums are rolling again; 

With steady, measured tramp, 
They're marching all again. 


‘* With alignment firm and solemn, 
Once again they form 
In mighty scuare and column— 
But never for charge and storm, 


“The old flag they died under 
Floats above them on the shore, 
And on the great ships yonder 
The ensigns dip once more— 
And once again the thuuder 
Of the thirty guns and four! 
‘In solid platoons of steel, 
Under heaven's triumphal arch, 
The long lines break and wheel, 
And the word is ‘ Forward, march!’ 
** The colors ripple o’erhead, 
The drums roll up to the sky, 
And with martial time and tread 
The regiments all pass by— 
The ranks of our faithful Dead, 
Meeting their President's eye. 
“With a soldier's quiet pride 
They smile o'er the perished pain, 
For their anguish was not vain— 
‘For thee, O Father, we died! 
And we did not die in vain.’ 
‘* March on, your last brave mile! 
Salute him, Star and Lace! 
Form round him, rank and file, 
And look on the kind, rough face, 
But the quaint and homely smile 
Has a glory and a grace 
It never had known erewhile— 
Never, in time and space. 


“Close round him, hearts of pridet 
Press near him, side by side— 
Our Father is not alone! 
For the Holy Right ye died, 
And Christ, the Crucified, 
Waits to welcome his own,” 


790 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. {May, 1865. 


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GRAND REVIEW AT WASHINGTON.—SHERMAN’S VETERANS MARCHING THROUGH PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. 


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May, 1865.] 


Immediately after Lee’s surrender the government began to return to a 
peace establishment. Four days after this surrender Secretary Stanton is- 
sued orders stopping all drafting and recruiting, curtailing purchases of 
arms and supplies, and reducing the number of general and staff officers. 
Before the close of April, 1865, preparations were made for mustering out 
the volunteers. On November 15th, 900,000 soldiers had been discharged.' 
The stability of the republic was not more surely demonstrated by the suc- 
cess of the war for the Union than by the speedy and quiet return of its de- 
fenders to civil pursuits after the suspension of hostilities. 

The course of the war has been traced in the pages of this history. Of 
the minor actions, many have been omitted because they had no bearing 
upon the result; but the principal campaigns have been developed as accu- 
rately and elaborately as has been possible. We who have written, while 
aware of the fact that many events might have been more fully developed 
and illustrated by private and unofficial intelligence, still feel confident that 
the general outlines of the war, as we have delineated them, will thus remain 
forever. It is unnecessary for us here to enter into a minute review of the 
contest. ‘T'wo eras of the war are distinctly marked. The first ended in 
the summer of 1863, in the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. In this 
first period no distinction can be made between the martial enthusiasm or 
military skill displayed on the two sides of the struggle. In the peninsular 
campaign of 1862, it is difficult to say which general committed the most 
serious blunders—Lee or McClellan. At Shiloh we are no more astonished 
by Grant’s negligence as to any preparation for the conflict which he knew 
was sure to come, than by the panic which two gun-boats created among the 
Confederates, depriving them of the victory of which they were already as- 
sured by their preponderance of numbers. If we wonder why Hooker, at 
Chancellorsville, outnumbering the enemy almost two to one, was compelled 
to recross the Rappahannock, we are not less surprised that Johnston and 
Pemberton did not prevent Grant from reaching the rear of Vicksburg after 
the latter general had placed his army at the mercy of his antagonists. But 
after the defeat of the Confederates at Gettysburg, involving severe losses on 
their side, and after the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, involving 
a loss of nearly 50,000 more, we find the conflict not only contracted to 
smaller proportions, but proceeding upon far more favorable conditions for 
the national armies. After this time the Confederate forces dwindle away 
by discouragement and desertion, and never again reach their former num- 
bers. The decisive victories won by Grant at Missionary Ridge and Look- 
out Mountain, in November, 1868, began to illustrate the new conditions of 
this second era of the war. At the same time, Meade was hesitating in the 
Kast; but in May, 1864, Grant was at the head of the Army of the Potomac. 
Then simultaneously began the campaigns against Richmond and Atlanta, 
and in both the Union armies were twice as large as those which confronted 
them. The exhaustion of the enemy now went on rapidly, and the memo- 
rable blunder of Hood’s invasion hastened the final crisis. Sherman pro- 
ceeded upon his two bold marches, and in the spring of 1865 the war was 
terminated in Virginia and North Carolina. The crushing political defeat 
of the peace party in the North, while it did not create military victories, 
insured the ultimate success of our armies, and took away from the insur- 
gents their last hope. 

Upon a careful study of the campaigns of this war, and comparing them 
with those of the Old World in other times, although we find much that ex- 
cites admiration, we do not find upon either side a general who could rank 
with the first-class generals of the world. The comparison of Lee, or 
Johnston, or Grant, or even of Sherman, with Napoleon or Frederick, is un- 
warranted, while either of the American generals named might be fitly 
matched with the Duke of Wellington. Republics do not, in the ordinary 
course of events, naturally beget Caesars, Napoleons, nor Fredericks. Few 
of our generals entered the war to satisfy a personal ambition, and those 
who did failed utterly. Whatever success was attained was the result of a 
desire to faithfully serve the country. It is fortunate, on the whole, that 
such was the case, and that the people might claim for themselves the 
victory. 

The fact that over one eighth of the population of the country consisted 
of slaves, and the relation of this servile race to the war, demands our at- 
tention. The negroes of the South expected that the war would result in 
their emancipation, and they were not surprised when the government broke 
their fetters. They waited for their freedom, but not one blow of their own 
motion did they strike for it. When they came within our lines, their pov- 
erty and dependence made them willing conscripts. Their sympathy with 
the national cause is evident from the many instances in which they fur- 
nished valuable information to our officers, and assisted our fugitive prison- 
ers in escaping northward. Their assistance, however valuable, was not 
absolutely necessary, and had no important bearing upon the final result of 
the war. About 175,000 negroes entered the United States service, and a 
large portion of these were employed in garrison duty. It is a very sug- 
gestive fact, and speaks well for the peaceful disposition of the Southern 
negro, that while thousands of opportunities were afforded, no case of ser- 
vile insurrection occurred during the war. In the early part of 1865, when 
every other resource had apparently been exhausted, the question of enroll- 
ing the negro as a soldier, and giving him his freedom, was quite generally 
discussed in the South, but it did not meet with the favor of the Confeder- 
ate President. If this measure had been adopted by the Confederate govern- 
ment at an early stage of the war, there is no reason to doubt that the slaves 
would have fought for the enemies of the national government as willingly 


? Troops mustered out to August 7... 640,806 | Troops mustered out to October 15... 785,205 
Se $ «¢ August 22.. 719,338 « ae ** November 15 800,963 
bh zc “Sept. 14.... 741,107 


CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 


791 


as they built their fortifications or performed other offices. The disposition 
by the nation of the emancipated slave after the war closed did not rest so 
much upon the basis of gratitude as upon general considerations affecting 
the common welfare. 

It has been frequently asserted that the foreign element of our population 
was indispensable to victory, but this assertion is contradicted by the fact 
that over nine tenths of our soldiers were native-born citizens. The tri- 
umph of the nation would have been certain if neither foreigners nor slaves 
had engaged in the contest. But this fact ought not to diminish the nation’s 
gratitude toward the negroes and foreigners who fought in its behalf, and 
who acquitted themselves well on the field of battle. 

The two ideas upon which the Confederacy rested were those of state 
sovereignty and the untrammeled development of negro slavery. Scaregly, 
however, had the Southern States been, for these purposes, launched upon 
their novel voyage—scarcely had they entered upon the conflict for inde- 
pendence, when the necessities of war threatened the ruin of both state 
sovereignty and slavery. The concentration of power in the Confederate 
executive—more formidable and despotic than had ever before been exer- 
cised over the states of the republic—left scarcely a vestige of liberty either 
to states or individuals. And, on the other hand, the progress of the na- 
tional arms—slow, but steady and sure—threatened the destruction of slav- 
ery. The people of the South, therefore, could not, without apprehension, 
look forward to either success or defeat. They had espoused a cause which, 
if won, placed them at the mercy of the despotism to which they had com- 
mitted themselves, and the loss of which would lay them prostrate at the feet 
of a power whose just claim to their allegiance they had defied and resisted. 
To one of these evils they had committed themselves so absolutely that no 
release from that lay within their power; to the other evil they would not 
yield but by compulsion. They were embarked upon a ship whose pilots 
would surely deliver it into the jaws of Scylla, unless Fate should deliver it 
over to the opposite Charybdis, Fate was rapidly deciding in favor of 
Charybdis; but, in the mean time, they, without heart, and in their despera- 
tion, shouted their pilots on Scylla-ward. It was a pitiable situation, but 
they had brought it upon themselves by weakly yielding their property and 
their lives at the bidding of ambitious traitors. In a moment of enthusiasm, 
believing that no power could withstand “Southern chivalry,” and that 
Northern enterprise, industry, and intelligence were but synonyms for cow- 
ardice, and would easily be driven from every battle-field by an effete slave 
aristocracy, they had dared every thing, had invoked war by an outrage upon 
the national flag, had pledged their estates, their honor, and their lives to 
treason. A few months of war exposed their mistake, both as to the char- 
acter of their leaders and of the struggle in which they were engaged; but 
then there was no escape for a people already demoralized by rebellion. 

It was only by the most arbitrary exercise of power that the Confederate 
armies were recruited after the first year of the war. Those who volun- 
teered at the beginning were forcibly retained after the expiration of their 
terms of service. On the 16th of April, 1862, a Conscription Bill passed the 
Confederate Congress which placed in the service for three years all white 
men between the ages of 18 and 35 not legally exempted. On the 15th of 
July, 1863, Davis issued a proclamation which included in the service all 
between 18 and 45. But even this act was not sufficient. The Confederate 
armies did not reach their former standard. This was due largely to deser- 
tion. In February, 1864, a Conscription Bill was passed by the Confederate 
Congress declaring all white men between the ages of 17 and 50 “in the 
military service for the war.” By this law, the exemption of those who had 
furnished substitutes was revoked. The only persons exempted were minis- 
ters of the Gospel who were in the actual performance of their duties; super- 
intendents of deaf, dumb, and blind or insane asylums; one editor for each 
newspaper, and such employés as he might upon oath declare indispens- 
able; public printers and their necessary assistants; one apothecary to each 
drug-store ; physicians over 30 years of age of seven years’ practice; presi- 
dents and teachers of colleges, academies, and schools, who had 80 or more 
pupils; the superintendents of public hospitals, with such physicians and 
nurses as were indispensable for the management of the same; and one ag- 
riculturist on each farm where there was no white male adult not liable to 
military duty, and which employed 15 able-bodied slaves. This act left no 
resource untouched. Only those were excluded from service who were ab- 
solutely necessary to the production of supplies and for the execution of the 
functions of government. According to an estimate published at Richmond 
at the close of 1864, there were in the Confederacy in 1860, between the 
ages of 17 and 50, 1,299,700 white men. Since that time it was estimated 
that 331,650 had arrived at the age of 17. And this addition would prob- 
ably be balanced by the ordinary mortality added to the number of those 
who had advanced beyond the age of 50. But, deducting the population 
within the Federal lines, the losses in battle and by unusual disease, exemp- 
tions for disability, prisoners held by the Federals, and those who had left 
the country, there were less than half a million of soldiers left to the Con- 
federacy, and of these full 250,000 were already in the Confederate armies. 
From this estimate it appears that by the close of 1864 the Confederacy was 
nearly exhausted of its fighting men. 

The Conscription Act passed by the United States Congress did not di- 
rectly increase the army to any considerable extent. But the number of 
substitutes obtained, and the high bounties offered under the influence of 
the act, increased the Federal armies to the full measure required. 

It would be unjust to leave unnoticed Secretary Stanton’s admirable 
and efficient administration of the War Department. By this department 
a million of men were fed, clothed, armed, and supplied with ammunition, 
and with all the war material necessary to organized armies; an immense 


792 


fleet of transports moved at its bidding, laden with supplies; and under 
its orders thousands of miles of railroad were constructed and put in opera- 
tion. Upon its prompt and efficient efforts our armies depended not only 
for subsistence, but also, to a great degree, for the successful issue of their 
marches and battles. At the head of this vast organization stood the sec- 
retary, untiring, conscientious, kind-hearted, but often brusque, as men are 
apt to be upon whom rest weighty responsibilities. His character was irre- 
proachable, and his management was characterized by scrupulous economy. 
He had his failings, doubtless, and made many enemies; but no man prob- 
ably could have been more wisely selected to move, adjust, and keep in 
harmonious operation the intricate machinery of a great war. 

The task of supplying the national armies involved only a financial prob- 
lem; with the Confederates it was a question of possibilities, and in 1863 
it became a difficult and embarrassing question. The Confederate currency 
had depreciated until a dollar in paper was only worth six cents in coin. 
There were not in the South, as in the North, large capitalists to buy up the 
government bonds, and the banks were rapidly exhausted. The agricultu- 
rists were willing to sell their produce only at the highest market price in 
currency, and many refused to sell at all. The most fertile portion of the soil 
was devoted to the production of cotton, tobacco, and rice, and the substitu- 
tion of other crops was a measure very reluctantly adopted. ‘To add to the 
embarrassment of the situation, the year 1863 was remarkable for scarcity 
in every crop. The possession of the Mississippi cut off all supplies from 
the fertile states west of that river, and the occupation of Hast Tennessee 
deprived the Confederate armies of bacon. The stringency of the blockade 
made any extensive importation of supplies or exportation of cotton impos- 
sible; and an important consequence was the absorption of a large propor- 
tion of labor in the production of war material. The conscription of all 
the able-bodied men in the Confederacy between 18 and 45 left a small 
laboring population, if we except women, children, and slaves. It is easily 
seen, therefore, that the slaves of the South were already become an indis- 
pensable support of a war for the perpetuation of their own bondage. If 
at this crisis the Confederate government had proclaimed the emancipation 
of slaves, it would have stood on a high vantage-ground both as regarded 
foreign powers and the conduct of its struggle for independence. But such 
an act was, under the circumstances, a moral impossibility. 

The Confederate government met the difficulty of obtaining supplies just 
as it had met that of obtaining soldiers. As it had forced the latter by con- 
scription, so now it began to impress the former. If its despotic will could 
demand the lives of men, it could certainly demand their property. Thus 
the government obtained supplies at its own price. But this action created 
great popular discontent and much distress. The natural desire on the part 
of agriculturists to evade impressment led them to refuse their products to 
the public markets. Besides this, the extent to which impressment was car- 
ried on in the vicinity of the principal dépéts left a scanty supply of provi- 
sions for the people, and especially for women and children whose natural 
protectors were in the army. Famine cursed the large cities, and the in- 
stances were not a few in which women marched through the streets with 
arms in their hands, and compelled the satisfaction of their hunger which 
they had no money to appease. 

What food there was in the Confederacy was not made fully available for 
the supply of the army or of the principal towns. The railroads were giv- 
ing way, and there were no means at hand for their repair. The wooden 
ties rotted, the machinery was almost exhausted, the rails were worn out, 
and thus the speed and capacity of the trains were greatly reduced. This 
embarrassment in regard to supplies weakened and discouraged the Con- 
federate armies, and produced disaffection among the people. 

In another respect a great contrast is presented upon a comparison of the 
National and Confederate armies. We allude to sanitary arrangements. 
No nation ever took such care of its armies in the field as did the United 
States in this war. Scarcely bad the President issued his first call for 
75,000 men before, in our cities and rural districts, hundreds of soldiers 
and societies sprang up to furnish lint, bandages, hospital clothing, nurses, 
and delicacies for the sick and the wounded. It was at this time that the 
Women’s American Association of Relief was organized in New York City. 
Associated with this organization were a number of eminent medical men, 
prominent among whom was Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. This society 
united with the advisory committee of the Board of Physicians and Sur- 
geons of New York, and the New York Medicai Association for furnishing 
supplies in aid of the army, in sending a delegation to Washington to offer 
their co-operation with the medical bureau of the government. Accord- 
ingly, 1. W. Bellows, and Drs. W.H. Van Buren, Elisha Harris, and Jacob 
Harsen, on the 18th of May, 1861, addressed a communication to the Secre- 
tary of War recommending the organization of a commission of civilians, 
medical men, and military‘officers, having for its object the regulation and 
development of the active benevolence of the people toward the army. 
With some reluctance the organization was permitted to exist under the 
name of a “Commission of Inquiry and Advice in respect of the Sanitary 
Interests of the United States Forces.” Subsequently it was styled simply 
the United States Sanitary Commission.1. From duties which at first were 
simply advisory, the commission soon advanced to such as were executive. 
Its representatives were found upon every transport, at every camp and 
eR a ee CR ace em ara ena 0th eS 

* The commission was composed of the following gentlemen: Rev. H. W. Bellows, D.D., New 
York; Professor A. D. Bache, Vice-President, Washington; Elisha Harris, M.D., Corresponding 
Secretary, New York; George W. Cullum, U.S. A.,Washington; Alexander E. Shiras, U.S. A., 
Washington ; Robert C. Wood, M.D., U.S. A., Washington; W.H. Van Buren, M.D., New York; 
Wolcott Gibbs, M.D., New York; Cornelius R. Agnew, M.D., New York; George T. Strong, New 
York; Frederick Law Olmstead, New York; Samuel G. Howe, M.D., Boston; J.S. Newberry, M. 


Ds Cleveland, Ohio. Others were afterward included, and there were nearly 600 associate mem- 
bers in all parts of the country. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1865. 


every fort, in every hospital and on every battle-field. It carefully investi- 
gated the character of the original material of the army from a sanitary 
point of view. The diet and clothing of the recruits, the cleanliness of their 
persons, their camping-grounds, were all subjects of its care. Disease was 
thus, to a great degree, prevented in the incipient stages of the soldier’s 
career. Every provision was made for the relief of the sick and the 
wounded. The ambulances of the commission followed the army into bat- 
tle, took the soldier almost as he fell, and prompt and sufficient relief was 
applied where relief was possible, and the most tender care taken of the 
dead. When the soldiers of the hostile army fell into our hands, they also 

shared in these beneficent provisions. ; 

The officers and agents of the commission received no compensation for 
their labors. The people generously supplied them with the necessary 
means for carrying out their designs, both by the contribution of money 
and supplies. There were other organizations formed for similar objects, 
prominent among which were the Christian and the Western Sanitary Com- 
missions. It is estimated that through these channels, and other means 
used for the benefit of the soldier, not less than $500,000,000 were ex- 
pended. Ata single fair in New York City over a million of dollars was 
realized by the United States Sanitary Commission. 

It must not be supposed that the Confederates at home did not make sac- 
rifices for their soldiers in the field, but from the lack of extensive and well- 
regulated organizations like those which we have described, their armies 
suffered far heavier losses both from diseases in the camp, which might 
have been largely prevented, and from casualties in the field, which proved 
fatal for want of prompt relief. 

In this general review of the war there is one page upon which the his- 
torian is loth to enter. Whatever instances of barbarity may have occurred 
in the heat of battle or in the excitement of the march on either side, and 
although in some sections of the West there was a prevailing disregard of 
the usages of civilized war, still, to the soldiers of both armies, history must 
yield the honor always due to bravery. But the treatment of national 
prisoners by the Confederate :government, especially in the later stages of 
the war, is a disgrace which the conscientious historian can neither palliate 
nor gloss over, though his cheek burn with shame for his own countrymen. 

The question of the exchange of prisoners was at the outset one beset 
with a legal difficulty. At first the prevailing opinion was in favor of hang- 
ing as traitors every prisoner captured by the government. The rebellion 
was regarded as an insurrection which could soon be put down by energy 
and severity, and it seemed derogatory to the national dignity to recognize 
the belligerent rights of rebels by negotiations with them of any sort. But 
it was soon found necessary to adopt a different view of the whole question. 

The first prisoners captured by the government were the captain and 
crew of the privateer Savannah, who fell into the hands of the United 
States brig Perry on the 3d of June, 1861. These men were tried as pirates; 
but, while their trial was pending, the Confederate government threatened 
to visit upon the prisoners captured at Bull Run the precise punishment 
which should be inflicted upon the privateersmen. By this threat of re- 
taliation, the national government was induced to abandon its position. 
There still remained an unwillingness on its part to directly sanction ex- 
changes, and the whole matter was for a time submitted to the various com- 
manders, to be arranged under flags of truce. But in this way only a few 
exchanges took place. Without instructions from the general government, 
our generals declined to receive communications on the subject from the 
other side. Thus, after the battle of Belmont, in November, 1861, General 


HENRY W. BELLOWS. 


® 


May, 1865.] CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 793 


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HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1865. 


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Grant refused to treat with General Polk for a general exchange of prison- 
ers captured in that action. The shyness of the national government in 
this matter was as ridiculous as it was unnecessary. The existence of the 
blockade was a recognition of belligerent rights as full as that involved in 
a cartel for the exchange of prisoners. In neither case did the recognition 
of belligerent rights involve a recognition of sovereignty. If the necessities 
of war justified the blockade, the necessities of humanity justified and de- 
manded an arrangement in regard to prisoners, 

In the latter part of December, 1861, a joint resolution was adopted by 


Congress, requesting the President to take immediate measures to effect a 


general exchange. During the following January Secretary Stanton ap- 
pointed two commissioners, the Rey. Bishop Ames and the Hon. Hamilton 


Fish, “to visit the prisoners belonging to the army of the United States now 


in captivity at Richmond, in Virginia, and elsewhere, and under such regu- 
lations as may be prescribed by the authorities having custody of such pris- 


oners, relieve their necessities and provide for their comfort at the expense 
at Richmond refused to admit the 


of the United States.” The authorities 
commissioners, but declared their readiness to negotiate for a general ex- 
change of prisoners. Negotiations for this purpose were accordingly opened 
at Norfolk, Virginia. These resulted in an agreement for an equal exchange. 
The Confederates at this time held 300 prisoners in excess of those captured 
by the national troops. These they proposed to release on parole, provided 
the United States would release the same number of those who might after- 


ward be captured by them. The exchanges were commenced in the latter 


part of February, 1862, but were interrupted on the 18th of March by a 
message from President Davis to the Confederate Congress, recommending 
that all the Confederate prisoners: who had been paroled by the United 
States government be released from the obligations of their parole. In the 
mean time, the captures made at Roanoke Island and Fort Donelson left an 
excess of many thousands of prisoners in the hands of the national govern- 
ment. 

On the 22d of July a cartel was agreed upon for a general exchange, 
based upon that established between the United States and Great Britain 
in 1812. According to the provisions of this cartel, an equal exchange was 
to be made. All prisoners taken on either side were to be released in ten 
days after their capture; and those for whom no exchange could be ren- 


dered were to be bound by parole not to perform military duty until ex- 
changed. 


The following is the text of this cartel : 
+ t y f ‘“*Haxall's Landing, on James River, Va., July 22, 1862. 
The undersigned, having been commissioned by the authorities they respectively represent to 

awe arrangements for a general exchange of prisoners of war, have agreed to the following ar- 
ticles : 
_ “Articre 1. It is hereby agreed and stipulated that all prisoners of war held by either party, 
including those taken on private armed vessels, known as privateers, shall be discharged upon the 
conditions and terms following : 


“* Prisoners to be exchanged man for man and officer for officer ; privates to be placed on the 
footing of officers and men of the navy. 

“*Men and officers of lower grades may be exchanged for officers of a higher grade, and men 
and officers of different services may be exchanged according to the following scale of equivalents : 


“A general commander-in-chief or an admiral shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or 
forty-six privates or common seamen, 


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CAMP OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS At’ ELMIRA, NEW YORK, 


The provisions of this cartel were carried out generally in good faith on 
both sides; but in some instances its perfect execution was interrupted. 


“A flag officer or major general shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for forty pti- 
yates or common seamen, 

‘*A commodore carrying a broad pennant, or a brigadier general. shall be exchanged for officers 
of equal rank, or twenty privates or common seamen. 

“A captain in the navy, or a colonel, shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or for fifteen 
privates or common seamen. 

“A lieutenant colonel, or a commander in the navy, shall be exchanged for officers of equal 
rank, or for ten privates or common seamen. 

‘A lieutenant commander or a major shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or eight pri- 
vates or common seamen. 

‘* A lieutenant or a master in the navy, or a captain in the army or marines, shall be exchanged 
for officers of equal rank, or six privates or common seamen, 

“* Masters’ mates in the navy, or lieutenants and ensigns in the army, shall be exchanged for 
officers of equal rank, or four privates or common seamen. 

‘* Midshipmen, warrant officers in the navy, masters of merchant vessels, and commanders of 
privateers, shall be exchanged for officers of equal rank, or three privates or common seamen 3; sec- 
ond captains, lieutenants, or mates of merchant vessels or privateers, and all petty officers in the 
navy, and all non-commissioned officers in the army or marines, shall be severally exchanged for 
persons of equal rank, or for two privates or.common seamen ; and private soldiers and common 
seamen shall be exchanged for each other, man for man, 

“Art. 2. Local, state, civil, and militia rank held by persons not in actual military service will 
not be recognized, the basis of exchange being of a grade actually held in the nayal and military 
service of the respective parties, 

“Arr. 3. If citizens held by either party on charge of disloyalty or any alleged civil offense are 
exchanged, it shall only be for citizens, captured sutlers, teamsters, and all civilians in the actual 
service of either party, to be exchanged for persons in similar position. 

“‘Arr. 4, All prisoners of war to be discharged on parole in ten days after their capture, and the 
prisoners now held and those hereafter taken to be transported to the points mutually agreed upon 
at the expense of the capturing party, The surplus prisoners not exchanged shall not be permitted 
to take up arms again, nor to serve as military police or constabulary force in any fort, garrison, 
or field-work held by either of the respective parties, nor as guards of prisoners, dépdts, or stores, 
nor to discharge any duty usually performed by soldiers, until exchanged under the provisions of 
this cartel. The exchange is not to be considered complete until the officer or soldier exchanged 
for has been actually restored to the lines to which he belongs. 

‘Art. 5, Each party, upon the discharge of prisoners of the other party, is authorized to dis- 
charge an equal number of their own officers or men from parole, furnishing at the same time to 
the other party a list of their prisoners discharged and of their own officers and men relieved from 
parole, enabling each party to relieve from parole such of their own officers and men as the party 
may choose. The lists thus mutually furnished will keep both parties advised of the true condi- 
tion of the exchanges of prisoners. 

“Art. 6. The stipulations and provisions above mentioned to be of binding obligation during 
the continuance of the war, it matters not which party may have the surplus of prisoners, the 
great principle involved being, 

“1, An equitable exchange of prisoners, man for man, officer for officer, or officers of higher 
grade exchanged for officers of lower grade or for privates, according to the scale of equivalents. 

‘*2. That privates and officers and men of different services may be exchanged according to the 
same rule of equivalents. 

“3. That all prisoners, of whatsoever arm of service, are to be exchanged or paroled in ten days 
from the time of their capture, if it be practicable to transfer them to their own lines in that time ; 
if not, as soon thereafter as practicable. 

“4. That no officer, soldier, or employé in the service of either party is to be considered as ex- 


changed and absolved from his parole until his equivalent has actually reached the line of his 

ne 

duty. 
“D. H. Hii, Major General C.S, Army ” 


That the parole forbids the performance of field, garrison, police, or guard or constabulary 
Joun A, Drx, Major General. 


Supplementary Articles. 


‘Art. 7, All prisoners of war now held on either side, and all prisoners hereafter taken, shall 
be sent with all reasonable dispatch to A. H. Aikens, below Dutch Gap, on the James River, in 
Virginia, or to Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, in the State of Mississippi, and there exchanged, 
or paroled until such exchange can be effected, notice being previously given by each party of the 
number of prisoners it will send, and the time when they will be delivered at those points respect- 
ively ; and in case the vicissitudes of war shall change the military relations of the places desig- 
nated in this article to the contending parties, so as to render the same inconvenient for the deliy- 
ery and exchange of prisoners, other places, bearing as nearly as may be the present local relations 
of said places to the lines of said parties, shall be, by mutual agreement, substituted, But nothing 


May, 1865.] 


The execution of William B. Mumford by order of General Butler at New 
Orleans; the measures taken by Federal generals to prevent private citizens 
not in the regular service of the Confederates from engaging in acts of war; 
the orders of General Pope for the impressment of property required for 
the use of his army in Virginia; and the action of Generals Hunter and 
Phelps in regard to slaves, led to a series of retaliatory orders from Rich- 
mond, issued partly for popular effect, but which were only partially exe- 
cuted. They contributed, however, to exaggerate the animosity of the war. 
Still the exchanges went on regularly at City Point during the year, and 
the excess of prisoners on either side was not sufficient to occasion appre- 
hension as to the good faith of the other. 

But, in the mean time, President Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proc- 
lamation, and measures had been taken by the United States government 
for the employment of negroes in its military service. These measures pro- 
duced consternation and fear in the minds of the Southern people. President 
Davis, in his message (January 14, 1863), declared his determination to de- 
liver over to the state authorities all commissioned officers of the United 
States thereafter captured in any of the states embraced in the Emancipa- 
{ tion Proclamation, to be punished as criminals engaged in exciting servile 
‘ insurrection, This determination was supported by the Confederate Con- 
| gress.! 

: The cartel remained in operation until July, 1863. On the third of that 
| month, an order was issued by the Adjutant General at Washington requir- 
ing all prisoners to be delivered at City Point and Vicksburg, there to 
be exchanged, or paroled until exchange could be effected. The only ex- 
| ception allowed was in the case of the two opposing commanders, who were 


authorized to exchange prisoners or to release them on parole at other points 
agreed upon. ‘This order was issued to prevent unauthorized paroles, and 
in order that the balance of exchanges might be accurately kept, The very 
next day General Lee was defeated at Gettysburg, and released a number of 
prisoners which he was unable to take with him into Virginia. He there- 
fore paroled them, and the parole was not recognized by the United States, 
as it had not been made in strict accordance with the cartel, nor by the mu- 
tual agreement of the opposing commanders. At the same time, a large 
number of Confederate prisoners fell into the hands of the Federals by the 
captures of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. These were paroled by mutual 
agreement between the Federal and Confederate commanders. The Con- 
federate government, without any plausible reason, declared these prisoners 
released from their parole, and thousands of them fought under Bragg in 
the battles about Chattanooga in November. But this violation of good 
faith did not permanently interrupt the exchange of prisoners. 

The real difficulty, however, soon presented itself in the refusal of the 
Confederate government to recognize negro soldiers captured as prisoners 
of war, That government refused to exchange negro prisoners or the com- 
missioned officers of negro regiments, The United States could not hon- 
orably make any distinction between its soldiers on the ground of color. 
When, therefore, the Confederate government adopted the policy of reduc- 
ing to slavery all negro prisoners, and of delivering over to the state gov- 


in this article contained shall prevent the commanders of two opposing armies from exchanging 
prisoners or releasing them on parole at other points mutually agreed on by said commanders. 

* Ant. 8, For the purpose of carrying into effect the foregoing articles of agreement, each party 
will appoint two agents, to be called Agents for the Exchange of Prisoners of War, whose duty it 
shall be to communicate with each other by correspondence and otherwise, to prepare the list of 
prisoners, to attend to the delivery of the prisoners at the places agreed on, and to carry out 
promptly, effectually, and in good faith, all the details and provisions of the said articles of agree- 
ment, 

“Art, 9, And in case any misunderstanding shall arise in regard to any clause or stipulation in 
the foregoing articles, it is mutually agreed that such misunderstanding shall not interrupt the re- 
lease of prisoners on parole, as herein provided, but shall be made the subject of friendly explana- 
tions, in order that the object of this agreement may neither be defeated nor postponed. 

** Joun A, Dix, Major General, 

**D. H. Hitt, Major General C.S. A.” 


? The following joint resolutions were adopted by the Confederate Congress : ° 

“* Resolved, by the Congress of the Confederate States of America, in response to the message 
of the President, transmitted to Congress at the commencement of the present session, That, in 
the opinion of Congress, the commissioned officers of the enemy ought not to be delivered to the 
authorities of the respective states, as suggested in the said message ; but all captives taken by the 
Confederate forces ought to be dealt with and disposed of by the Confederate government. 

** Sec. 2, That,in the judgment of Congress, the proclamations of the President of the United 
States, dated respectively September 22d, 1862, and January Ist, 1863, and the other measures of 
the government of the United States and of its authorities, commanders, and forces, designed or 
tending to emancipate slaves in the Confederate States, or to abduct such slaves, or to incite them 
to insurrection, or to employ negroes in war against the Confederate States, or to overthrow the 
institution of African slavery and bring on a servile war in these states, would, if successful, pro- 
duce atrocious consequences, and they are inconsistent with the spirit of those usages which in 
modern warfare prevail among civilized nations ; they may, therefore, be properly and lawfully re- 
pressed by retaliation. 

** Sec, 3. That in every case wherein, during the present war, any violation of the laws and 
usages of war among civilized nations shall be, or has been, done and perpetrated by those acting 
under the authority of the government of the United States, on the persons or property of the citi- 
zens of the Confederate States, or of those under the protection of the land or naval service of the 
Confederate States, or of any state of the Confederacy, the President of the Confederate States is 
hereby authorized to cause full and complete retaliation to be made for every such violation, in 
such manner and to such extent as he may think proper. 

“Sec. 4, That every white person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during 
the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or 
who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the 
Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, 
attack, or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if cap- 
tured, be put to death, or be otherwise punished. at the discretion of the court. 

‘* Sec. 5. Every person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such in the service of the 
enemy, who shall, during the present war, excite, attempt to excite, or cause to be excited servile 
insurrection, or who shall incite or cause to be incited a slave to rebel, shall, if captured, be put to 
death, or be otherwise punished, at the discretion of the court. 

“* Sec. 6. Every person charged with an offense punishable under the preceding resolutions shall, 
during the present war, be tried before the military court attached to the army or corps by the 
troops of which he shall have been captured, or by such other military court as the President may 
direct, and in such manner and under such regulations as the President shall prescribe, and, after 
conviction, the President may commute the punishment in such manner and on such terms as he 
may deem proper. 

** Sec. 7. All negroes or mulattoes who shall be engaged in war or be taken in arms against the 
Confederate States, or shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the Confederate States, shall, 
when captured in the Confederate States, be delivered to the authorities of the state or states in 
which they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to the present or future laws of such state 
or states,’ 


CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 


795 


ernments for punishment the commissioned officers of negro regiments, 
President Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering that for every national 
soldier killed a Confederate soldier should be executed, and for every negro 
in the national service sold into slavery, a Confederate prisoner should be 
placed at hard labor on the public works. This proclamation prevented 
the Confederate government from carrying out its inhuman policy; but it 
persisted in refusing to exchange negro prisoners, This refusal interrupted 
the execution of the cartel of exchange. At the close of 1863 there had 
been captured from the Confederates one hundred and fifty thousand pris- 
oners, of whom about 80,000 remained in the hands of the government, 

In 1864 the situation in regard to prisoners remained unchanged. The 
positions occupied by the two governments were so antagonistic that agree- 
ment was impossible. The national government refused to exchange white 
for white, because the enemy would thus be relieved of the burden of main- 
taining his white prisoners, and, getting back his soldiers, he would dispose 
of the negro as he chose, since there would be left no means of retaliation. 
Finally, the excess of prisoners in the hands of the government became so 
large that the discussion ceased. It was certainly the policy of the Confed- 
erate government to yield the point in dispute. The prisoners which it 
held, if returned, would not, in most cases, resume their places in the field, 
their terms of service having expired, The Confederate prisoners, on the 
other hand, were soldiers for the war, and could be made immediately avail- 
able, Their presence in the field was, moreover, a necessity which became 
every day more pressing. 

What it could not accomplish by negotiation the Confederate government 
sought to extort by cruelty, The prison camps at Belle Isle, Andersonville, 
Millen, and Salisbury were each transformed into human shambles. Thou- 
sands of men were huddled together within narrow limits, In the midst of 
a country abounding in timber, they were deprived of all means of shelter. 
Exposure to rains, dews, and frost generated disease, and there was neither 
medical relief at hand nor suitable food. No opportunities were afforded 
for cleanliness, and the prisoners were covered with vermin, which, in many 
cases, they were too weak to remove. They were shot by those guarding 
them for offenses the most trivial; they were plundered of every thing 
which was deemed valuable by their captors; supplies sent for their relief 
were in many cases appropriated by Confederate officers in charge; and the 
charities of Southern citizens excited in their behalf were repelled. Thou- 
sands died in those prison Golgothas, and many, from weakness induced by 
starvation, became idiots? These barbarities were not onl y known to the 
Confederate authorities, but seem to have been encouraged by them. The 
officers placed over the prison appear to have been selected for their brutal 
capacity to carry out this system of cruelty. Among these was the notori- 
ous Captain Henry Wirz, the Anderson jailer, who was after the war tried 
by a military commission, and executed on the 10th of November, 1865.3 


“executive Mansion, Washington, July 30th, 

* “Tt is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, 
or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The 
law of nations, and the usages ard customs of war, as carried on by civilized powers, permit no dis- 
tinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. ‘To sell or enslave any 
captured person on account of his color, and for no offense against the laws of war, is a relapse 
into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age. The government of the United 
States will give the same protection to all its soldiers; and if the enemy shall sell or enslave any 
one because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy’s prisoners in 
our hands, 

“*It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws 
of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed, and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into 
slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works, and continue at such 
labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due a prisoner of war. 

** ABRAHAM LINcoLn.” 


* A letter of the Confederate Inspector General Chandler, dated July 5,1864, and addressed to 
Colonel Chilton, of Richmond, thus describes Andersonyille : 

** No shelter whatever, nor materials for constructing any, had been provided by the prison au- 
thorities, and the ground being entirely bare of trees, none is within reach of the prisoners, nor has 
it been possible, from the overcrowded state of the inclosure, to arrange the camp with any system. 
Each man has been permitted to protect himself as best he can by stretching his blanket, or what- 
ever he may have about him, on such sticks as he can procure. Of other shelter there has been 
none. ‘There is no medical attendance within the stockade. Many (twenty yesterday) are carted 
out daily who have died from unknown causes, and whom the medical officers have neyer seen, 
The dead are hauled out daily by the wagon-load, being first mutilated with an axe in the re- 
moval of any finger-rings they may have. Raw rations have to be issued to a very large portion, 
who are entirely unprovided with proper utensils, and furnished with so limited a supply of fuel 
that they are compelled to dig with their hands in the filthy marsh before mentioned for roots, ete. 
No soap or clothing has ever been issued. After inquiry, the writer is confident that, with slight 
exertions, green corn and other antiscorbutics could readily be obtained. ‘The present hospital 
arrangements were only intended for the accommodation of ten thousand men, and are totally in- 
sufficient, both in character and extent, for the present needs, the number of prisoners being now 
more than three times as great. ‘The number of cases requiring medical treatment is in an increased 
ratio. It is impossible to state the numbers of sick, many dying within the stockade whom the 
medical officers have never seen or heard of till their remains are brought out for interment. The 
transportation of the post is also represented to be entirely insufficient, and authority is needed by 
the quartermaster to impress wagons and teams, and saw-mills when not employed by the govern- 
ment, and kept diligently occupied, and instructions given to the quartermaster in charge of trans- 
portation to afford every facility practicable for transporting lumber and supplies necessary for pris- 
oners.’ 

* The following testimony, given before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, J: anuary 30, 
1865, by Albert D. Richardson, a Tribune correspondent, describes the situation of our prisoners 
at Salisbury, North Carolina : 

“Tam a Tribune correspondent, and was captured by the rebels May 3, 1863, at midnight, on 
a hay-bale in the Mississippi River, opposite Vicksburg. After confinement in six different pris- 
ons I was sent to Salisbury, N. C., February 3, 1864, and kept there until December 18, when I 
escaped. Jor several months Salisbury was the most endurable rebel prison I had seen. The six 
hundred inmates exercised in the open air were comparatively well fed and kindly treated. But 
early in October 10,000 regular prisoners of war arrived there, and it immediately changed into a 
scene of cruelty and horrors. It was densely crowded; rations were cut down and issued very ir- 
regularly ; friends outside could not even send in a plate of food. ‘The prisoners suffered con- 
stantly and often intensely for want of water, bread, and shelter. The rebel authorities placed all 
the prison hospitals under charge of my two journalistic comrades (Messrs. Brown and Dayis) and 
myself. Our positions enabled us to obtain exact and minute information. Those who had to 
live or die on the prison rations always suffered from hunger. Very frequently one or more divi- 
sions of a thousand men would receive no rations for twenty-four hours; sometimes they were 
without a morsel of food for forty-eight hours. The few who had money would pay from five to 
twenty dollars, rebel currency, for a little loaf of bread. Most of the prisoners traded the buttons 
from their blowses for food. Many, though the weather was very inclement and snows frequent, 
sold coats from their backs and shoes from their feet. Yet I was assured, on authority entirely 
trustworthy, that the great commissary warehouse near the prison was filled with provisions ; that 
the commissary found it difficult to obtain storage for his flour and meal ; that when a subordinate 
asked the post commandant, Major John H. Gee, ‘Shall I give the prisoners full rations ?’ he re- 
plied, ‘No, God damn them, give them quarter rations.’ I know, from personal observation, that 


796 


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HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


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THE ANDERSONVILLE BURIAL-GROUNDS WHERE WERE INTERRED 14,000 UNION PRISONERS. 


May, 1865.] 


In the latter part of 1864, Lieutenant General Grant made an arrange- 
ment for an exchange of prisoners man for man, according to the old car- 
tel, until on one side or the other the number of prisoners held was ex- 
hausted. The war seemed so near its close that the exchange could afford 
no substantial aid to the Confederacy, and every motive on the score of hu- 
manity demanded that the government, under these circumstances, should 
waive the old dispute respecting negro prisoners.’ 

During the last few months of the war, when the prospects of Confederate 
success through regularly conducted warfare seemed desperate, a series of 
attempts were made to paralyze and subvert the national government by 
means which desperation naturally suggested to bold and unscrupulous men, 
The capture of the Confederate archives at the close of the war disclosed let- 
ters which showed that propositions for the destruction of officers connected 
with the government had not only, at various stages of the war, been re- 
ceived by the Confederate executive, but had been subjects of consideration. 
As early as June 19th, 1861, one C. L.V. De Kalb, representing himself to 
be the grandson of Baron De Kalb, of Revolutionary fame, addressed a letter 
to L. P. Walker, the Confederate Secretary of War, reminding the latter that 
the Federal Congress would assemble on the 4th of July, and that the Cap- 
itol and public buildings at Washington were undermined. In regard to 


corn and pork are very abundant in the region about Salisbury. For several weeks the prisoncrs 
had no shelter whatever. They were all thinly clad; thousands were barefooted; not one in twenty 
had either overcoat or blanket ; many hundreds were without shirts, and hundreds were without 
blowses. At last one Sibley tent and one ‘A’ tent were furnished to each squad of one hundred. 
With the closest crowding these sheltered about one half the prisoners. The rest burrowed in the 
ground, crept under buildings, or shivered through the nights in the open air upon the frozon, 
muddy, or snowy soil. If the rebels, at the time of their capture, had not stolen their shelter-tents, 
blankets, clothing, and money, they would have suffered little from cold. _ If the prison authorities 
had permitted a few hundred of them, either upon parole or under guard, to cut logs within two 
miles of the garrison, the prisoners would gladly have built comfortable and ample barracks in one 
week. But the commandant would never, in a densely wooded region, with the cars which brought 
it passing by the wall of the prison, even furnish half the fuel which was needed. 

‘*'The hospitals were in a horrible condition. By crowding the patients thick as they could lie 
upon the floor they would contain six hundred inmates. They were always full to overflowing, with 
thousands seeking admission in vain. In the two largest wards, containing jointly about two hund- 
red and fifty patients, there was no fire whatever. The others had small fireplaces, but were al- 
ways cold. One ward, which held forty patients, was comparatively well furnished. In the other 
eight the sick and dying men lay upon the cold and usually naked floor, for the scanty straw fur- 
nished us soon became too filthy and full of vermin for use. The authorities never supplied a 
single blanket, or quilt, or pillow, or bed, for those eight wards. We could not procure even 
brooms to keep them clean, or cold water to wash the faces of the inmates. Pneumonia, catarrh, 
and diarrhea were the prevailing diseases, but they were directly the result of hunger and expos- 
ure. “More than half who entered the hospitals died in a very few days. The deceased, always 
without coffins, were loaded in a dead-cart, piled upon each other like logs of wood, and so driven 
out to be thrown into a trench and covered with earth. 

‘¢'The rebel surgeons were generally humane and attentive. They endeavored to improve the 
shocking condition of the hospitals, but the Salisbury and Richmond authorities both disregarded 
their complaints and protests. 

“On November 25 many of the prisoners had been without food for forty-eight hours. Des- 
perate from hunger, without any matured plan, a few of them said, ‘We may as well die in one 
way as another ; let us break out of this horrible place.’ Some of them wrested the guns from a 
relief of fifteen rebel soldiers just entering the yard, killing two who resisted and wounding five or 
six. Others attempted to open the fence, but they had neither adequate tools nor concert of ac- 
tion. Before they could effect a breach every gun in the garrison was turned upon them, two field- 
pieces operated with grape and canister, and they dispersed to their quarters. Five minutes from 
the beginning the attempt was quelled, and hardly a prisoner was to be seen in the yard. My own 
quarters were a hundred and fifty yards from the scene of the insurrection. In our vicinity there 
had been no participation at all in it, and yet for twenty minutes after it was ended the guards upon 
the fence on each side of us, with deliberate aim, fired into the tents upon helpless and innocent 
men. They killed, in all, fifteen, and wounded about sixty, not one tenth of whom had taken part 
in the attempt, many of whom were ignorant of it until they heard the guns. 

“¢ Deliberate cold-blooded murders of peaceable men, where there was no pretense that they 
were breaking any prison regulation, were very frequent. On October 16, Lieutenant Davis, of 
the 155th New York Infantry, was thus shot dead by a guard, who the day before had been openly 
swearing that he would ‘kill some damned Yankee yet.’ November 6, Luther Conrod, of the 45th 
Pennsylvania Infantry, a delirious patient from one of the hospitals, was similarly murdered. No- 
vember 30, a chimney in one of the hospitals fell down, crushing several men under it. Orders 
were immediately given to the guard to let no one approach the building, on the pretext that there 
might be another insurrection. Two patients from that hospital had not heard the order, and 
were returning to their quarters, when I saw a sentinel on the fence, within twenty feet of them, 
without challenging them, raise his piece and fire, killing one and wounding the other. Major 
Gee, at the time, was standing immediately beside the sentinel, who must have acted under his di- 
rect orders. December 16, Moses Smith, of 7th Maryland (colored) Infantry, while standing beside 
my quarters, searching for scraps of food from the sweepings of the cook-house, was shot through 
the head. There were very many similar murders. I never knew any pretense, even, made of in- 
vestigation or punishing them. Our lives were never safe for one moment; any sentinel, at any 
hour of the day or right, could deliberately shoot down any prisoner, or into any group of prison- 
ers, black or white, and he would not even be taken off his post for it. 

“‘ Nearly every week an officer came into the prison to recruit for the rebel army. Sometimes 
he offered bounties ; always he promised good clothing and abundant food. Between 1200 and 
1800 of our men enlisted in two months. I was repeatedly asked by prisoners, sometimes with 
tears in their eyes, ‘What shall Ido? I don’t want to starve to death. I am growing weaker 
daily ; if I stay here I shall follow my comrades to the hospital and dead-house ; if I enlist I may 
live until I can escape.’ 

“‘T had charge of the clothing left by the dead, and reissued it to the living. I distributed ar- 
ticles of clothing to more than 2000 prisoners ; but when I escaped there were fully 500 without a 
shoe or a stocking, and more yet with no garment above the waist except one blouse or one shirt. 
Men came to me frequently upon whom the rebels, when they captured them, had left nothing 
whatever except a light cotton shirt and a pair of light ragged cotton pantaloons. 

“The books of all the hospitals were kept, and the daily consolidated reports made up, under my 
supervision. During the two months between October 18 and December 18, the average number 
of prisoners was about 7500. The deaths for that period were fully 1500, or twenty per cent. of 
the whole. I brought away the names of more than 1200 of the dead; some of the remainder 
were never reported ; the others I could not procure on the day of my escape without exciting sus- 
picion. As the men grew more and more debilitated, the percentage of deaths increased. I left 
6500 remaining in the garrison, December 18, and they were dying then at the average rate of 28 
a day, or thirteen per cent. a month. 

“The simple truth is, that the rebel authorities are murdering our soldiers at Salisbury by cold 
and hunger, while they might easily supply them with ample food and fuel. They are doing this 
systematically, and, I believe, intentionally, for the purpose of either forcing our government to an 
exchange, or forcing our prisoners into the rebel army.” i 

1 General Grant’s testimony (February 11, 1865) before the Committee on the Conduct of the 
War fully answers the charge which has been made against the government that it refused to con- 
sent to an exchange of prisoners because we found ours starved, diseased, and unserviceable when 
we received them. ‘There never,” testifies General Grant, ‘‘has been any such reason as that 
for making exchanges. I will confess that if our men who are prisoners in the South were really 
well taken care of, suffering nothing except a little privation of liberty, then, in a military point of 
view, it would not be good policy for us to exchange, because every man they get back is forced 
right into the army at once, while that is not the case with our prisoners when we receive them. 
In fact, the half of our returned prisoners will never go into the army again, and none of them will 
until after they have had a furlough of thirty or sixty days. Still, the fact of their suffering as 
they do is a reason for making this exchange as rapidly as possible. ... . Exchanges having 
been suspended by reason of disagreement on the part of agents of exchange on both sides before 
I came in command of the armies of the United States, and it then being near the opening of the 
spring campaign, I did not deem it advisable or just to the men who had to fight our battles to re- 
enforce the enemy with thirty or forty thousand disciplined troops at that time. An immediate 
resumption of exchanges would have had that effect, without giving us corresponding benefits. 
The suffering said to exist among our prisoners South was a powerful argument against the course 
pursued, and I so felt it,” 


CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 


§ Q' 


797 


this matter, he begged “the honor of a few moments’ private audience.” The 
letter is indorsed “ About blowing up the Capitol at Washington.” <An- 
other letter, dated the next day, was also found, from which it appears that 
De Kalb had been granted an audience on the 19th, but that Walker had 
hesitated to consent to the diabolical scheme proposed, not on account of its 
nature, but because De Kalb was a stranger to him. In this letter of the 
20th De Kalb discloses his antecedents, his relation to Baron De Kalb, his 
service in the Crimean War as second lieutenant of Engineers, his arrival 
at Quebec in November, 1860, and at Washington three weeks ago. ‘‘ Does 
the Southern Confederacy,” he adds, “ consider the exnlosion of the Federal 
Capitol, at a time when Abe, his myrmidons, and the Northern Congress 
members are all assembled together, of sufficient importance as to grant me, 
in case of success, a commission as colonel of Topographical Engineers, and 
the sum of one million of dollars?” Walker, instead of spurning the prop- 
osition, indorsed the letter with the following phrase: “See this man with 
Benjamin.” He proposed to make the matter a subject of consideration at 
an interview between himself, this murderous villain, and the Confederate 
Secretary of State. In the Confederate archives was also found a letter 
addressed to Jefferson Davis, September 12th, 1861, by J.S. Parramore, in 
which the writer offers ‘‘to dispose of the leading characters of the North,” 
and upon the letter was Davis’s indorsement indicating the object of the 
communication, and referring it to the Secretary of War. After due con- 
sideration, both De Kalb’s and Parramore’s schemes appear to have been re- 
jected as unadvisable. 

On the 17th of August, 1863, we find another letter written to Davis by 
H. C. Dunham, of Georgia, a volunteer in the Confederate service, in which 
the writer states that the evidences of Davis’s Christian humility encour- 
age him to propose the organization of from 300 to 500 men, ‘to go into 
the United States, and assassinate the most prominent leaders of our ene- 
mies—for instance, Seward, Lincoln, Greeley, Prentice, ete.” This commu- 
nication was also referred to the Secretary of War. 

Still later, Lieutenant W. Alston, in November, 1864, offered to rid the 
Confederacy “‘of some of her deadliest enemies,” and his communication is 
referred to the Confederate Secretary of War. These various propositions 
for the assassination of the prominent officers of the Federal government 
appear to have been considered and rejected for prudential reasons. The 
time for such desperate measures had not yet arrived. But still they were 
matters of deliberate consideration. 

Other schemes also were proposed. In February, 1865, W. S. Oldham, 
of Texas, in company with Senator Johnson, of Missouri, conferred with 
Davis “in relation to the prospect of annoying and harassing the enemy by 
burning their shipping, towns, etc.” The Confederate President interposed 
objections as to the practicability of the scheme proposed. These objec- 
tions were subsequently rebutted by Oldham. “TI have seen enough,” says 
the latter, ‘of the effects that can be produced to satisfy me that in most 
cases, without any danger to the parties engaged, and in others but very 
slight, we can, first, burn every vessel that leaves a foreign port for the United 
States; second, we can burn every transport that leaves the harbor of New 
York, or other Northern port, with supplies for the armies of the enemy in 
the South; third, burn every transport or gun-boat on the Mississippi River, 
as well as devastate the country of the enemy, and fill his people with ter- 
ror and consternation. I am not alone of this opinion, but many other gen- 
tlemen are as fully and thoroughly impressed with the conviction as I am. 
I believe we have the means at our command, if promptly appropriated and 
energetically applied, to demoralize the Northern people in a very short time. 
For the purpose of satisfying your mind upon the subject, I respectfully but 
earnestly request that you will have an interview with General Harris, for- 
merly a member of Congress from Missouri, who, I think, is able, from con- 
clusive proof, to convince you that what I have suggested is perfectly feasi- 
ble and practicable.” Davis requested the Secretary of War to confer with 
Harris, ‘and learn what plan he has for overcoming the difficulty hereto- 
fore experienced.” 

What was the “difficulty heretofore experienced?” A number of Con- 
federates—George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William 
C. Cleary, and Clement C. Clay—had been sent to Canada as agents of the 
Confederate government. Jacob Thompson appears to have been the treas- 
urer of this special organization, the objects of which were the terror and 
consternation of the North through the destruction of shipping, the burning 
of hotels, the introduction of pestilence, and the assassination of the promi- 
nent officers of the national government. In the latter part of 1864 the 
attempt at arson had been tried without success, and the principals engaged 
were executed. John Y. Beall, detected in the act of destroying Federal 
vessels in the Northwest, was tried and condemned as a spy, and suffered 
death. One Kennedy, on the night of November 25th, 1864, with his con- 
federates, attempted’to set fire to four hotels in New York City. The at- 
tempt did not succeed, but Kennedy was apprehended and hung on the 19th 
of October. Three days later, Lieutenant Bennet H. Young, with from 30 to 
40 Confederate associates, made a raid upon St. Albans, Vermont, 15 miles 
from the Canadian border. Over $200,000 was captured from the banks, 
horses were seized, and several citizens were wantonly murdered. An un- 
successful attempt was also made to fire the town. The raiders were pur- 
sued, but escaped into Canada. Here they were arrested and brought before 
the Court of Quarter Sessions at Montreal. The judge, Mr. Coursol, re- 
leased them from custody on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction 
over the case. Judge Coursol was afterward suspended for this action, and 
the raiders were rearrested, but the prisoners finally were again released 
without punishment. 

These expeditions all originated in Canada, and proceeded under Confed- 


798 
erate authority. None of them had succeeded in accomplishing what they 
had attempted. Some difficulties had been experienced, and the Confeder- 
ate government was now considering how these difficulties might be over- 
come. Soon, however, other and more desperate plans were found neces- 
sary. The old scheme of assassination, formerly laid aside, was reconsid- 
ered. Ready agents were found for its accomplishment. President Lincoln 
was murdered, but the conspirators did not succeed in subverting the gov- 
ernment. 

The war carried on by sea against the United States by the Confederates 
presents many novel features. Over 200 of the officers registered in 1864 
as belonging to the Confederate navy were formerly United States naval offi- 
cers. Although President Davis at the outset had issued letters of marque, a 
Confederate navy was impossible. There were many iron-clads and rams on 
the Southern rivers; the defenses of the Southern harbors by means of forts, 
ships, torpedoes, and obstructions were very formidable; but upon the sea 
the Confederacy had no chance, in so far as it depended upon its own resour- 
ces. But what the Confederates lacked the people of Great Britain fur- 
nished, and thus it happened that while the United States was thréatened 
with dissolution by intestine civil war, it was compelled also, at the same 
time, to contend on the ocean against a British fleet-—British in every sense 
except that it did not receive its commissions from the English govern- 
ment—built at Liverpool and Glasgow, sailing from those ports by the con- 
nivance of the British government, armed with British guns, and manned, 
for the most part, with British crews. 

In the early part of the war a number of strictly Confederate privateers 
were fitted out. Most of these, however, did not venture far from the coast. 
The Sumter and Nashville, who were bolder, had a short career, which has 
already been traced in these pages. The only vessels which materially in- 
jured the commerce of the United States were those built in British ports, 
and some of which were never in a port belonging to the Confederacy. 

The history of the Alabama and the Florida has already been given. In 
1864, three new British vessels—the Tallahassee, Olustee, and Chickamauga 
—were furnished to the Confederates by the British ship-builders, and con- 
tributed each its full share in the work of destruction and plunder. By 
their depredations American merchantmen were almost entirely driven from 
the seas. 

The Georgia commenced her career in 1863. She was built at Glasgow, 
and left Greenock as the Japan. Off the French coast she received her ar- 
mament and set out upon her cruise. After a short raid upon our com- 
merce she was sold to a Liverpool merchant. Setting out again for Lisbon, 
she was captured twenty miles out from that port by Captain Craven, of the 
Niagara, who landed her crew at Dover, in England. 

Karly in 1865 two new vessels—the Stonewall and Shenandoah—were 
added to this British tribe of corsairs. The iron-clad ram Stonewall, Captain 
Page, was originally built for the Danish government, and afterward pur- 
chased by the Confederates. She arrived at Ferrol, in Spain, February 4th, 
closely followed by the United States steamers Niagara and Sacramento. 

“The Stonewall shifted quarters to Lisbon in March, and the Federal vessels 
again followed her. The Portuguese government ordered the privateer to 
leave, and by maritime law the national vessels were required to remain for 
24 hours before entering upon the pursuit. While changing their anchor- 
age in the Tagus, these vessels were fired upon from Belem Tower under the 
supposition that they were about to leave the port. No injury was done, 
and ample apology was rendered by the Portuguese government. On the 
11th of May the Stonewall arrived at Havana. Here she was closely block- 
aded by Admiral Godon, with several iron-clads, and soon surrendered her- 
self to the Spanish authorities, by whom she was given over to the United 
States. 

The Shenandoah was built at Glasgow in 1868, and was called the Sea 
King. In September, 1864, she was sold to Richard Wright, of Liverpool, 
and thus passed into the hands of the Confederacy. She cleared at London 
for Bombay ostensibly as a merchant vessel. On the same day that she 
left London, another vessel, the Laurel, left Liverpool with armament, stores, 
Confederate officers, and several men enlisted in the Confederate service. 
At Madeira the two vessels met; the Laurel fitted out the Sea King, which 
then became the Shenandoah, and set forth on her piratical cruise. She de- 
stroyed a few vessels in the neighborhood of St. Helena, and on February 
8th, 1865, sailed for the North Pacific from Melbourne, Australia. Between 
April 1st and July 1st she destroyed or bonded 29 vessels, thus breaking 
up the whaling season in that locality. Waddell, her captain, although 
aware of the surrender of the Confederate armies, continued his cruise until 
four months after the fall of Richmond. He then returned to England, 
never having been in a Confederate port, and surrendered his vessel to the 
English government, and by the latter was given up to the American con- 
sul at Liverpool, 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[May, 1865, 


It is estimated that during the war 30 vessels of all descriptions were em- 
ployed by the enemy as privateers. Only seven of these were very for- 
midable, and of these seven five were British vessels. 275 vessels were cap: 
tured, comprising four steamers, 78 ships, 48 brigs, 82 barks, and 68 schoon- 
ers. On the other hand, 1143 vessels were captured by blockading squad- 
rons, valued at $24,500,000, and 855 destroyed, worth about $7,000,000. 

In regard to one at least of the privateers issuing from British ports, the 
circumstances appeared to justify the United States in claiming redress by 
way of compensation for the injurious consequences to American commerce. 
This was the case of the Alabama. The facts of the case were briefly these: 
The Oreto had already been permitted to sail from a British port, notwith- 
standing the protest of Mr. Francis Adams, the United States minister in 
England. Afterward Mr. Adams and the American consul at Liverpool 
were satisfied, upon competent evidence, that a vessel known as the 290 
had been built for the Confederate service in the dock-yard of persons, one 
of whom was then sitting as a member of the House of Commons. This 
evidence was laid before the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treas- 
ury, but the latter decided that nothing had yet transpired which appeared 
to demand a special report. Farther evidence was procured and submitted, 
which, in the opinion of the queen’s solicitor, was sufficient to justify the 
Liverpool collector in seizing the vessel. But, while the Lords Commis 
sioners were deliberating upon the matter, the 290 sailed from Liverpool 
without register or clearance. Earl Russell explained to Mr. Adams that 
the delay in determining upon the case had been caused by the sudden ill- 
ness of Sir John D. Harding, the Queen’s Advocate. 

It was apparent, therefore, that the fault, with its responsibility, rested upon 
the British government. Mr. Adams was therefore directed “to solicit re 
dress for the. national and private injuries already thus sustained, as well 
as a more effective prevention of any repetition of such lawless and injuri- 
ous proceedings in her majesty’s ports hereafter.” Earl Russell replied to 
this demand that her majesty’s government could not admit that they were 
under any obligation to render compensation to United States citizens for 
the depredations of the Alabama. There has since been a voluminous cor- 
respondence upon the subject, but the matter still stands just where it stood 
in 1863. Certainly it is a case in which the interests of the British govern- 
ment are more jeopardized by its refusal to grant compensation than its 
treasury could suffer by payment; and it is equally true that the United 
States government can well afford to waive its claim, and let the whole mat- 
ter rest just as it lies. 

The foreign complications with the French government arising out of the 
ill-advised Mexican expedition, and which at one period of the war threat- 
ened serious danger to the United States, were, soon after the suspension of 
hostilities, removed by the withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico. 
From that moment the Mexican empire which had been established rap- 
idly waned until early in 1867, when it fell, and the Emperor Maximilian 
became a martyr to the cause of imperialism, which he had fought out to 
the bitter end. 

At the close of the civil war our political sky was bright with promise. 
The defeated Confederates seemed disposed to accept the situation in good 
faith, and, on the other hand, the victorious party exhibited signs of noble 
magnanimity. It is true that there were in the South those who still re- 
tained the spirit which had brought on the war. Such a one was that old 
man Edmund Ruffin, of South Carolina, who fired the first gun against his 
country’s flag, and who, when the national triumph was fully consummated, 
committed suicide. So also, on the other side, there were those who nursed 
a vindictive spirit against a conquered people. But, notwithstanding these 
exceptions, a glorious future seemed about to dawn upon the republic, 
How this situation was changed, and a political strife engendered which 
agitated the country for a series of years, and postponed the restoration 
and harmony which ought to have followed immediately upon the close of 
the war, will form the subject of the concluding chapter of this history. 
ee ee eee 


* The number of vessels captured and sent to the United States Admiralty Courts for adjudica- 
tion from May 1, 1861, to the close of the war, was 1143, of which there were—steamers, 210 ; 
schooners, 569; sloops, 139; ships, 13; brigs and brigantines, 29; barks, 25; yachts, 2; small 
boats, 139; rams and iron-clads, 6; gun-boats, torpedo-boats, and armed schooners and sloops, 
10; class unknown, 7—making a total of 1149. ‘Phe number of vessels burned, wrecked, sunk, 
and otherwise destroyed during the same time were—steamers, 85; schooners, 114; sloops, 32 ; 
ships, 2; brigs, 2; barks, 4; small boats, 96; rams, 5; iron-clads, 4 ; gun-boats, torpedo-boats, and 
armed schooners and sloops, 11; total, 355—making the whole number of vessels captured and 
destroyed 1504. During the war of 1812, the naval vessels, of which there were 301 in service at 
the close, made 291 captures. ‘There were 517 commissioned privateers, and their captures num- 
bered 1428. Nearly all the captures of value in the recent war were ves¢els built in so-called neu- 
tral ports, and fitted out and freighted for the purpose of running the blockade. The gross pro- 
ceeds of property captured since the blockade was instituted, and condemned as prize prior to the 
Ist of November, 1865, amount to $21,829,543 96; costs and expenses, $1,616,223 96; net pro- 
ceeds for distribution,. $20,501,927 69. At the close of the year there were a number of import- 
ant cases still before the courts, which will largely increase these amounts. The Secretary of the 
Navy estimates that the value of the 1143 captured vessels will not be less than $24,500,000, 
and of the 355 vessels destroyed at least $7,000,000, making a total valuation of not less than 
$31,500,000, much of which was British property.—A merican Cyclopedia, 1865. 


® 
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ae La I 


ApRIL, 1868. ] 


RECONSTRUCTION. —1865-1867. 799 


CHAPTER LXI. 
RECONSTRUCTION.—1865-1867. 


Difficulties incident to Restoration from the sudden Termination of the War.-—The prevailing Sen- 
timent of the North after Lee’s Surrender one of Magnanimity.—Effect of Lincoln’s Assassina- 
tion.—Andrew Johnson’s Accession to the Presidency.—Biographical Sketch.—Johnson’s In- 
augural Speech.—‘‘ Treason is a Crime, and must be punished as a Crime.”—-His View of the 
Situation.—His Cabinet.—Reconstruction under Lincoln’s Administration.—Johnson follows 
the Policy of his Predecessor.—The Constitutional Provision guaranteeing to the States ‘‘a 
Republican Form of Government.”—Meaning of this Provision.—What was involved in a Re- 
turn to Allegiance on the Part of the South.—The popular Demand.—Johnson’s Amnesty 
Proclamation.—Establishment of Provisional Governments.—The Blockade rescinded.—Re- 
lease of Stephens and Trenholm.—Martial Law suspended in Kentucky.—Partial Restoration 
of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.—Southern State Conventions.—Nullification of Secession Ordi- 
nances.—Prohibition of Slavery.—Repudiation of the Rebel Debt.—Legislation in regard to 
Freedmen.—Its oppressive Features.—The Temper of the Southern People.—Johnson’s Dis- 
appointment.—Official Announcement of the Ratification of the Anti-Slavery Amendment.— 
Meeting of the Thirty-ninth Congress.—Composition of the two Houses. —The new Vice- 
President, L. S. Foster.—The Clerk of the House, Edward McPherson, and his Disposition of 
the Call-roll.—Colfax re-elected Speaker of the House.—His Speech.—President Johnson's 
Message.—Johnson’s Mistake.—He establishes a Basis for Conflict between himself and Con- 
gress.—Ought to have convened Congress in special Session at the Outset.—The Select Con- 
gressional Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction.—Debate in the Senate.—Reports by Presi- 
dent Johnson, Carl Schurz, and General Grant on the Southern Situation.—Unuecessary Delay 
of the Reconstruction Committee.—Report of the Committee by Bill, January 22, 1866.—Joint 
Resolution for the Amendment of the Constitution.—Its Provisions. —The President’s Views on 
the Readjustment of the Basis of Representation.—Debate in the House.—Roscoe Conkling’s 
Statement.—Position of Henry J. Raymond.—The Resolution referred back to the Committee, 
amended, and again reported.—Steyens’s Speech.—Resolution passed in the House.—Debate 
on the Resolution in Congress.—It fails of a two-thirds Vote.—Senator Sumner’s Opposition.— 
Second Report of the Committee, April 30, 1866.—Features of the new Amendment proposed.— 
Its Passage in the House and Senate.—The President’s Protest.—The Prospects of the Amend- 
ment.—Full Reports of the Reconstruction Committee, June 18, 1866.—Resolution passed to ex- 
clude Southern Representatives until both Houses should consent to their Admission. —Fessen- 
den’s Support of the Resolution. —Sherman’s Opposition. —His Defense of President Johnson.— 
‘Tennessee ratifies the Amendment, and her Representatives are admitted in both Houses. —The 
Freedmen’s Bureau Bill.—The President’s Veto.—The Bill fails of a two-thirds Vote.—A new 
Bill passed oyer the President’s Veto.—Bill for the admission of Colorado, vetoed by the Presi- 
dent, fails of a two-thirds Vote.—Passage of the Bill for Negro Suffrage in the District of Co- 
lumbia over the Veto.—Close of the Congressional Session.—History of the Conflict between 
Congress and the President.—Johnson’s Speech denouncing Congress, February 22, 1866.—Di- 
vision in the Republican Party.—The National Union Executive Committee of Washington.— 
Serenade of the President and Cabinet, May 23, 1866.—Views of the Cabinet.—Resignation of 
Harlan and Speed.—The Political Situation in the Summer of 1866.—The Appeal to the Peo- 
ple, and the Issues presented.—The conflicting Arguments.—The National Union Conyention 
at Philadelphia.—Its Character and Proceedings.—The Southern Loyalists’ Convention at 
Philadelphia.— Cleveland Convention of Soldiers and Sailors in support of the President.— 
Similar Convention at Pittsburg in support of Congress. —The New Orleans Riots.—Johnson’s 
Tour to the Tomb of Douglas.—Address of the Republican National Executive Committee in 
support of Congress. —The Autumn Elections of 1866. — Decisive Victory of Congress. — 
Passage of the Military Bill.—Provisions of the Bill_—Supplementary Act of the Fortieth Con- 
gress.—Universal Suffrage in the South.—Operation of this Act.—Southern Conventions. —Re- 
action in the North.—Autumn Elections of 1867.—Their Significance. —A Glance at the Future. 
—Conclusion. 


T is always difficult to write a fair and impartial history of contempora- 
neous events—almost impossible for one to write such a history who 
has been a prominent actor in the events which he records. The position 
of the actor is not that of the spectator. The field which the former occu- 


or —— 


ANDREW JOHNSON. 


pies is executive, that held by the latter is judicial. The historian is a judi. 
cial spectator, whose business it is to reproduce before his readers not sim- 
ply the facts, the bare plot of a drama, but also the ideas involved in the 
connections between facts, the moral and physical powers by which the 
drama is evolved. The strength of action depends upon concentration, 
which precludes extensive generalization. Strong impressions upon the 
world are made with clenched fists, while many-sided thought tends to re- 
lax the muscles, and leads to weak and random blows, “beating the air.” 
Especially is this true in politics, where progress is usually marked by the 
fluctuations of a conflict between parties. ach of the conflicting parties 
lives through its own distinctive ideas, and undergoes dissolution or modi- 
fication only by the destruction or change of these ideas. Neither party 
monopolizes either all the right or all the wrong of the contest. The politi- 
cal actor is generally strong in the proportion that he avails himself, and 
becomes the representative of the one or the other class of ideas involved in 
the struggle. His action does not assimilate all the good of both parties, 
and exclude all the evil. He is, therefore, of necessity, partial, one-sided. 
He who will fight under neither banner, who is unwilling to identify himself 
with either of the great party organizations of his time, by this isolation 
weakens his power to strike. But with the historian it is different. The 
necessity of partisanship does not exist for him. Partisan history is not 
history, but special pleading. The historian must generalize, must be many- 
sided, must be impartial. His standard of truth and justice is not a party 
standard. 

In the present case, where the writer is about to enter upon the history 
of the political struggle which immediately followed the Civil War, it is 
peculiarly appropriate that this distinction between the necessities which 
obligate party leaders and those which obligate the historian should be 
clearly drawn. If the reader, however partisan, will remember that the 
historian, in his judgment of men and events, is bound by a more absolute 
criterion of truth than is possible in party conflict, the writer will also bear 
in remembrance that many political acts which involved or threatened 
serious evils, were rendered necessary by the inevitable political conditions 
which controlled the development of the time of which he writes. 

The manner in which the war closed, and some of the accidents of its 
conclusion, largely influenced subsequent political movements. If the col- 
lapse of the Confederacy had not.been sudden, but gradual, the problem of 
reconstruction would, indeed, have been the same in its essential elements, 
but much of the difficulty attending its development would have been ob- 
viated. If state after state had been brought back to its allegiance, while 
the war still went on in others, restorat‘on would have been immediate and 
thorough in each particular case, and would not have been beset with legal 
doubts and difficulties. The vastness of the problem was increased by the 
sudden cessation of hostilities, and many of its complications arose from the 
universal peace which all at once settled upon the country, and seemed to 
demand the immediate revival of constitutional civil law. Under these cir- 
cumstances, there was great danger lest restoration might come in the form 
of reaction, by which the country would be swept along without mature de- 


800 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


(APRIL, 1865. 


SSSS 


WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN. 


liberation, or a prudent regard for future security. The disturbance by war 
of the relations between the states and the central government had been 
violent, and their readjustment demanded the deepest thought and the most 
prudent caution. The domestic revolution produced in the South by the 
war, giving freedom to nearly four millions of slaves, added fresh and ob- 
vious reasons for such deliberation. 

The prevailing feeling in the North after the surrender of Lee’s army 
was one of magnanimity. That was generous and proper. But there might 
easily grow out of this such hasty action as must afterward occasion vain 
regret. The murder of Lincoln—the natural result of the personal abuse 
which had been heaped upon him by the Southern press and by Northern 
Copperheads—served to temper and restrain this sentiment of generosity. 
It recalled to mind the malevolence of those who had sought to overthrow 
the government; it generated distrust. The apprehensions entertained by 
prudent men at that time may have been extravagant, but in the light of 
the past they could not be deemed baseless. Certainly they were safer 
than the sentiment which they displaced, 

Another result of Lincoln’s death was a memorable change in the na- 
tional administration, Andrew Johnson succeeded Abraham Lincoln. 

Johnson, by the circumstance of his birth, occupied a position similar to 
that of Lincoln. He was born a poor Southern white. The difference be- 
tween the two men arose from their different natures rather than from the 
outward conditions of their lives. Both were self-educated men. Neither 
of them knew of any school but that of experience, and thus from the first 
they were kept near to the people, and in close contact with the practical 
facts and conditions of the popular life in America. From such a relation 
they might have been removed by a more scholastic education and more 
classic culture, They knew nothing but America. Two circumstances gave 
Lincoln an immense superiority. The first was his moral and mental con- 
stitution, which made him a statesman of deep and unwavering convictions, 
and of great reasoning powers; the second was his connection with the 
young, free, and enterprising West. Johnson, on the other hand, by mental 


constitution and by the circumstances of his political career, became a dem- 
agogue rather than a statesman. 

The biography of Andrew Johnson up to the time of his accession to the 
presidency may be condensed into a single paragraph. He was born at 
Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29,1808. While a mere child he lost 
his father, and at the age of ten years was apprenticed as a tailor. He 
worked at his trade in South Carolina for seven years, and during this time 
acquired the rudiments of a plain English education. Removing to Green- 
ville, Tennessee, in 1825, he was five years later elected mayor of that town. 
He was elected to the State Legislature in 1885, and to the State Senate in 
1841. From 1848 to 1853 he was a representative in Congress from Ten- 
nessee, and during the latter year was elected governor of that state. In 
1857 he was chosen United States senator for the long term, expiring in 
1863. But‘in 1862 he was appointed by President Lincoln military gov- 
ernor of Tennessee. In politics he had always been identified with the 
Democratic party, accepting Andrew Jackson, of whose name his own was 
a parody, as his model. He was prominently connected with the passage 
of the Homestead Law. In the Thirty-sixth Congress, he alone, of all the 
senators from the South, remained faithful to the Union. His bold denun- 
ciation of treason created the wildest sort of popular enthusiasm in the 
North, and as military governor of Tennessee his action was wise and firm, 
strengthening the hands of the loyal men of that state, and favoring the 
emancipation of slavery. In 1864 the Union Convention met at Baltimore 
to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President. President Lincoln 
was renominated by acclamation, but it was not considered advisable to re- 
nominate Mr. Hamlin. The Convention was styled a “Union” Convention, 
and many of its delegates were not strictly Republicans. To renominate 
the Chicago ticket of 1860 would appear too partisan. In Andrew J: ohnson, 
however, Providence kindly, as it then seemed, furnished a candidate who 
had been always a Democrat, but who had been conspicuous for loyalty dur- 
ing the war. His nomination was effected by the friends of Mr. Seward as a 
conservative movement, and Andrew Johnson was elected Vice-President. ° 


EE 


—— = = oo. = “| ** 


Aprit, 1865.4 


SSS 


SSSS 


RECONSTRUCTLON.—1865-1867. 80] 


SSS 


ls 


VD 
7 


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| 


HUGH McOULLOOH. 


In the Presidential campaign of 1864 Johnson was repudiated by the op- 
position party in the North. His inauguration as Vice-President in the fol- 
lowing March was an occasion of humiliation to himself, and afforded an op- 
portunity for the most vehement and scurrilous abuse on the part of his 
political enemies. Evidently Johnson was at this time under the influence 
of liquor. He was unwell, and had, at the request of some of his friends, 
taken stimulants previous to entering the Senate Chamber. The closeness 
of the room exaggerated the effect of the artificial stimulant, and under these 
circumstances Johnson very unwisely allowed himself to make a speech, the 
incoherency of which was only too evident. It was an unfortunate affair, 
and his enemies made the most of it, and even some Republican journals 
described it as a national disgrace. Others, who knew the circumstances, 
were charitably silent. 

Six weeks later, by the death of Lincoln, Johnson became President of 
the United States. The oath of office was quietly administered to him at 
his rooms in the Kirkwood Hotel, by Chief Justice Chase, in presence of 
the cabinet and several members of Congress. He felt incompetent, he 
said, to perform the important and responsible duties which had so sud- 
denly devolved upon him. His policy must be left for development, as the 
administration progressed. ‘The only assurance he could give as to the fu- 
ture was by a reference to the past. He believed that the government, in 
passing through its present trials, would settle down upon principles con- 
sonant with popular rights, more permanent and enduring than heretofore. 
“Toil,” said he, ‘and an honest advocacy of the great principles of free 
government, have been my lot. The duties have been mine—the conse- 
quences are God’s.” In conclusion, he asked the gentlemen present for their 
encouragement and countenance. In the addresses made at this time by 
President Johnson, he carefully avoided self-committal as to his future pol- 
icy. He expressed, however, a strong determination to punish conscious 
traitors. “The American people,” said he, ‘must be taught to know that 
treason is a crime. Arson and murder are crimes, the punishment of which 
is the loss of liberty and life. . . . . Treason is a crime, and must be pun- 


ished as acrime. It must not be regarded as a mere difference of political 
9R 


opinion. It must not be excused as an unsuccessful rebellion, to be over- 
looked and forgiven. It is a crime before which all other crimes sink into 
insignificance; and in saying this, it must not be considered that I am in- 
fluenced by angry or revengeful feelings. Of course a careful discrimina- 
tion must be observed, for thousands have been involved in this rebellion 
who are only technically guilty of the crime of treason. They have been 
deluded and deceived, and have been made the victims of the more intelli- 
gent, artful, and designing men, the instigators of this monstrous rebellion, 
The number of this latter class is comparatively small. The former may 
stand acquitted of the crime of treason—the latter never; the full penalty 
of their crimes should be visited upon them. ‘To the others I would accord 
amnesty, leniency, and mercy.”! There is no question but that Johnson, fol- 
lowing his own inclination, would have doomed to the scaffold every traitor 
of the class which he deemed guilty of crime, had not the whole people united 
in unanimous protest against such an extreme and unnecessary measure. 

In regard to the situation in which the Southern States were left by the 
rebellion, he was explicit. “Some,” he said, “are satisfied with the idea 
that states are to be lost in territorial and other divisions—are to lose their 
character as states. But their life-breath has only been suspended, and it is 
a high constitutional obligation we have to secure each of these states in the 
enjoyment of a republican form of government. A state may be in the gov- 
ernment with a peculiar institution, and by the operation of rebellion lose 
that feature. But it was a state when it went into rebellion, and when it 
comes out without the institution, it is still a state. .... Then, in adjust- 
ing and putting the government upon its legs again, I think the progress of 
this work must pass into the hands of its friends. Ifa state is to be nursed 
until it again gets strength, it must be nursed by its friends, and not smoth- 
ered by its enemies.”? 

President Johnson retained the entire cabinet of his predecessor. Wil- 
liam Pitt Fessenden had resigned his position as Secretary of the Treasury 
March 4th, 1865, to take the position of senator from Maine, and Hugh 


1 Address to the New Hampshire delegation. 
2 Address to the Indiana delegation, April 21, 1865, 


802 


McCulloch had been appointed in his stead. Hon. William Dennison, of 
Ohio, had succeeded Montgomery Blair, October 1, 1864, as Postmaster 
General, the latter having resigned at Lincoln’s request. In December, 
1864, Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney General, had been succeeded by 
James Speed, of Kentucky. John P. Usher, Secretary of the Interior, had 
succeeded Caleb B. Smith, January 8th, 1868. 

The subject of reconstruction did not come into President Johnson’s hands 
as a new affair which had never before been handled or discussed. His pred- 
ecessor had not been entirely silent upon this important question, and the 
matter had been somewhat discussed in Congress. Lincoln’s Amnesty Proc- 
lamation is the best indication as to his convictions in this matter, and as to 
the general principles which would have characterized his administration if 
he had lived. In the previous pages of this history we have considered the 
provisions of this proclamation. Certain prominent officers of the Confed- 
erate government were excepted from the privileges which it granted. The 
ultimatum, as presented by Lincoln to the insurgent states, was allegiance to 
the government and the emancipation of slaves. Lincoln believed that the 
abolition of slavery would “remove all cause of disturbance in the future.” 
Congress had incorporated in the Constitution an amendment prohibiting 
slavery ; he only asked that this amendment should be ratified by the req- 
uisite number of states. On the 6th of April he ordered General Weitzel 
to permit the Virginia Legislature to assemble, and this body was to be 
broken up only in the event of its attempting some action hostile to the 
United States. Three days before his assassination President Lincoln gave 
his views as to the government established in Louisiana in accordance with 
his Amnesty Proclamation. Every member of his cabinet, he said, had ap- 
proved of the plan. As to sustaining the Louisiana government he had 
given his promise, and had not yet been convinced that the keeping of this 
promise was adverse to the public interest. The question as to whether the 
seceded states were in the Union or out of it he regarded as not practically 
material, and that its discussion ‘could have no effect other than the mis- 
chievous one of dividing our friends.” “ As yet,” he added, “that question 
is bad as the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at all—a merely 
pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded states, so called, are 
out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole ob- 
ject of the government, civil and military, in regard to those states, is to 
again get them into that proper practical relation. I believe it is not only 
possible, but, in fact, easier to do this without deciding or even considering 
whether these states have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Find- 
ing themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they 
had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restor- 
ing the proper practical relations between these states and the Union, and 
each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether, in doing the 
acts, he brought the states from without into the Union, or only gave them 
proper assistance, they never having been out of it.” 

The simple question with Lincoln was how best to bring the insurgent 
states back to their proper relation with the Union. To him this question 
appeared to have a solution in his amnesty proclamation. 

Congress had not accepted Lincoln’s plan of restoration, nor had it, ex- 
cept in the ‘Wade and Davis Bill,” which had been virtually vetoed, an- 
nounced any other. The only members of Congress who seemed to have 
any definite ideas of reconstruction were Senator Sumner and Thaddeus 
Stevens, who proposed to treat the Southern States as subjugated provinces. 
These two men stood alone, and without substantial support in either house. 
But, for all that, they held a high vantage-ground from the very fact that 
they alone presented any positive and definite method of reconstruction. 
Probably there had never before been a time in the history of the republic 
when Congress was so utterly barren of a high order of statesmanship as 
during and immediately after the war. The Thirty-ninth Congress was 
certainly not superior in this respect to its immediate predecessors. It first 
regular session would commence in December, and thus for eight months 
President Johnson was left alone in the work of reconstruction. As we 
have said, no fixed principles had been furnished by previous Congresses 
for his guidance, and he would have been confused beyond redemption if 
he had attempted to frame a policy in accordance with the crude and ran- 
dom expressions of opinion which had from time to time been made by our 
statesmen. He could not and ought not have accepted the sweeping the- 
ories of Sumner and Stevens. 

Johnson appears at first to have followed closely the general features of 
the plan adopted by Lincoln. He was compelled to act. The dissolution 
of the Confederacy left the Southern States without any government which 
could be recognized by national authority. Certain movements had already 
been inaugurated by President Lincoln in Arkansas and Louisiana. John- 
son saw no objection to the continuance of the work after the manner in 
which it had been begun by his predecessor. Nor was the Constitution en- 
tirely silent and inapplicable to the pressing questions of the moment. Al- 
though its framers never contemplated the existence of such a crisis, yet it 
contained at least one provision which in its general meaning was fully 
adequate to the emergency. It provides (Art. IV., Sec.4) that “the United 
States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of 
government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on ap- 
plication of the Legislature, or of the executive (when the Legislature can 
not be convened), against domestic violence.” 

The latter clause of this constitutional provision evidently applies to cases 
where the government of a state is not wholly subverted or paralyzed by 
domestic violence. It is only the first clause which was applicable to the 
situation in which the states were left by the rebellion. But what was 
meant by “a republican form of government?” This phrase has been va- 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


4 


[ APRIL, 1865. 


riously understood. Some have declared it to mean nothing definitely, and 
therefore every thing in an indefinite way; that it was a constitutional 
sanction for the establishment in a disturbed state of any government 
which the President and Congress might prescribe. Others have supposed 
that the term “republican” was simply opposed to the term “ monarchical.” 
It is clearly evident, however, that any state in the Union has a republican 
form of government so long and in so far as its government has not been so 
disturbed by any agency as to be out of harmony with the republic, z.e., with 
the general government of the United States. The Constitution being the 
organic law of the United States government, it follows that the guaranty of 
a republican form of government to any state presupposes a case in which 
by some disturbing agency the government of such state has assumed a 
form inconsistent or out of harmony with the Constitution. It is immate- 
rial what the nature of such disturbing agency may have been, whether it 
was usurpation from within or from without. 

The question, therefore, naturally arises, How far had the rebellion been 
such a disturbing agency? The Contederate Constitution, under which the 
Southern state governments had been organized during the rebellion, was 
not materially different from the Constitution of the United States. Com- 
paring the situation of the Southern States in 1865 with their situation in 
1860, the chief difference which we find was the fact of a transferred allegi- 
ance. The simple return of these states to their allegiance to the United 
States would be also a resumption of a form of government which in 1860 
was deemed “republican.” But such a government of the Southern States 
as was in harmony with the Constitution in 1860 was not in harmony with 
the Constitution after the war. By the war all slaves had been emanci- 
pated. The Congress of the United States had passed a resolution propos- 
ing the anti-slavery constitutional amendment. It was eminently proper 
that the ratification of this amendment should be insisted upon as a condi 
tion of reconstruction. It was a measure rendered necessary by the war, 
and the acceptance of the situation by the Southern States in good faith 
involved the ratification. This general condition gave rise to others as in- 
cidental. The freedom of the negro race in the South involved also the 
equality of that race with white men before the law. It did not involve 
the enfranchisement of the negro, because the Constitution, even after the 
war, contained no provision to that effect. But in every other respect the 
negro must be placed upon an equality with the white man. 

There was another important feature to be insisted upon by the govern- 
ment, and which was also a result of the national victory. This was a re- 
pudiation by the Southern States of the debt which they had incurred for 
treasonable purposes. The possibility of a repudiation of the national debt 
must also be obviated. 


The emancipation of slaves introduced still another element. Before the 


war representation was apportioned among the several states “according to. 


their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole 
number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, 
and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.” But aft- 
er the war all persons were declared free. The “other persons” no longer 
existed. Thus the entire negro population of the South would be counted 
in the basis of representation, and the Southern States would, by emancipa- 
tion, gain a political advantage which they did not have before the war. It 
was therefore proper that a new adjustment of the basis of representation 
should be insisted upon as an incidental condition of the situation arising 
out of emancipation. It ought also have been distinctly and permanently 
settled that there should be no compensation for emancipation. 

Thus the allegiance demanded of the insurgent states was not simply 
that from which they had departed. They had made war upon the nation, 
and this conflict had not been without consequences, the principal of which 
were a Confederate debt, a National debt, and Emancipation. If the Con- 
federacy had been victorious, it would have gained its independence—its ree- 
ognition as a separate nation. Its defeat was not simply a forfeiture of this 
independence, but it involved submission to several important conditions, 
imposed, not as terms to a vanquished foe, not as penalties for treason, but 
for the security of the nation. Under these circumstances, a republican form 
of government in the disturbed states involved the acceptance by the latter 
of the following conditions: 

1. Nullification of the theory of secession. 

2. Repudiation of the Confederate debt. 

3. Security of the national debt. 

4. Ratification of emancipation, waiving all claim to pecuniary compen: 
sation. 

5. Readjustment of the basis of representation. 

6. Concession of civil rights to the colored race. 

7. Disfranchisement of leading traitors for such time as Congress might 
deem expedient. 

When it is considered that the nation could in justice demand indemnity 
for the national debt caused by the war, and the punishment of leading trai- 
tors, these conditions could not be considered harsh or unreasonable. Every 
one of them ought to have been embodied by Congress in the form of a con- 
stitutional amendment. Many of them demanded congressional sanction, 
and could not be imposed by the President alone. It was therefore John- 
son’s duty to have called the Thirty-ninth Congress together in special ses- 
sion to meet this new emergency. His failure to do this was a blunder from 
which his administration never recovered. 

The President proceeded to his work alone. On the 29th of May, 1865, 
he issued his amnesty proclamation, granting pardon to all who had partici- 
pated in the rebellion, with restoration of property except as to slaves, and 
except in cases where legal proceedings had been instituted under the laws 


| 


May, 1865.] 


of the United States providing for the confiscation of property. From the 
benefits of this proclamation the following classes were excepted : 

1. All who are or shall have been pretended civil or diplomatic officers, 
or otherwise domestic or foreign agents of the pretended Confederate gov- 
ernment. 

2. All who left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebel- 
lion. 

8. All who shall have been military or naval officers of said pretended 
Confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army or lieuten- 
ant in the navy. 

4. All who left seats in the Congress of the United States to aid the re- 
bellion. 

5. All who resigned or tendered resignations of their commissions in the 
army or navy of the United States to evade duty in resisting the rebellion. 

6. All who have engaged in any way in treating otherwise than lawfully 
as prisoners of war persons found in the United States service as officers, sol- 
diers, seamen, or in other capacities. 

7. All persons who have been or are absentees from the United States for 
the purpose of aiding the rebellion. 

8. All military and naval officers in the rebel service who were educated 
by the government in the Military Academy at West Point or the United 
States Naval Academy. 

9. All persons who held the pretended offices of governors of states in in- 
surrection against the United States. 

10. All persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and protec- 
tion of the United States, and passed beyond the Federal military lines into 
the so-called Confederate States, for the purpose of aiding the rebellion. 

11. All persons who have been engaged in the destruction of the com- 
merce of the United States upon the high seas, and all persons who have 
made raids into the United States from Canada, or been engaged in destroy- 
ing the commerce of the United States upon the lakes and rivers that sepa- 
rate the British Provinces from the United States. 

12. All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits 
hereof by taking the oath herein prescribed, are in military, naval, or civil 
confinement or custody, or under bonds of the civil, military, or naval au- 
thorities or agents of the United States as prisoners of war, or persons de- 
tained for offenses of any kind either before or after conviction. 

13. All persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebellion, and 
the estimated value of whose taxable property is over twenty thousand dol- 
lars. 

14. All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as prescribed in the 
President's proclamation of December 8, A.D. 1868, or an oath of allegiance 
to the government of the United States since the date of said proclamation, 
and who have not thenceforward kept and maintained the same inviolate— 
provided that special application may be made to the Presideut for pardon 
by any person belonging to the excepted classes, and such clemency will be 
liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the 
peace and dignity of the United States. 

Johnson had, on the 9th of May, re-established by an executive order the 
authority of the United States in the State of Virginia, The Secretary of 
the Treasury was instructed to nominate for appointment assessors of taxes, 
and collectors of customs and internal revenue, and all other officers neces- 
sary to put in execution the revenue laws; the Postmaster General was di- 
rected to establish post-offices and post-routes, and put in exccution the postal 
laws; the Federal Courts were re-established; the Secretary of War was or- 
dered to assign the necessary provost-marshal generals and provost-marshals, 
and the Secretary of the Navy to take possession of all public property be- 
longing to the Navy Department. The acts of the political, military, and 
civil organizations of the state during the war were declared null and void, 
and Francis H. Pierpont was recognized as the lawful governor.) 


1 ‘* Executive Chamber, Washington City, May 9, 1865. 

‘‘OrpERED—First. That all acts and proceedings of the political, military, and civil organiza- 
tions which have been in a state of insurrection and rebellion within the State of Virginia against 
the authority and laws of the United States, and of which Jefferson Davis, John Letcher, and Wil- 
liam Smith were late the respective chiefs, are declared null and yoid. All persons who shall ex- 
ercise, claim, pretend, or attempt to exercise any political, military, or civil power, authority, juris- 
diction, or right by, through, or under Jefferson Davis, late of the city of Richmond, and his con- 
federates, or under John Letcher or William Smith and their confederates, or under any pretended 
political, military, or civil commission or authority issued by them, or either of them, since the 17th 
day of April, 1861, shall be deemed and taken as in rebellion against the United States, and shall 
be dealt with accordingly. 

“* Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws of the United States, the 
administration whereof belongs to the Department of State, applicable to the geographical limits 
aforesaid. 

** Third, That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed without delay to nominate for appointment 
assessors of taxes, and collectors of customs and internal revenue, and such other officers of the 
Treasury Department as are authorized by law, and shall put into execution the revenue laws of 
the United States within the geographical limits aforesaid, In making appointments, the prefer- 
ence shall be given to qualified loval persons residing within the districts where their respective du- 
ties are to be performed. But if suitable persons shall not be found residents of the districts, then 
persons residing in other states or districts shall be appointed. 

“* Fourth. That the Postmaster General shall proceed to establish post-offices and post-routes, 
and put into execution the postal laws of the United States within the said state, giving to loyal 
residents the preference of appointment. But if suitable persons are not found, then to appoint 
agents, ete., from other states. 

** Fifth. That the district judge of said district proceed to hold courts within said state, in ac- 
cordance with the provisions of the acts of Congress. The Attorney General will instruct the proper 
officers to libel and bring to judgment, confiscation, and sale property subject to confiscation, and 
enforce the administration of justice within said state in all matters civil and criminal within the 
cognizance and jurisdiction of the Federal Courts. 

“* Sixth. ‘That the Secretary of War assign such assistant provost-marshal general, and such pro- 
yost-marshals in each district of said state as he may deem necessary. 

“* Seventh. The Secretary of the Navy will take possession of all public property belonging to the 
Navy Department within said geographical limits, and put in operation all acts of Congress in rela- 
tion to naval affairs having application to the said state. 

*“* Kighth. The Secretary of the Interior will also put in force the laws relating to the Depart- 
ment of the Interior. 

“* Ninth. That to carry into effect the guarantee of the Federal Constitution of a republican form 
of state government, and afford the advantage and security of domestic laws, as well as to complete 
the re-establishment of the authority of the laws of the United States, and the full and complete 


RECONSTRUCTION. —1865-1867. 


803 


On the same day that he issued his Amnesty Proclamation, Johnson ap- 
pointed William W. Holden Provisional Governor of North Carolina. He 
declared it to be the duty of the provisional governor to prescribe at the 
earliest practicable period the rules and regulations for the assembling of a 
Convention, to be chosen by the loyal people of North Carolina, for the pur- 
pose of amending the state Constitution. No person could be an elector or 
member of such Convention unless he should have previously taken the am- 
nesty oath, and should be a qualified voter by the laws of the state. ‘The 
heads of departments were directed to resume their respective relations with 
the state, and the Federal Courts were re-established as in Virginia.? 

The instructions to the heads of departments, and for the re-establishment 
of Federal Courts, were the same as in the case of Virginia. 

During the months of June and July, similar provisional governments 
were established in all the other insurgent states except Louisiana, Arkan- 
sas,and Tennessee. On the 13th of June William L. Sharkey was appointed 
Provisional Governor of Mississippi; on the 19th, James Johnson, of Geor- 
gia, and Andrew J. Hamilton, of Texas; on the 21st, Lewis E. Parsous, of 
Alabama; on the 80th, Benjamin F. Perry, of South Carolina; and on July 
13th, William Marvin, of Florida. 

In all these cases only loyal men were allowed to become electors or mem- 
bers of the several Conventions, and the heads of departments were instruct- 
ed to give the preference to qualified loyal men in the distribution of offices, 
and where such were not to be obtained in the several states they were to 
be appointed from other states. Neither in the Amnesty Proclamation, nor 
in those establishing provisional governments, was any intimation given as 
to what actions would be required of the several states in order to insure 
the recognition of their governments by the United States as republican in 
form. 

In Louisiana, J. Madison Wells, who had succeeded Michael Hahn, March 
4th, 1865, was recognized and sustained by President Johnson as the lawful 
governor of the state. In like manner, William G. Brownlow, elected March 
4th, 1865, was recognized as Governor of Tennessee; and Isaac Murphy, 
elected March 14, 1864, as Governor of Arkansas. In these three states, 
movements toward reconstruction were already at an advanced stage under 
President Lincoln’s administration. In each of them loyal state govern- 
ments existed, with a Constitution abolishing slavery; but these govern- 
ments did not rest upon a popular majority. They were instituted and put 
in operation during the war, at a time when large portions of the territory 
over which they had jurisdiction were within the control of the Confeder- 
acy, and they had not as yet received the sanction of the United States 
Congress. 

On the 23d of June the President rescinded the blockade, and on the 29th 
of August removed all restrictions upon internal, domestic, and coastwise 
commerce, so that articles declared by previous proclamations to be contra- 
band of war might be imported into or sold in the insurgent states, “subject 
only to such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe.” 
On the 11th of October he released John A.Campbell, of Alabama; John 
H. Reagan, of Texas; Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia; George A. Tren- 
holm, of South Carolina, and Charles Clark, of Mississippi, from confinement, 
upon their parole to answer any charge which might be preferred against 
them, and to abide in their respective states until farther orders. On the 
12th of October martial law was suspended in Kentucky, and on the Ist of 
December the suspension of habeas corpus was annulled except in the states 
of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alaba- 
ma, Mississippi, Lousiana, Arkansas, and Texas, the District of Columbia, and 
the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona. 

Before the assembling of the Thirty-ninth Congress, each of the states in 


restoration of peace within the limits aforesaid, Francis H. Pierpont, Governor of the State of Vir- 
ginia, will be aided by the Federal government, so far as may be necessary, in the lawful measures 
which he may take for the extension and administration of the state government throughout the 
geographical limits of said state. 
[u. 82] “Tn testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United 
States to be affixed. ANDREW JOHNSON. 
‘* By the President: W. Hunter, Acting Secretary of State.” 


1 “* Whereas, The fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States de- 
clares that the United States shall guarantee to every state in the Union a republican form of gov- 
ernment, and shall protect each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and whereas the 
President of the United States is, by the Constitution, made commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy, as well as chief civil executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith- 
fully to execute the office of President of the United States, and to take care that the laws be faith- 
fully executed ; and whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the people of the 
United States against the properly constituted authorities of the government thereof in the most vio- 
lent and revolting form, but whose organized and armed forces have now beet: almost entirely over- 
come, has, in its revolutionary progress, deprived the people of the State of North Carolina of all 
civil government ; and whereas it becomes necessary and proper to carry out and enforce the obli- 
gations of the United States to the people of North Carolina in securing them in the enjoyment of 
a republican form of government : 

‘* Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed upon me by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and for the purpose of enabling the loyal people of said state to organize 
a state government, whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity restored, and loyal 
citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property, I, Andrew Johnson, President of 
the United States and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby 
appoint William W. Holden Provisional Governor of the State of North Carolina, whose duty it 
shall be, at the earliest practicable period, to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be neces- 
sary and proper for convening a Convention composed of delegates to be chosen by that portion of 
the people of said state who are loyal to the United States, and no others, for the purpose of alter- 
ing and amending the Constitution thereof; and with authority to exercise within the limits of said 
state all the powers necessary and proper to enable such loyal people of the State of North Caro- 
lina to restore said state to its constitutional relations to the Federal government, and to present 
such a republican form of state government as will entitle the state to the guarantee of the United 
States therefor, and its people to protection by the United States against invasion, insurrection, and 
domestic violence. Provided that in any election that may be held hereafter for choosing dele- 
gates to any state Convention as aforesaid, no person shall be qualified as an elector or shall be eli- 
gible as a member of such Convention unless he shall have previously taken and subscribed the oath 
of amnesty as set forth in the President’s proclamation of May 29, A.D. 1865, and is a yoter quali- 
fied as prescribed by the Constitution and laws of the State of North Carolina in force immediately 
before the 20th day of May, 1861, the date of the so-called Ordinance of Secession. And the said 
Convention, when convened, or the Legislature that may be thereafter assembled, will prescribe the 
qualification of electors and the eligibility of persons to hold office under the Constitution and laws 
of the state—a power the people of the several states composing the Federal Union haye rightfaily 
exercised from the origin of the government to the present time.” 4 


804 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


which provisional governments had been established had elected and held 
its Convention and had also inaugurated a permanent government, displac- 
ing the provisional, under the auspices of President Johnson. In all cases 
the Ordinance of Secession was either annulled or repealed by the state Con- 
ventions, and slavery was forever prohibited. In the Georgia Convention, 
there was incorporated in the ordinance abolishing slavery a provision that 
this acquiescence in the action of the government of the United States was 
not intended to operate as a relinquishment of any claim made by the citi- 
zens of that state for compensation. The constitutional amendment was 
also ratified by the new Legislatures except in the case of Mississippi. In 
Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida, the ratification was made with the 
understanding that the clause giving Congress the power to carry out the 
provisions of the amendment by appropriate legislation did not give that 
body the right to legislate as to the political status of the freedmen.1 The 
Confederate debt was also repudiated in every state save South Carolina, 
whose Legislature adjourned before taking final action on this subject. 

The legislation in regard to freedmen seemed to have for its object the 
perpetuation of the spirit of slavery after its body had been decently buried. 
Some of the enactments passed by the various Legislatures were judicious 
and benevolent, but most of them were expressly designed to establish a 
distinction of caste between the white and the cclored race. While, on the 
one hand, the right to sue and be sued, and to give testimony in all cases 
where their own interests were involved, was granted to the negroes, and 
marriage was legalized among them, on the other the penal code in nearly 
all the states abounded with oppressive distinctions against the colored 
race. By emancipation a very large proportion of the freedmen were left 
in a dependent condition, which demanded instant relicf through a generous 
and well-considered system for the reorganization of the Southern system 
of labor on the principles of freedom. But, instead of the establishment of 
such a system, a deliberate scheme was planned to take advantage of the 
unfavorable condition of the negro by an enactment that all freedmen hay- 
ing no visible means of support should be regarded as vagrants and bound 
to apprenticeship. Every effort was also made to prevent any organization 
of the freedmen for their own relief, and making it a misdemeanor for whites 
to assemble or associate with them.? Some of this legislation was so op- 


* 'The following persons were elected permanent governors of the several states : Jonathan Worth, 
of North Carolina; Benjamin G. Humphreys, of Mississippi; Charles J. Jenkins, of Georgia; R. 
M. Patton, of Alabama; James L. Orr, of South Carolina; Andrew J. Hamilton, of ‘Texas; and 
D. 8S. Walker, of Florida. 

* The legislation in regard to freedmen may be briefly epitothized in a few paragraphs. 

North Carolina.—March 10, 1866, an act was passed declaring that one eighth part of African 
blood constituted a person a negro. It provided that, so soon as jurisdiction in matters relating to 
freedmen should be committed to the courts of the state, negroes should have all the privileges of 
white men in the prosecution of suits, and be eligible as witnesses in cases involving their own in- 
terests. It extended the criminal laws to all persons, making no distinction in punishment except 
for rape, which, if committed upon a white female, was made a capital crime for a black. It legal- 
ized marriages contracted during slavery. All contracts, to which one of the parties was a colored 
person, for the sale or purchase of any horse, mule, jennet, ass, neat cattle, hog, sheep, or goat, what- 
ever the value, and in the case of other articles contracts involving the value of ten dollars, were 
declared void, except when made in writing, and witnessed by a white person who could read and 
write. Marriages between whites and blacks were forbidden. 

Mississippi.November 22, 1865, an act was passed to regulate the relation of master and ap- 
prentice relative to freedmen. It provided for the apprenticeship to suitable persons, former mas- 
ters being preferred, of all freedmen under the age of 18 who are orphans, or who are not support- 
ed by their parents, to be bound in the case of males till the age of 21, and to the age of 18 in case 
of females. Power was given to the masters to inflict moderate corporal punishment. Where the 
age of the freedman was uncertain, it could be fixed by the judge of the county clerk. 

November 24, 1865, the vagrant act was passed. 

Section 2 provides that all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes in this state, over the age of 18 
years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or 
business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and 
all white persons so assembling with freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes, or usually associating 
with freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes on terms of equality. or living in adultery or fornication 
with a freedwoman, free negro, or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof 
shall be fined in the sum of not exceeding, in the case of a. freedman, free negro, or mulatto, fifty 
dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the 
free negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months. 

Section 5 provided that all negroes failing to pay any fine or forfeiture imposed should be hired 
out, or, if that were impossible, should be treated as paupers. 

Section 6 provided that a tax not exceeding one dollar should be levied upon every negro be- 
tween the ages of 18 and 60 to make up a “‘ freedmen’s pauper fund.” 

November 25, 1865, an act was passed to confer civil rights upon freedmen. 

Section 1 provided that negroes might sue and be sued, and acquire personal property, but should 
not be allowed to rent or lease any lands or tenements except in incorporated towns and cities, in 
which places the corporate authorities should be the controlling powers. 

Section 2 provided for the intermarriage of negroes, the clerk ot probate to keep separate records 
of the same. 

Section 3 declared intermarriage between whites and negroes a felony, to be punished by impris- 
ment for life. 

poe 4 gave negroes the right to give testimony in cases where negroes were plaintiffs or de- 
fendants, 

Seotion 5 provided that on the second Monday of J: anuary, 1866, every negro must have a lawful 
home or employment, and must have either a license to do irregular and job work, or a written 
contract for regular labor, 

Section 6 provided that negroes quitting the service of employers without good cause before the 
expiration of their written contract should forfeit their wages. 

November 29, 1865, an act was passed prohibiting negroes not in the military service of the 
United States to ‘‘keep or carry arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk, or bowie knife.” 
Upon conviction for this event, the penalty was a fine of ten dollars and forfeiture of the weapons. 
Section 4 of this act provided that all the penal and criminal Jaws in force in that state ‘ defining 
offenses and prescribing the mode of punishment for crimes and misdemeanors committed by 
slaves, free negroes, or mulattoes,” were thereby re-enacted, and declared in full force as against 
freedmen. 

Georgia.—December 15, 1865, negroes were made competent witnesses in cases to which freed- 
men were parties, and marriages between persons of color were legalized. 

March 12, 1866, all vagrants or persons leading an immoral or profligate life were made subject 
hess imprisonment, or forced labor for one year, or to be bound out for one year in apprentice- 
ship. 

March 17, 1865, it was enacted that persons of color should have the right to make and enforce 
contracts, to sue and be sued, to give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey 
real and personal property, and that they should not be subjected to any other or different punish- 
ment for the commission of any offense than such as were prescribed for white persons commit- 
ting the same. 

Alabama.—December, 1865, a bill was passed ‘‘making it unlawful for any freedman, mulatto, 
or free person of color to own fire-arms, or carry about his person a pistol or other deadly weapon,” 
under a penalty of one hundred dollars fine or three months’ imprisonment. 

December 9, 1865, it was enacted that negroes and mulattoes should have the right to sue and be 
sued, and to testify in cases in which negroes were parties, 

Early in 1866 Governor Patton vetoed three bills. One of these provided for the regulation of 
contracts with freedmen, for which the governor thought no special law was necessary. ‘‘ Inform- 
ation,” said he, ‘‘ from various parjs of the state shows that negroes are every where making con- 
tracts for the present year upon terms that are entirely satisfactory to the employers. They are 


[May, 1865. 


pressive to the freedmen that it was annulled by the order of military com- 
manders. 

It was evident that the late Confederate States misunderstood their situa- 
tion. President Johnson had thrown upon them the burden of reconstruc- 
tion, and properly it belonged to them. They, in turn, ought to have shown 
their good faith by the prompt and voluntary fulfillment of all the con- 


also entering faithfully upon the discharge of the obligations contracted. There is every prospect 
that the engagement formed will be observed with perfect good faith. I therefore think that spe- 
cial laws for regulating contracts between whites and freedmen would accomplish no good, and 
might result in much harm.” He also vetoed a bill extending the criminal laws of the state (which 
were applicable to free persons of color) to freedmen. ‘The bill applied to the freedmen a system 
of laws enacted for free negroes in a community where slavery existed. ‘‘I have,” said the goy- 
ernor, “‘ carefully examined the laws which, under this bill, would be applied to the freedmen, and 
I think that a mere recital of some of their provisions will show the impolicy and injustice of en- 
forcing them upon the negroes in their new condition.” Governor Patton also vetoed ‘‘a bill en- 
titled an act to regulate the relations of master and apprentice as relate to freedmen, free negroes, 
and mulattoes,” because he deemed the present laws amply sufficient for all purposes of apprentice- 
ship, without operating upon a particular class of persons. 

South Carolina.—October 19, 1865, an act was passed providing that the statutes and regula- 
tions concerning slaves were now inapplicable to persons of color, N egroes, though not entitled to 
social or political equality with white persons, were allowed the right to acquire, own, and dispose 
of property, to make contracts, to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and to sue and be sued. 

December 19, 1865, an act was passed amending the criminal law. 

Section 1 provided ‘‘ that either of the crimes specified in this first section shall be felony, with- 
out benefit of clergy, to wit: For a person of color to commit any willful homicide, unless in self- 
defense ; for a person of color to commit an assault upon a white woman with manifest intent to 
ravish her; for a person of color to have sexual intercourse with a white woman by personating 
her husband; for any person to raise an insurrection or rebellion in this state; for any person to 
furnish arms or ammunition to other persons who are in a state of actual insurrection or rebellion, 
or permit them to resort to his house for advancement of their evil purpose ; for any person to ad- 
minister, or cause to be taken by any other person, any poison, chloroform, soporific, or other de- 
structive thing, or to shoot at, stab, cut, or wound any other person, or by any means whatsoever to 
cause bodily injury to any other person, whereby, in any of these cases, a bodily injury dangerous 
to the life of any other person is caused, with intent, in any of these cases, to commit the crime of 
murder, or the crime of rape, or the crime of robbery, burglary, or larceny ; for any person who had 
been transported under sentence to return to the state within the period of prohibition contained in 
the sentence ; or for a person to steal a horse or mule, or cotton packed in a bale ready for mar- 
ket.’ 

Section 10 provided ‘‘ that a person of color who is in the employment of a master engaged in 
husbandry shall not have the right to sell any corn, rice, peas, wheat, or other grain, any flour, cot- 
ton, fodder, hay, bacon, fresh meat of any kind, poultry of any kind, animal of any kind, or any other 
product of a farm, without having written evidence from such master, or some person authorized by 
him, or from the district judge or a magistrate, that he has the right to sell such product; and if 
any person shall, directly or indirectly, purchase any such product from such person of color with- 
out such written evidence, the purchaser and seller shall each be guilty of a misdemeanor.” 

Section 13 declared that negroes should constitute no part of the state militia, and that they 
should not be permitted to keep fire-arms, except in the case of farm owners, who were allowed to 
keep a shot-gun or rifle. 

Section 22 provided that no person of color should migrate into and reside in South Carolina un- 
less within 20 days after his arrival he should enter into a bond in a penalty of $1000 dollars, with 
two good freeholders as security, for his good behavior and support. 

December 21. ‘‘ An act to establish and regulate the domestic relations of persons of color, and 
to amend the law in relation to paupers and vagrancy,” establishes the relation of husband and 
wife, declares those now living as such to be husband and wife, and provides that persons of color 
desirous hereafter to marry shall have the contract duly solemnized. A parent may bind his child 
over two years of age as an apprentice to serve till 21 if a male, 18 if a female. All persons of 
color who make contracts for service or labor shall be known as servants, and those with whom 
they contract as masters. 

“Colored children between 18 and 21, who have neither father nor mother living in the district 
in which they are found, or whose parents are paupers, or unable to afford them a comfortable 
maintenance, or whose parents are not teaching them habits of industry and honesty, or are persons 
of notoriously bad character, or are vagrants, or have been convicted of infamous offenses, and 
colored children, in all cases where they are in danger of moral contamination, may be bound as 
apprentices by the district judge or one of the magistrates for the aforesaid term.” 

It ‘* provides that no person of color shall pursue or practice the art, trade, or business of an ar- 
tisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper, or any other trade, employment, or business (besides that of hus- 
bandry, or that of a servant under a contract for service or labor), on his own account and for his 
own benefit, or in partnership with a white person, or as agent or servant of any.person, until he 
shall have obtained a license therefor from the judge of the District Court, which license shall be 
good for one year only. This license the judge may grant upon petition of the applicant, and upon 
being satisfied of his skill and fitness, and of his good moral character, and upon payment by the 
applicant to the clerk of the District Court of one hundred dollars if a shopkeeper or peddler, to be 
paid annually, and ten dollars if a mechanic, artisan, or to engage in any other trade, also to be 
paid annually. 

Florida,— January 11, 1866, an act was passed providing that the judicial tribunals of the state 
should be accessible to all persons without distinction of color, and repealing all laws heretofore 
passed with reference to slaves, free negroes, and mulattoes, except the acts to prevent their migra- 
tion into the state and the sale to them of fire-arms. 

January 11, 1866, an act was passed legalizing the marriage relation among persons of color. 

January 12, 1866, an act was passed in relation to contracts, similar in its provisions to those 
enacted by the other states. 

January 15, 1866, it was enacted ‘‘ that if any negro, mulatto, or other person of color shall in- 
trude himself into any religious or other public assembly of white persons, or into any railroad car 
or other public vehicle set apart for the exclusive accommodation of white people, he shall be 
deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be sentenced to stand in the pil- 
lory for one hour, or be whipped not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, or both, at the discretion of the 
jury ; nor shall it be lawful for any white person to intrude himself into any religious or other pub- 
lic assembly of colored persons, or into any railroad car or other public vehicle set apart for the 
exclusive accommodation of persons of color, under the same penalties.” 

Virginia.—Karly in 1866 a vagrant act was passed providing that vagrants should be hired out 
for a period of three months. 

Tennessee.—1866, January 25, this bill became a law: 

‘“ That persons of African and Indian descent are hereby declared to be competent witnesses in all 
the courts of this state, in as full a manner as such persons are by an act of Congress competent 
witnesses in all the courts of the United States, and all laws and parts of laws of the state exclud- 
ing such persons from competency are hereby repealed: Provided, however, That this act shall not 
be so construed as to give colored persons the right to vote, hold office, or sit on juries in this state ; 
and that this provision is inserted by virtue of the provision of the 9th section of the amended Con- 
stitution, ratified February 22, 1865.” 

May 26, this bill became a law: 

‘An act to define the term ‘persons of color,’ and to declare the rights of such persons. 

“*Suc. 1. That all negroes, mulattoes, mestizoes, and their descendants, having any African blood 
in their veins, shall be known in this state as ‘ persons of color.’ 

“Src. 2. That persons of color shall have the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue and be 
sued, to be parties and give evidence, to inherit, and to have full and equal benefits of all laws and 
proceedings for the security of person and estate, and shall not be subject to any other or differ- 
ent punishment, pains, or penalty for the commission of any act or offense than such as are pre- 
scribed for white persons committing like acts or offenses. 

** Sec. 3. That all persons of color, being blind, deaf and dumb, lunatics, paupers, or apprentices, 
shall have the full and perfect benefit and application of all laws regulating and providing for white 
persons, being blind, or deaf and dumb, or lunatics or paupers, or either (in asylums for their bene- 
fit), and apprentices. 

“Sec. 4. That all acts, or parts of acts or laws inconsistent herewith, are hereby repealed: Pro- 
vided, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to admit persons of color to serve on a jury ; 
And provided further, That the provisions of this act shall not be so construed as to require the 
education of colored and white children in the same school. 

“Sec. 5, That all free persons of color who were living together as husband and wife in this state 
while in a state of slavery are hereby declared to be man and wife, and their children legitimately 
entitled to an inheritance in any property heretofore acquired, or that may be hereafter acquired 
by said parents, to as full an extent as the children of white citizens are now entitled by the exist- 
ing laws of this state.” 

May 26, all the freedmen’s courts in Tennessee were abolished by the assistant commander, 
the law of the state making colored persons competent witnesses in all civil courts. ¥ 

Louisiana.—An act was passed in relation to vagrants, providing that the latter, failing to obtain 
security for good behavior and industry, should be hired out for a period of twelve months. 


| 


Decemper, 1865. ] 


ditions necessary to restoration. It was not expected that their military 
defeat would result in their conversion from secession to loyalty, but it 
seemed certain that the war must at least have convinced them of their fol- 
ly. It did so to some extent, but it did not bring them wisdom. ‘They ap- 
peared determined to do as little as possible to show their appreciation of 
the significance of the conflict which had gone against them. It was only 
at the earnest solicitation of the President that certain states repudiated 
their rebel debt. The manner in which they abolished slavery, with “in- 
asmuches,” “ifs,” and “buts,” showed their reluctance and their desire to find 
some possible chance of evasion. 

Johnson was disappointed. He had calculated upon very different action. 
He knew that the people would not be satisfied with this half-hearted, eva- 
sive sort of allegiance. In his correspondence with the provisional govern- 
ors he had scarcely been able to conceal his impatience on account of the 
manner in which the Southern States were moving. Some features of the 
criminal code adopted by these states seemed to him exceedingly unsatis- 
factory. He almost begged them to be sensible, and not to neglect the op- 
portunity which had been so generously offered them; but he pleaded in 
vain. He knew that every mistake made by these states in the movement 
which he had inaugurated would give force and plausibility to the theories 
which such men as Stevens, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips were urging 
upon the country. It is probable that the Southern States still retained a 
vivid remembrance of the persistent efforts made in their behalf, even while 
they were in armed rebellion, by the Northern faction led by Seymour, 
Vallandigham, Pendleton, Long, Bayard, and a host of others, and that, ex- 
ageerating the power of this faction, they hoped by union and co-operation 
with it to obtain in the political arena what they had lost on the field of 
battle. It is difficult upon any other hypothesis to understand the attitude 
which they now so defiantly assumed. 

The constitutional amendment abolishing slavery had been ratified by 
the requisite number of states, and on the 18th of December, 1865, Secretary 
Seward publicly announced this fact, certifying the validity of the amend- 
ment “to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution of the United 
States.” 

The Thirty-ninth Congress was convened at Washington December 4, 
1865.2, The Senate was organized with Lafayette S. Foster as President 


1 To all to whom these presents may come, greeting : 

‘* Know ye, that whereas the Congress of the United States, on the Ist of February last, passed 
a resolution which is in the words following, namely: ‘A resolution submitting to the Legisla- 
tures of the several states a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States. 

*** Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Con- 
gress assembled (two thirds of both houses concurring), That the following article be proposed to the 
Legislatures of the several states as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, 
when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a 
part of the said Constitution, namely : 

“*ArtIcLE XIII. 


«Spo, 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof 
the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject 
to their jurisdiction. : Sie 

“¢¢ Sic, 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.’ 

“ 4nd whereas it appears from official documents on file in this department that the amendment 
to the Constitution of the United States, proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the Legislatures 
of the states of Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kan- 
sas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, 
Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alaba- 
ma, North Carolina, and Georgia—in all, twenty-seven states ; 

“ And whereas the whole number of states in the United States is thirty-six ; and whereas the 
before specially-named states, whose Legislatures have ratified the said proposed amendment, con- 
stitute three fourths of the whole number of states in the United States : 

‘* Now, therefore, be it known that I, William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States, 
by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the act of Congress approved the twentieth of 
April, eighteen hundred and eighteen, entitled ‘An Act to provide for the publication of the Laws 
of the United States and for other purposes,’ do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has 
become valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution of the United States. 

“Tn testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Department of 
State to be affixed. 

‘*Done at the City of Washington, this eighteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one 

thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of 
(x. 8.] America the ninetieth. WiuiaM H. Sewarp, Secretary of State.” 


[New Jersey, Oregon, California, and Iowa ratified subsequently to the date of this certificate, as 
did Florida in the same form as South Carolina and Alabama. | 
2 The following is a list of the members of this Congress. ‘Those marked with an asterisk were 
new members : 

SENATE, 
California—James A. McDougall, John Conness. 
Connecticut—Lafayette S. Foster, James Dixon. 
Delaware—George Read Riddle, Willard Saulsbury. 
Illinois—Lyman Trumbull, Richard Yates.* 
Indiana—Henry S. Lane, Thomas A. Hendricks. 
Towa—James W. Grimes, Samuel J. Kirkwood.* 
Kansas—Samuel C. Pomeroy, James H. Lane. 
Kentucky—Garret Davis, James Guthrie.* 
Maine—Lot M. Morrill, William Pitt Fessenden.* 
Massachusetts—Charles-Sumner, Henry Wilson. 
Maryland—John A. J. Creswell,* Reverdy Johnson, 
Michigan—Zachariah Chandler, Jacob M. Howard. 
Minnesota—Alexander Ramsay, Daniel S$. Norton.* 
Missouri—B. Gratz Brown, John B. Henderson. 
Nevada—W illiam M. Stewart,* James W. Nye.* 
New Hampshire—Waniel Clerk, Aaron H. Cragin.* 
New Jersey—William Wright, John P. Stockton.* 
New York—Ira Harris, Edwin D. Morgan. 
Ohio—John Sherman, Benjamin F. Wade. 
Oregon—James W. Nesmith, George H. Williams.* 
Pennsylvania—Edgar Cowan, Charles R. Buckalew. 
Rhode Island—William Sprague, Henry B. Anthony. 
Tennessee—David 1). Patterson,* J. S. Fowler.* 
Vermont—Luke P. Poland,* Solomon Foot. 
West Virginia—Peter G. Van Winkle, Waitman T, Willey. 
Wisconsin—Timothy O. Howe, James R. Doolittle. 


HOUSE. 

California—Donald C. McRuer,* William Higby, John Bidwell.* 

Connecticut—Henry C. Deming, Samuel L. Warner,* Augustus Brandegee, John H. Hubbard. 

Delaware—John A. Nicholson.* 

Iilinois—John Wentworth,* John F. Farnsworth, Elihu B. Washburne, Abner C. Harding, 
Ebon C. Ingersoll, Burton C. Cook,* H. P. H. Bromwell,* Shelby M. Cullom,* Lewis W. Ross, 
Anthony Thornton,* Samuel S. Marshall,* Jehu Baker,* Andrew J. Kuykendall,* at large, S. W. 
Moulton.* 

Indiana—W iNliam FE. Niblack,* Michael C. Kerr,* Ralph Hill,* John H, Farquhar,* George W. 


98 


RECONSTRUCTION. —1865-1867. 


80D 


pro tempore. He had been chosen for this position in the extra session of 
the Senate, and thus became acting Vice-President of the United States. 
He had been a senator from Connecticut since 1855, and was eminently fit 
ted both by natural qualities and by experience for the duties of a presid- 
ing officer. In the House, the members were called to order by the clerk, 
Kdward McPherson, of Pennsylvania. The office of clerk of the House at 
this time was beset with difficulties of the most delicate nature. By law, 
his decision as to the members who might be properly placed upon the call- 
roll and take part in the organization of the House was absolute. By one 
party it was claimed that for him to exclude the names of Southern mem- 
bers was an assumption on his part of the right to reject members before 
they had been rejected by the House. By another party it was claimed 
that, by including those names, McPherson would equally anticipate the ac- 
tion of Congress by presuming to accept members before the House had 
acted in the matter. McPherson very wisely concluded to let the matter 
rest exactly where he found it. The members from the Southern States 
had not been admitted, and there were peculiar circumstances incident to 
their election which did not usually exist in ordinary cases. He determ- 
ined, therefore, to leave the whole subject to Congress. It is evident, also, 


Julian, Ebenezer Dumont, Daniel W. Voorhees,* Godlove S. Orth, Schuyler Colfax, Joseph H. 
Defrees,* Thomas N. Stillwell.* 

Jowa—James F. Wilson, Hiram Price, William B. Allison, Josiah B. Grinnell, John A. Kas- 
son, Asahel W. Hubbard. 

Kansas—Sidney Clarke.* 

Kentucky—u. 8. Trimble,* Burwell C. Ritter,* Henry Grider, Aaron Harding, Lovell H. Rous- 
seau,* Green Clay Smith, George S. Shanklin,* William H. Randall, Samuel McKee.* 

Maine—John Lynch,* Sidney Perham, James G. Blaine, John H. Rice, Frederick A. Pike. 

Maryland—Hiram McCullough, John L. Thomas, Jr.,* Charles B. Phelps,* Francis Thomas, 
Benjamin G. Harris. 

Massachusetts—Thomas D. Eliot, Oakes Ames, Alexander H. Rice, Samuel Hooper, John B. 
aed ie grsa P. Banks,* George S. Boutwell,* John D. Baldwin, William B. Washburn, Henry 
L. Dawes. 

Michigan—Fernando C, Beaman, Charles Upson, John W. Longyear, Thomas W. Ferry,* Row- 
land E. Trowbridge,* John F. Driggs. ; 

Minnesota—W illiam Windom, Ignatius Donnelly. 

Missouwri—John_ Hogan,* Henry T. Blow, Thomas E. Noell,* John R. Kelso,* Joseph W. 
McClurg, Robert T. Van Horn,* Benjamin F. Loan, John F. Benjamin,* George W. Anderson.* 

Nevada—Delos R. Ashley.* 

New Hampshire—Gilman Marston,* Edward H. Rollins, James W. Patterson. 

New Jersey—John F, Starr, William A. Newell,* Charles Sitgreaves,* Andrew J. Rogers, Ed- 
win R. V. Wright.* 

New York—Stephen Tabor,* Tunis G. Bergen,* James Humphrey,* Morgan Jones,* Nelson 
Taylor,* Henry J. Raymond,* John W. Chanler, James Brooks, William A. Darling,* William 
Radford, Charles H. Winfield, John H. Ketcham,* Edwin N. Hubbell,* Charles Goodyear,* John 
A. Griswold,* Robert S. Hale,* Calvin T. Hulburd, James M. Marvin, Demas Hubbard, Jr. ,* 
Addison H, Laflin,* Roscoe Conkling,* Sidney T. Holmes,* Thomas 'T. Davis, Theodore M. Pom- 
eroy, Daniel Morris, Giles W. Hotchkiss, Hamilton Ward,* Roswell Hart,* Burt Van Horn,* 
James M. Humphrey, Henry Van Aernam.* 

Ohio—Benjamin Eggleston, Rutherford B. Hayes,* Robert C. Schenck, William Lawrence,* F. 
C. Le Blond, Reader W. Clark,* Samuel Shellabarger,* James H. Hubbell,* Ralph P. Buckland,* 
James M. Ashley, Hezekiah S. Bundy,* William E. Finck, Columbus Delano,* Martin Welker,* 
Tobias KE. Plants,* John A. Bingham,* Ephraim R. Eckley, Rufus P. Spalding, James A. Gar- 
field. 

Oregon—John H. D. Henderson.* 

Pennsylvania—Samuel J. Randall, Charles O'Neill, Leonard Myers, William D. Kelley, M. Rus- 
sell Thayer, B. Markley Bover,* John M. Broomall, Sydenham E. Ancona, Thaddeus Steyens, 
Myer Strouse, Philip Johnson, Charles Denison, Ulysses Mereur,* George F. Miller,* Adam J. 
Glossbrenner,* William H. Koontz,* Abraham A. Barker,* Stephen F. Wilson,* Glenni W. Scho- 
field, Charles Vernon Culver,* John L. Dawson, James K. Moorhead, Thomas Williams, George 
V. Lawrence.* 

Rhode Island—Thomas A. Jenckes, Nathan F. Dixon. 

Tennessee—Nathaniel G. Taylor,* Horace Maynard,* William B. Stokes,* Edmund Cooper,* 
William B. Campbell,* S. M. Arnell,* Isaac R. Hawkins, John W. Leftwich.* 

Vermont—Frederick E. Woodbridge, Justin S. Morrill, Portus Baxter. 

West Virginta—Chester D. Hubbard,* George R. Latham,* Killian V. Whaley. 

Wisconsen—Halbert E. Paine,* Ithamar C. Sloan, Amasa Cobb, Charles A. Eldridge, Philetus 
Sawyer,* Walter D. McIndoe. 

The members from Tennessee were not admitted to either house until near the close of the ses- 
sion. Henry P. Stockton’s seat in the Senate was declared vacant. Solomon Foote, of Vermont, 
died March 28, and was succeeded by George F. Edmunds. In the House the seat of D. W. Voor- 
hees was given to Henry D, Washburne, That of James Brooks was given to William E. Dodge. 

The following members were elected to Congress trom the Southern States, but were not admit- 
ted: 


SENATE. 
Alabama—George S. Houston, Lewis E. Parsons. 
Arkansas—k. Baxter, William D. Snow. 
Louisiana—R. King Cutler, Michael Hahn. 
Mississippi—W illiam L. Sharkey, J. L. Alcorn. 
North Carolina—John Pool, William A. Graham. 
South Carolina—John L, Manning, Benjamin F, Perry. 
Virginia—John C. Underwood, Joseph Segar. 
Florida—W illiam Marvin, Wilkerson Call. 
Georgia—Alexander H. Stephens, Herschel V. Johnson. 


HOUSE. 

Alabama—C, C, Langdon, George C. Freeman, Cullen A. Battle, Joseph W. Taylor, B. T. Pope, 
T. J. Foster. 

Arkansas—William Byers, George H. Kyle, J. M. Johnson. 

Florida—F. McLeod. 

Georgia—Solomon Cohen, Philip Cook, Hugh Buchanan, E. G. Cabaniss, J. D. Matthews, J. H. 
Christy, W. T. Wofford. 

Louisiana—Louis St. Martin, Jacob Barker, Robert C. Wickliffe, John E. King, John S. Young. 

Mississippi—A. E. Reynolds, R. A. Pinson, James T. Harrison, A. M. West, E. G. Peyton. 

North Carolina—Jesse R. Stubbs, Charles C, Clark, Thomas C, Fuller, Josiah Turner, Jr., Bed- 
ford Brown, 8. H. Walkup, A. H. Jones. 

South Carolina—John D, Kennedy, William Aiken, Samuel McGowan, James Farrow. 

Virginia—W. H. B. Custis, Lucius H. Chandler, B. Johnson Barbour, Robert Ridgway, Bey- 
erly A. Davis, Alexander H. H, Stuart, Robert Y. Conrad, Daniel H. Hoge. 


Of those elected to the Senate, Mr. A. H. Stephens was a delegate from Georgia to the Conyen- 
tion which framed the ‘* Confederate’ Constitution, and was Vice-President of the ** Confederacy” 
until its downfall. Mr, H.V. Johnson was a senator in the rebel Congress in the first and second 
Congresses, as was Mr. Graham from North Carolina. Mr. Pool was a senator in the Legislature 
of North Carolina. Mr. Perry was a ‘‘ Confederate States” judge. Mr. Manning was a volunteer 
aid to General Beauregard at Fort Sumter and Manassas. Mr. Alcorn was in the Mississippi mi- 
litia. 

Among those elected to the House, of the Alabama delegaticn, Mr. Battle was a general in the 
rebel army, and Mr. Foster a representative in the first and second rebel Congresses. 

Of the Georgia delegation, Messrs. Cook and Wofford were generals in the rebel service. 

Of the Mississippi delegation, Messrs. Reynolds and Pinson were colonels in the rebel service ; 
Mr. Harrison was a member of the rebel Provisional Congress. 

Of the North Carolina delegation, Mr. Fuller was a representative in the first rebel Congress, 
and Mr. Turner was a colonel in the rebel army, and a representative in the second rebel Con- 
gress; Mr. Brown was a member of the State Convention which passed the Secession Ordinance 
in 1861, and voted for it. 

Of the South Carolina delegation, Mr, Kennedy was colonel and Mr. McGowan brigadier gen- 
eral in the rebel army; Mr. Farrow was a representative in the first and second rebel Congresses. 

Of the Virginia delegation, Messrs. Stuart and Conrad were members of the Secession Conven- 
tion of Virginia in 1861, and continued to participate after the passage of the ordinance and the 
beginning of hostilities. 


806 


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LAFAYETTE 8. FOSTER, 


that President Johnson did not expect McPherson to come to any different 
conclusion in the matter, from his letter to Provisional Governor Perry, No- 
vember 27, a week before the assembling of Congress. In this letter he said 
it was not necessary for the members elect from South Carolina to be pres- 
ent at the organization of Congress. On the contrary, he thought it would 
be better policy to present their certificates of election after the organiza- 
tion of the two houses, and then it would be “a simple question under the 
Constitution of the members taking their seats.” “ Each house,” he added, 
“must judge for itself the election, returns, and qualifications of its own 
members.” 

An attempt was made by Brooks, of New York, to bring up the question 
as to the credentials of members previous to organization, but it proved un- 
successful. In the vote for speaker the House divided by a strictly party 
separation between Brooks and Colfax; 175 votes being cast, of which the 
former received 36, and the latter 189. Thus Schuyler Colfax was re-elected 
speaker. Being conducted to the chair, he addressed the House. He al- 
luded to the circumstances under which this new Congress was assembled. 
The Thirty-eighth Congress had closed its existence while the war was still 
in progress, but now there was peace from shore to shore. The duties of 
this Congress, he said, ‘are as obvious as the sun’s pathway in the heavens. 
Representing, in its twe branches, the states and the people, its first and 
highest obligation is to guarantee to every state a republican form of gov- 
ernment. The rebellion having overthrown constitutional state govern- 
ments in many states, it is yours to mature and enact legislation which, 
with the concurrence of the executive, shall establish them anew on such a 
basis of enduring justice as will guarantee all necessary safeguards to the 
people, and afford what our Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, proclaims is the chief object of government—protection to all men in 
their inalienable rights. The world should witness in this great work the 
most inflexible fidelity, the most earnest devotion to the principles of liberty 
and humanity, the truest patriotism, and the wisest statesmanship. Heroic 
men, by hundreds of thousands, have died that the republic might live. 
The emblems of mourning have darkened White House and cabin alike; 
but the fires of civil war have melted every fetter in the land, and proved 
the funeral-pyre of slavery. It is for you, representatives, to do your work 
as faithfully and as well as did the fearless saviors of the Union on their 
more dangerous arena of duty. Then we may hope to see the vacant and 
once abandoned seats around us gradually filling up, until this hall shall 
contain representatives from every state and district, their hearts devoted 
to the Union for which they are to legislate, jealous of its honor, proud of 
its glory, watchful of its rights, and hostile to its enemies; and the stars 
on our banner, that paled when the states they represented arrayed them- 
selves in arms against the nation, will shine with a more brilliant light of 
loyalty than ever before.” 

The speaker then took the test oath, which still remained in operation. 

In the Senate, excluding Tennessee, there were 10 new members out of 
50; in the House, excluding Tennessee, 93 out of 184, or fully one half, 
were new members. The political complexion of the Senate remained un- 
changed; but in the House the change was very great. In the Thirty- 
eighth Congress about four ninths of the members were Democrats, now 
they numbered less than one fourth. This change simply indicated the 
popular opposition to the schemes of the peace party in 1864. The Thirty- 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| DECEMBER, 1865. 


ninth Congress had been elected, not on the special issues of reconstruction, 
but on issues directly connected with the prosecution of the war. 

President Johnson’s message was anxiously awaited by the people. The 
President of the United States holds a peculiar position. He is, par excel- 
lence, the representative of the republic. He is directly elected by the whole 
people, while the legislative officers are elected either by states, as in the 
case of the Senate, or by local districts, as in the case of the House; there- 
fore the people naturally look to him as to one whom they have expressly 
chosen as the exponent of their own views. He is elected by the majority 
of the whole people, and is therefore supposed to represent the nation rather 
than any section. To him is intrusted more power than resides in the head 
of a constitutional monarchy, because he is the choice of the people, and not 
a hereditary imposition. If Johnson’s present position was different from 
that of a President elected as such, and not as Vice-President, that was the 
fault of the party which had elected him. : 

Johnson was a Democrat elected by the Republican party as Vice-Presi- 
dent, and who, by accident, had become President. He had been a supporter 
of Breckinridge in the presidential contest of 1860. Although he was an 
ardent advocate of the Union, his political principles had not changed. He 
could scarcely find a name harsh enough by which to designate the rebel- 
lion. Following his own inclinations, he would have hanged the leading 
men engaged in it. In his view traitors should be “ punished and impover- 
ished.” He knew that slavery was dead, but he was no mourner over its 
corpse. As military governor of Tennessee, he had been deemed one of the 
most radical members of the Republican party; and such indeed he had 
been, so far as war measures were concerned. Yet, now that the war was 
over, he was satisfied with what had been accomplished, and desired the im- 
mediate restoration of the Southern States to the Union upon the basis of 
the Constitution as it then stood, without farther modification. He would 
have preferred that the Southern Conventions should have extended the 
elective franchise to all negroes who could “read the Constitution of the 
United States in English and write their names,” or who owned real estate 
to the value of $250. He even went so far as to urge such a measure upon 
the Mississippi Convention. He foresaw, or thought he did, that the Repub- 
lican party would demand universal negro suffrage as a condition of restora- 
tion, and thought that the adoption of partial suffrage for the colored race 
would satisfy the people, and, as he expressed it, “disarm the adversary.” 
But what was the “adversary” which Johnson wished to disarm? The 
party which had elected him. From the extremists of this party he feared 
more danger to the country than from the just subdued rebellious states. 
The very fact that these states had not appreciated the opportunity which 
he had given them, and had not heartily co-operated with him in his efforts 
in their behalf, only increased his apprehension; for he knew that their re- 
luctant, half-hearted submission, and their ill-considered attempts to evade 
the consequences of the war, would give power to the faction of whose future 
action he had the most serious apprehension. With all their mistakes, he 
preferred to trust the Southern States rather than extreme Republicans. If 


S SS 


SCHUYLER COLFAX. 


December, 1865. ] 


he was dissatisfied with the former, he was more apprehensive of the latter. 
He would sooner forgive rebels who had laid down their arms, however 
sullen their submission, than support those who desired to make the victo- 
ry of the nation an occasion for the aggrandizement of their party. The 
former were powerless for injury; the danger threatened by the latter he 
deemed imminent and formidable. 

During the few months preceding the assembling of Congress the specu- 
lations as to Johnson’s position were numerous. He was every day pardon- 
ing rebels belonging to the classes excepted from his Amnesty Proclama- 
tion of May 29th. Of course the applications for pardon were many, but 
the exceptions had been made to exclude a few, and there was no impro- 
priety in the President's pardoning all others. In some cases, however, 
where there was a special reason for refusal, pardon was not refused. 

During this period, also, the Democratic press had undergone a somewhat 
remarkable change. Those journals which had hitherto been foremost in 
abusing Johnson now altered their tone. The Democratic party had been 
shamefully defeated in the election of 1864, but now there seemed to be a 
chance for its recovery. Somewhat curiously, this party supposed that John- 
son was coming over to it, while Johnson, on the other hand, supposed that 
this party was coming over to him. And here we are reminded of the 
interview between George L. Stearns and the President, October 3d, 1865. 
“The Democratic party,” said Johnson at this interview, “finds its old po- 
sition is untenable, and is coming over to ours; if it has come up to our po- 
sition, lam glad of it.” At the same time the President expressed his views 
in detail. He said the states were in the Union, ‘“ which was whole and in- 
divisible.” ‘We must not,” he remarked, “be too much in a hurry; it is 
better to let them reconstruct themselves than to force them to it; for if they 
go wrong, the power is in our hands, and we can check them in any stage 
to the end, and oblige them to correct their error; we must be patient with 
them.” He expressed his opposition both to giving too much power to the 
states, and also to a great consolidation of power in the central govern- 
ment. ‘Our only safety,” he said, “lies in allowing each state to control the 
right of voting by its own laws, and we have the power to control the rebel 
states ifthey go wrong..... If the general government controls the right 
to vote in the states, it may establish such rules as will restrict the vote to 
a small number of persons, and thus create a central despotism.” Universal 
negro suffrage now he thought would breed a war of races; but he was in 
favor of a gradual introduction of the black race to participation in political 
power. He said the negro would rather vote with his master whom he did 
not hate, than with the non-slaveholding population of the South, against 
whom he had an hereditary prejudice. This prejudice was shown by the 
fact that outrages committed originated either from non-slaveholding whites 
against negroes, or from negroes against non-slaveholding whites. 

To understand Johnson’s position at this time we must call to mind the 
considerations which influenced him. In the first place, there was his the- 
ory of the situation, according to which he believed that the burden of re- 
construction rested upon the South, and not upon the executive or legis- 
lative departments of the government. The rebellion had ceased, and, what- 
ever might be the decision of government as to the punishment of individ- 
ual traitors, the states in which the rebellion had existed were still states, 
with all their powers unimpaired, and with all their social institutions in- 
tact save that of slavery. Allegiance, as it seemed to him, consisted in the 
performance of constitutional obligations. It is true that by the Constitu- 
tion every man who had borne arms against the government might be hung 
for treason, or be punished in any other way, at the option of the govern- 
ment; but, even after that had been done, it would still remain true that the 
only claim which the government had upon the Southern people was a claim 
to their allegiance—not their allegiance to the Republican party, but to the 
Constitution. The ratification of the anti-slavery amendment he deemed 
necessary as a recognition of what had been accomplished by the war. The 
nullification of secession ordinances and the repudiation of the rebel debt 
were, in his view, directly involved in the abandonment of the struggle by 
the South. His views had not changed from what they had been in 1862, 
when in the Senate he introduced the resolution declaring that the object 
of the war was simply the suppression of the rebellion, and that, so soon as 
this should be accomplished, the war ought to cease, leaving the Southern 
States with all their original powers under the Constitution. Since then 
slavery had been abolished, and thus far the views expressed in this resolu- 
tion had been changed, but no farther. Johnson did not regard the resump- 
tion of their former functions by the late Confederate States as a privilege 
granted them, but as a duty—a constitutional obligation which even the ex- 
istence of civil war had no power to relax. Whatever farther changes in 
the organic law of the nation might seem necessary in the new situation con- 
sequent upon restoration ought, in his opinion, to be made in the ordinary 
way, and by all the states acting in common, and upon terms of equality. 

But, apart from his theory as to the basis of restoration, there were certain 
practical considerations which influenced the President. So long as the 
Southern States were prevented from resuming their normal relations to the 
government, the balance of political power would remain disturbed. By 
the very election which had given him his present position a Congress also 
had been chosen which was more than three fourths Republican. He fore- 
saw, or at least feared, that this Congress, in which there was so heavy a 
preponderance of power on the Republican side, would be partisan in its 
legislation, and would use its advantages for the concentration and perpetu- 
ation of party power. The immediate representation of the South in Con- 
gress, while it would counteract this tendency, could not, it seemed to him, 
be productive of evil, inasmuch as each house, by its power to decide upon 
the qualification of its members, had a safeguard against the admission of 


RECONSTRUCTION.—1865-1867. 807 


the disloyal, and inasmuch, moreover, as, even after the admission of every 
Southern member, the Republicans would still maintain a majority in both 
houses. 

These principles constituted the basis of President Johnson’s policy of re- 
construction as laid before Congress in his first annual message. The first 
question, he said, which had presented itself for decision was whether the 
territory of the South should be held as conquered territory under military 
authority emanating from the President as commander-in-chief of the army. 
He had decided the question in the negative. Military governments, while 
they would not alleviate, would, on the other hand, exaggerate existing dis- 
content; they would envenom hatred rather than restore affection; once 
established, no precise limit to their continuance was conceivable; the ex- 
pense occasioned by them would be incalculable and exhausting; they would 
operate unfavorably against emigration from the Northern to the Southern 
States—one of the best means for the restoration of harmony; the powers 
of patronage and rule thus exercised under the President over a vast, popu- 
lous, and naturally wealthy region, were greater than he would, unless un- 
der extreme necessity, intrust to any one man—greater than he would con- 
sent to exercise himself except on occasions of great emergency; and the 
willful use of such powers for a series of years would endanger not only the 
purity of the general administration, but also the liberties of the states which 
remained loyal. 

But, argued the President, there was another and more vital objection to 
the establishment of military governments over the Southern States. Such 
a policy would imply that the states whose inhabitants had participated in 
the rebellion had, by the act of those inhabitants, ceased to exist. The true 
theory, on the other hand, was “that all pretended acts of secession were 
from the beginning null and void.” States could not commit treason, nor 
screen individual traitors, any more than they could make treaties with for- 
eign powers. The vitality of the seceding states had been by the rebellion 
impaired, but not extinguished, and their functions suspended, but not de- 
stroyed. 

“But,” proceeds the argument, ‘‘ifany state neglects or refuses to perform 
its offices, there is the more need that the general government should main- 
tain all its authority, and, as soon as practicable, resume the exercise of all 
its functions. On this principle I have :cted, and have gradually and quiet- 
ly, and by almost imperceptible steps, sought to restore the rightful energy 
of the general government and of the states. To that end provisional goy- 
ernors have been appointed for the states, Conventions called, governors 
elected, Legislatures assembled, and senators and representatives chosen to 
the Congress of the United States. At the same time, the courts of the 
United States, as far as could be done, have been reopened, so that the laws 
of the United States may be enforced through their agency. The blockade 
has been removed, and the custom-houses re-established in ports of entry, so 
that the revenue of the United States may be collected. The Post-office 
Department renews its ceaseless activity, and the general government is 
thereby enabled to communicate promptly with its officers and agents. ‘The 
courts bring security to persons and property ; the opening of the ports in- 
vites the restoration of industry and commerce; the post-office renews the 
facilities of social intercourse and of business. And is it not happy for us 
all that the restoration of each one of these functions of the general govern- 
ment brings with it a blessing to the states over which they are extended? 
Is it not a sure promise of harmony and renewed attachment to the Union 
that, after all that has happened, the return of the general government is 
known only as a beneficence ?” 

This policy was attended with some risk; its success involved the acqui- 
escence of the states concerned. But the risk must be taken, and in the 
choice of difficulties it was the smallest risk. T’o diminish the danger in- 
volved in his policy he had asserted his power to pardon. 

“The next step which I have taken,” said the President, “to restore the 
constitutional relations of the states has been an invitation to them to par- 
ticipate in the high office of amending the Constitution. Every patriot 
must wish for a general amnesty at the earliest epoch consistent with public 
safety. For this great end there is need of a concurrence of all opinions, 
and the spirit of mutual conciliation. All parties in the late terrible con- 
flict must work together in harmony. It is not too much to ask, in the 
name of the whole people, that, on the one side, the plan of restoration shall 
proceed in conformity with a willingness to cast the disorders of the past 
into oblivion; and that, on the other, the evidence of sincerity in the future 
maintenance of the Union shall be put beyond any doubt by the ratifica- 
tion of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the 
abolition of slavery forever within the limits of our country. So long as 
the adoption of this amendment is delayed, so long will doubt, and jealousy, 
and uncertainty prevail. This is the measure which will efface the sad 
memory of the past; this is the measure which will most certainly call pop- 
ulation, and capital, and security to those parts of the Union that need them 
most. Indeed, it is not too much. to ask of the states which are now resum- 
ing their places in the family of the Union to give this pledge of perpetual 
loyalty and peace. Until it is done, the past, however much we may desire 
it, will not be forgotten. The adoption of the amendment reunites us be- 
yond all power of disruption. It heals the wound that is still imperfectly 
closed; it removes slavery, the element which has so long perplexed and 
divided the country; it makes of us once more a united people, renewed 
and strengthened, bound more than ever to mutual affection and support.” 

Thus President Johnson explained the policy which he had thus far pur- 
sued. The completion of the work of restoration would be accomplished 
by the resumption on the part of the states of their places in the two branch- 
es of the national Legislature. ‘‘ Here,” he added, “it is for you, fellow- 


808 


citizens of the Senate, and for you, fellow-citizens of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, to judge, each of you for yourselves, of the elections, returns, and 
qualifications of your own members.” ae 

After advocating the speedy restoration by Congress of the Circuit Courts 
in the late rebel states, in order that those charged with the commission of 
treason might have fair and impartial trials, the President proceeded thus to 
consider the situation of the freedmen in those states : 

“The relations of the general government toward the four millions of in- 
habitants whom the war has called into freedom have engaged my most se- 
rious consideration. On the propriety of attempting to make the freedmen 
electors by the proclamation of the executive, I took for my counsel the 
Constitution itself, the interpretations of that instrument by its authors and 
their contemporaries, and recent legislation by Congress. When, at the first 
movement toward independence, the Congress of the United States instruct- 
ed the several states to institute governments of their own, they left each 
state to decide for itself the conditions for the enjoyment of the elective 
franchise. During the period of the Confederacy, there continued to exist 
a very great diversity in the qualifications of electors in the several states ; 
and even within a state a distinction of qualifications prevailed with regard 
to the officers who were to be chosen. The Constitution of the United 
States recognizes these diversities when it enjoins that in the choice of mem- 
bers of the House of Representatives of the United States ‘the electors in 
each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most nu- 
merous branch of the state Legislature.’ 

‘After the formation of the Constitution, it remained, as before, the uni- 
form usage for each state to enlarge the body of its electors according to its 
own judgment; and, under this system, one state after another has proceed- 
ed to increase the number of its electors, until now universal suffrage, or 
something very near it, is the general rule. So fixed was this reservation 
of power in the habits of the people, and so unquestioned has been the in- 
terpretation of the Constitution, that during the civil war the late President 
never harbored the purpose—certainly never avowed the purpose—of dis- 
regarding it; and in the acts of Congress, during that period, nothing can 
be found which during the continuance of hostilities, much less after their 
close, would have sanctioned any departure by the executive from a policy 
which has so uniformly obtained. Moreover, a concession of the elective 
franchise to the freedmen, by act of the President of the United States, must 
have been extended to all colored men, wherever found, and so must have 
established a change of suffrage in the Northern, Middle, and Western States, 
not less than in the Southern and Southwestern. Such an act would have 
created a new class of voters, and would have been an assumption of power 
by the President which nothing in the Constitution or laws of the United 
States would have warranted. 

“On the other hand, every danger of conflict is avoided when the settle- 
ment of the question is referred to the several states. They can, each for 
itself, decide on the measure, and whether it is to be adopted at once and 
absolutely, or introduced gradually and with conditions. In my judgment, 
the freedmen, if they show patience and manly virtues, will sooner obtain a 
participation in the elective franchise through the states than through the 
general government, even if it had power to intervene. When the tumult 
of emotions that have been raised by the suddenness of the social change 
shall have subsided, it may prove that they will receive the kindliest usage 
from some of those on whom they have heretofore most closely depended.” 

But, while the President thought it was not competent for the general 
government to extend the elective franchise in the several states, it seemed 
equally clear to him that good faith required the security of the freedmen 
in their liberty and property, their right to labor, and to just compensation 
therefor. “It is,” said he, “one of the greatest acts on record to have 
brought four millions of people into freedom. The career of free industry 
must be fairly opened to them; and then their future prosperity and con- 
dition must, after all, rest mainly on themselves. If they fail, and so perish 
away, let us be careful that the failure shall not be attributable to any de- 
nial of justice. In all that relates to the destiny of the freedmen we need 
not be too anxious to read the future; many incidents which, from a specu- 
lative point of view, might raise alarin, will quietly settle themselves.” 

This message was as able a political document as had ever been laid be- 
fore the American Congress. But, for all that, the President, as we have 
said already, had committed a terrible blunder. He had assumed that the 
executive might cndependently determine the conditions necessary to restora- 
tion, and that to Congress was only left the consideration on the part of the 
two houses respectively of the qualifications of their members, and such ac- 
tion as might be deemed necessary to secure the freedmen against oppres- 
sion. His mistake was not that he had not established military govern- 
ments over the Southern States; it was not that he had usurped any power 
in re-establishing the relations between those states and the executive, which 
it was clearly his duty to do; but he had created an impression among the 
people of the South that simply by nullifying secession, repudiating the 
rebel debt, and ratifying the anti-slavery amendment, they had done all 
which was necessary to satisfy the people that the security of the country 
was fully established. Here was his mistake. The people were not satis- 
fied by what had been done. They did not feel secure as to the future. 
On the contrary, they were greatly agitated with apprehension lest South- 
ern politicians, combining with Northern Democrats, and assisted by the in- 
creased numerical representation resulting from the abolition of slavery, 
might imperil the security of the national debt, demand compensation for 
their freed slaves, inaugurate a system of legislation injurious to freedmen, 
and neutralize the results of the war. Congress also was dissatisfied, not 
only for the reasons which had occasioned popular discontent, but because 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| DECEMBER, 1865. 


it had not been admitted to participation in the first stages of reconstruc- 
tion, In this work there were.some things demanded by the people which 
belonged alone to the national Legislature, and could not be touched by the 
President. Thus, for instance, he had no right to demand the readjustment 
of the basis of representation. 

All this difficulty might have been avoided if the President had called an 
extra session of Congress in July, 1865. There were two urgent reasons for 
such a session: 

1. The perfection of the preliminary steps toward restoration in such 
features as required the supplementary action of Congress could only thus 
be secured. 

2. It was an emergency which demanded harmonious action on the part 
of the government. This harmony implied no usurpation by the executive 
of the functions of Congress, or by Congress of executive powers. The 
President would still be perfectly independent in his own sphere, and a like 
independence would belong to the national Legislature. The very fact of 
the President’s consulting with Congress would have conduced to harmony. 
And if, after all, there should arise a difference, and the President should 
deem it his duty to do his share of the work upon one plan, while Congress, 
after mature deliberation, should decide upon a different policy in regard to 
its Own action, each would have shown a proper respect for the other, and 
thus the antagonism which might have been inevitable, however unfortu- 
nate, would have been free from bitterness. Each department of the gov- 
ernment, moreover, would at the outset have given a full expression of its 
policy, and the Southern States would have been prevented from entertain: 
ing false hopes as to the result of their own action. The questions involved 
in the two different policies—if there must be two—would have thus been 
brought immediately before the people for calm discussion, and not in such 
a way as to lead on to an angry and acrimonious dispute. 

But Jobnson, as we have said, preferred another course, and proceeded to 
his work alone. Thus he laid the basis for a conflict between himself and 
Congress, for popular dissatisfaction, and for unreasonable expectations on 
the part of the Southern people. Whether these results followed with or 
without the President’s design, they were equally unfortunate. It was cer- 
tainly in his power to prevent them, but he did not use the power. What- 
ever might afterward be done by Congress to deepen and exacerbate the 
conflict between the executive and legislative departments of the govern- 
ment, it would still remain true that the President had taken the first steps 
toward such a conflict. Did he distrust Congress, and therefore attempt to 
forestall its action? Then it must be answered, first, that his distrust had 
no good foundation, as there was no indication that Congress was disposed 
to act unreasonably toward the South; and, secondly, that if Congress had 
been thus disposed, its action could not be forestalled by the President. It 
was the Congress of the United States; its action was as independent with- 
in its own sphere as was that of the President; so long as it remained in 
power, its decision as to the representation of the Southern States was irre- 
vocable by any power on earth. And, moreover, the President could, by 
his distrust of Congress, or by an attempt to anticipate its action in the pre- 
liminary stages of restoration, only put that body upon its guard, and gen- 
erate in it a corresponding distrust of himself, thus rendering future har- 
mony between the executive and legislative departments almost impossible, 

Previous to the organization of Congress, it had been determined in a 
caucus of Republicans to reject all delegations from the Southern States 
until both houses had agreed upon some plan of action respecting them. 
On the first day of the session, Thaddeus Stevens offered a resolution, which 
was adopted by the House, 183 to 86, “that a joint committee of fifteen 
members shall be appointed, nine of whom shall be members of the House 
and six members of the Senate, who shall inquire into the condition of 
the states which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and 
report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either 
house of Congress, with leave to report at any time by bill or otherwise; 
and until such report shall have been made and finally acted upon by 
Congress, no member shall be received into either house from any of the 
so-called Confederate States; and all papers relating to the representation 
of said states shall be referred to the said committee without debate.” 
The previous question was demanded by Stevens, and all debate was fore- 
stalled. This resolution came before the Senate for action on the 12th of 
December, and was amended on motion of Senator Anthony, of Rhode Isl- 
and, so as to become a concurrent instead of a joint resolution, thus mak- 
ing the signature of the President unnecessary. Anthony then moved an- 
other amendment, to strike out the provision preventing either house from 
admitting any of the members concerned until the committee should have 
reported and Congress should have taken final action upon the subject. 
This led to debate. Senator Howard, of Michigan, opposed the amendment. 
He held that the late Confederate States were conquered communities, with- 
out the right of self-government; we held them, not by their free will, but 
by the exercise of military power. Under these circumstances, he consid- 
ered either house incompetent to admit members from those states with- 
out the consent of both. Senator Anthony replied that it was intended that 
both houses should act in concert, and it was also desirable that the execu- 
tive and Congress should act in concert; “that all branches of the govern- 
ment shall approach this great question in a spirit of comprehensive patriot- 
ism, with confidence in each other, and that each branch of the government, 
and all persons in each branch of the government, will be ready, if neces- 
sary, to concede something of their own views in order to meet the views 
of those who are equally charged with the responsibility of public affairs.” 
The Constitution confided to each house separately its own independent 
right of judgment of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members. 


December, 1865. ] 


Under the resolution as it came from the House, it would be necessary to 
refer the credentials of those claiming seats in the Senate to a committee, 
the majority of which was from the House. Besides, the resolution provided 
that papers should be referred to the committee without debate. This was 
contrary to the practice of the Senate. 

Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, objected to the preponderance given to 
the House in the proposed committee, and said the injurious result of this 
could only be obviated by the amendment under consideration. He alluded 
to the restriction upon debate, and said the Senate was “to be led like a 
lamb to the slaughter, bound hand and foot, shorn of its constitutional pow- 
er, and gagged.” Again, the resolution, as it stood, would exclude 11 states 
from representation in the Union, thus accomplishing what rebellion had 
failed to accomplish—it was the “dissolution of the Union by act of Con- 
gress.” The doctrine of Senator Howard, involving the theory of state de- 
struction, was, he claimed, opposed to the ground taken by the Union party 
from the first, which was that states could not withdraw from the Union. 
They could not do it peacefully; they had undertaken to do it by arms; 
‘““we crushed the attempt; we trampled their armies under our feet; we 
captured the rebellion; the states are ours; and we entered them to save, 
and not to destroy.” He alluded to the fact that the resolution originated 
in a secret caucus dominated by Thaddeus Stevens, the zealous advocate of 
confiscation, and to the hot haste with which this shrewd leader had pressed 
it through the House in the short space of 10 minutes, without debate, and 
before the President’s message had been communicated. In conclusion, 
Doolittle urged upon the Senate the duty of that body to act in harmony 
with the President. We claim, he said, to be here acting as the friends of 
the late lamented President, and the friends of him upon whom had lately 
fallen the responsibilities of executive power. We aided in the election of 
both. When they were nominated, the experiment of reconstruction had 
already begun. For nearly a year Lincoln had been pursuing substantially 
the same policy which had been since followed by his successor. Their 
election, he claimed, was a popular support of this policy, and he predicted 
that Johnson would be sustained by the people. This was as certain, he 
said, as the revolutions of the earth. 

Senator Fessenden then arose: He had at first favored the resolution as 
it came from the House because he sympathized with its object. The Sen- 
ate ought not to adopt the convictions of the President without examina- 
tion. This was a subject of infinite importance, involving the integrity and 
welfare of the republic in all future time, and it was the duty of senators 
to examine the subject with care and fidelity, and act upon their own con- 
victions and not upon those of others. The resolution looked toward calm 
and deliberate consideration before action, and so far he approved it. But, 
upon a more careful reading, he had come to the conclusion, for the reasons 
already given by Senator Anthony, that the resolution perhaps went a little 
too far. It was important that the committee should be appointed, to secure 
harmony of action between the two houses. The subject would thus be 
carefully considered, and the delay necessary to secure deliberation was not 
so great an evil as party action. He concurred, however, in the objections 
made by Senator Anthony. From the passage of the amendment moved 
by that senator, the inference was not deducible, as Senator Howard thought 
it was, that the Senate was in favor of the immediate or hasty admission of 
any of the Southern members. He was himself certainly not in favor of 
such action, and yet he should vote for the amendment. Neither did he 
agree with Senator Doolittle that the appointment of this committee was any 
intimation with regard to the opinion entertained by the Senate of the Presi- 
dent’s policy. The Senate simply chose to consider the whole subject for it- 
self before acting upon it. 

Anthony’s amendment was agreed to, and on the next day the House con- 
curred in the amendments of the Senate, and the resolution was adopted. 
The House subsequently adopted for its own guidance the provisions which 
had been stricken out by the Senate. On the 14th the speaker announced 
as members of the joint committee on the part of the House, Thaddeus 
Stevens, of Pennsylvania; Elihu B. Washburne, of Ilinois; Justin 8. Mor- 
rill, of Vermont; Henry Grider, of Kentucky; John A. Bingham, of Ohio; 
Roscoe Conkling, of New York; George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts ; 
Henry T. Blow, of Missouri; and Andrew J. Rogers, of New Jersey. In 
the Senate, on December 21st, the following members were announced by 
the President pro tem.: Fessenden, Grimes, Harris, Howard, Johnson, Wil- 
liams, 

On the 12th the Senate adopted a resolution requesting the President to 
furnish information as to the condition of that portion of the Union lately 
in rebellion. The President replied on the 18th that the rebellion had been 
suppressed; that, so far as possible, United States courts had been restored, 
the post-offices re-established, and steps taken to put in operation the rey- 
enue laws. The late Confederate States, he said, had reorganized their gov- 
ernments, and were yielding obedience to the laws and government of the 
United States with more willingness and greater promptitude than under 
the circumstances could reasonably have been anticipated.” The anti-slav- 
ery amendment had been ratified except in the case of Mississippi, and in 
nearly all the states measures had either been adopted or were now pend- 
ing to confer upon freedmen the rights and privileges essential to their com- 
fort, protection, and security. The aspect of affairs, in the President’s opin- 
ion, was more promising than could have been anticipated. ‘‘ The people,” 
he said, ‘throughout the entire South evince a laudable desire to renew 
their allegiance to the government, and to repair the devastations of war by 
a prompt and cheerful return to peaceful pursuits, An abiding faith is en- 
tertained that their actions will conform to their professions, and that, in ac- 
knowledging the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the rc oe 

9 


RECONSTRUCTION.—1865-1867. 


809 


States, their loyalty will be unreservedly given to the government, wnose 
leniency they can not fail to appreciate, and whose fostering care will soon 
restore them to a condition of prosperity. It is true that in some of the 
states the demoralizing effects of the war are to be seen in occasional disor- 
ders; but these are local in character, not frequent in occurrence, and are 
rapidly disappearing as the authority of civil law is extended and sustained. 
Perplexing questions were naturally to be expected from the great and sud- 
den change in the relations between the two races; the systems are gradu- 
ally developing themselves under which the freedman will receive the pro- 
tection to which he is justly entitled, and by means of his labor make him- 
self a useful and independent member of the community in which he has 
his home. From all the information in my possession, and from that which 
I have recently derived from the most reliable authority, I am induced to 
cherish the belief that sectional animosity is surely and rapidly merging it- 
self into a spirit of nationality, and that representation, connected with a 
properly adjusted system of taxation, will result in a harmonious restoration 
of the relations of the states to the national Union.” 

With this brief message, which was somewhat rose-colored in its con- 
struction of Southern loyalty, and evidently designed to hasten the admis- 
sion of Southern representatives to Congress, two reports were transmitted 
—from Major General Carl Schurz and Lieutenant General Grant, who 
had each recently made a tour of inspection through the Southern States. 
Schurz’s report was more consonant with what was termed the “ radical” 
sentiment, but was so prolix that, notwithstanding Senator Sumner’s urgent 
request that it should be read by the secretary, the majority of the Senate 
preferred to see it in print. The lieutenant general was concise in his 
statements, which, though eminently conservative, were to the point. He 
had left Washington on the 27th of November, and his tour had only occu- 
pied little more than one week. His mission had been principally milita- 
ry in its nature, regarding the necessary distribution of the United States 
forces in the several states. He expressed himself satisfied that the “mass 
of thinking men of the South accepted the present situation of affairs in 
good faith, and that they regarded the questions of slavery and state rights 
as having been finally settled by the war, regarding this decision not only 
as final, but as a fortunate one for the whole country, ‘they receiving like 
benefits from it with those who opposed them in the field and in council.’” 
But, adds the lieutenant general, “ four years of war, during which law was 
executed only at the point of the bayonet throughout the states in rebel- 
lion, have left the people possibly in a condition not to yield that ready 
obedience to civil authority the American people have generally been in 
the habit of yielding.” Therefore he thought small garrisons throughout 
those states necessary “until such time as labor returns to its proper chan- 
nels, and civil authority is fully established.” Neither the officers under 
the government nor the Southern citizens thought the present withdrawal 
of the military practicable. “'The white and the black mutually require 
the protection of the general government.” The military force needed was 
small, “There is,” said the lieutenant general, “such universal acquies- 
cence in the authority of the general government throughout the portions 
of country visited by me, that the mere presence of a military force, without 
regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain order.” He thought the good of 
the country and economy required that the force kept in the interior where 
there were many freedmen should consist of white troops. The presence 
of black troops demoralized labor not only by its direct influence, but as 
furnishing a resort for the freedmen for long distances around. No violence 
would be offered to black troops by thinking men, but it might by the ig- 
norant; and, adds the lieutenant general, ‘‘the late slave seems to be im- 
bued by the idea that the property of his late master should by right be- 
long to him, or at least should have no protection from the colored soldier.” 
He thought it was to be regretted that at this time there could not be a 
commingling of the two sections, especially in Congress. 

In regard to the operations of the Freedmen’s Bureau, there appeared to 
the general to have been in some of the states a lack of good judgment and 
economy. ‘The agents of the Bureau had caused an idea to prevail among 
the freedmen that the lands of their former masters would be divided among 
them, and this belief had seriously interfered with the willingness of the 
freedmen to make contracts for the coming year. In some form the con- 
tinuance of the Bureau was a necessity, and many of the disorders and 
much of the expense might, he thought, be removed by making every offi- 
cer on duty in the Southern States an agent of the Bureau. 

The Select Committee on Reconstruction, instead of being an organ of 
progress, proved one of obstruction. Its object had been sufficiently defi- 
nite, namely, to inquire into the condition of the Southern States in respect 
of their fitness for representation. The elements involved in this investiga- 
tion were very simple. If the entire committee had resolved itself into a 
board of inspectors, and had traveled over every one of the Southern States, 
it would have discovered no new aspect of the case presented. The pri- 
mary question which they were expected to answer was, Does the security 
of the nation require other measures than those already included in the 
President’s policy before Southern representatives ought to be admitted? 
The answer was just as plain when the committee was appointed as it was 
six months later. Other measures were necessary, not only in the view of 
Congress, but in that of the people. Then came the secondary question, 
What were these measures? And it was for conference concerning this 
question that the committee had been appointed. But here again the an- 
swer was clear, demanding the removal of no obscurity, for there was none 
to remove; requiring no great delay, but only careful deliberation as to de 
tails. The necessary measures to be insisted upon had been subjects of 
popular discussion for months, and among those whose past had proved 


810 


their steadfast loyalty and patriotism there was no expression of doubt as to 
what these measures were. By a constitutional amendment, said the popu- 
lar voice, must it be declared that the rebel debt is repudiated, the adoption 
of the national debt secured, the basis of representation so readjusted as to 
give the South no advantage on account of rebellion, the civil rights of the 
freedmen firmly established, and the leaders of the late rebellion disfran- 
chised until they can be safely admitted to a share in the government which 
they did their best to destroy. If these conditions had been written upon 
the sky in letters of fire they could not have been plainer. They were not 
conditions dependent upon any decision which might be rendered as to the 
present state of the South, or as to dangers clearly in prospect; they were 
necessary in any case for absolute security. Delay is not deliberation, and 
there were no good reasons why the committee should not have been ready 
to report in full within a fortnight from the time of its appointment. There 
was no necessity for long delay ; and, on the other hand, the necessity was 
urgent that Congress should soon and fully declare its policy. Nothing 
could be done before the committee reported, and several of its members 
boldly expressed their idea that the South was not to be represented, nor to 
participate in the election of President for a series of years; and some of them 
went so far as to confess that this exclusion was designed to perpetuate the 
Republican party. Thus there was occasioned popular distrust of Congress, 
and within that body opposition began to be shown by members, who, while 
they did not object to a single one of the conditions demanded by the peo- 
ple, grew dissatisfied with the manner and spirit in which the development 
of the congressional policy was proceeding. 

The committee did not report in full until six months after its appoint- 
ment. It did not even report by bill until January 22d, 1866. On that 
day Thaddeus Stevens reported a joint resolution to amend the Constitu- 
tion in regard to the basis of representation. This amendment declared 
that representatives and direct taxes should be apportioned among all the 
states according to their respective numbers, excluding Indians not taxed, 
provided that whenever the elective franchise should be denied or abridged 
in any state on account of race or color, all persons of such race and color 
should be excluded from the basis of representation. In this connection 
Stevens said that there were twenty-two states whose Legislatures were then 
in session, some of which would adjourn within two or three weeks. It was 
therefore desirable, he said, that this amendment, if adopted, should be adopt- 
ed promptly. “It does not,” he added,“ deny to the states the right to regu- 
late the elective franchise as they please; but it does say to a state, ‘if you 
exclude from the right of suffrage Frenchmen, Irishmen, or any particular 
class of people, none of that class of people shall be counted in fixing your 
representation in this House.’” 

This amendment was necessary, just, and impartial. It did not meet with 
any strong objection from the President, who, while he doubted the pro- 
priety of making farther amendments to the Constitution, was not opposed 
to the readjustment of the basis of representation. In an interview with 
Senator Dixon, of Connecticut, January 28th, 1866, he expressed his prefer- 
ence for a proposition making the number of qualified voters the basis of 
representation. The President’s proposition offered the Southern States a 
motive for the partial extension of suffrage to negroes, while that reported 
by the Reconstruction Committee made it impossible for those states to gain 
in representation in any other way than by establishing impartial negro suf- 
frage. The congressional proposition did not necessarily invite to univer- 
sal suffrage ; it excluded the entire colored race from representation only 
in the event of the elective franchise being denied to any of that race le- 
cause of color, The exclusion would not result from any restriction upon 
the franchise which was applicable to white and black alike. The amend- 
ment thus favored impartial suffrage in the Southern States. 

The whole case was fully stated by Roscoe Conkling, of New York, a mem- 
ber of the Reconstruction Committee. He began his argument by alluding 
to the constitutional provision which had hitherto regulated the apportion- 
ment of taxes and representation. These had been apportioned among the 
several states according to numbers, to be determined by adding to free 
persons three fifths of the slaves. This provision was one of the compro- 
mises of the Constitution; but, like the present amendment, it owed its ex- 
istence to the principle that political representation belongs only to those 
who have political existence. The slaves of the South formed no part of 
the political society which framed the Constitution. They were without 
either natural or political rights. From this it naturally followed that they 
should not be represented. But direct taxes and representation ought to 
be distributed uniformly among the members of a free government. All 
alike should bear the burdens—all alike should share the benefits. The 
exception of aliens or unnaturalized foreigners from representation was not 
permanent or fixed. Slaves alone were forever excluded from the political 
community. He was a man and not a man; in flesh and blood alive, but 
politically dead—the representative of nothing but value. It could not be 
maintained by the slaveholding states that slaves were persons to be repre- 
sented ; it could neither be claimed that they were persons to be taxed. 
For these purposes slaves were excluded altogether by the principle on 
which the government was built. Without some special provision, there- 
fore, they would have been altogether ignored. ‘Taxes, however, were de- 
sirable on the one side, and representation on the other, and, for mere con- 
venience, 4 compromise was invented for the sake of both. Thus a purely 
arbitrary agreement was inserted in the Constitution, supported by nothing 
but the consent of the parties, based upon the facts as they then stood. It 
was agreed in substance that the free people of all the states should be count- 
ed alike, and that the people of the slaveholding states should have as much 
power besides as would be measured by counting every slave as three fifths 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


a 


[ JANUARY, 1866. 


of one person; direct taxes to follow the same rule. The power thus 
agreed upon was not exercised by the slaves, but by their masters, This 
covenant was operative so long as there was any thing to operate upon. 
That time was now past. The provision had become impotent. The fall 
of slavery had superseded it. ‘Io continue the compromise now that the 
thing upon which it rested had passed from under it would lead to results 
which, when the Constitution was made, were condemned by the judgment 
of all, An anomaly had been introduced. Four millions were suddenly 
among us not bound to any one, and yet not clothed with any political 
rights—not slaves, and not, in a political sense, “persons.” No figment of 
slavery remained with which to spell out a right in somebody else to wield 
for them a power which they might not wield themselves. Their masters 
had a fraction of power, on their account, while they were slaves, but now 
there were no masters and no slaves. Did this fraction of power still sur- 
vive? If so, to whom did it belong? The blacks were pronounced unfit 
to wield even a fraction of power, and must not have it That answered 
the question.. Ifthe answer was true, it was an end of controversy. Ifthe 
blacks were unfit to have the power, then the power had no belonging what- 
soever, and was at once resumed by the nation. This fractional power, then, 
was extinct. A moral earthquake had turned fractions to units, and units to 
ciphers. Ifa black man counted at all now, he was a whole man, not three 
fifths of one. Revolutions had no such fractions in their arithmetic ; war 
and humanity joined hands to wipe them out. Four millions were to be 
reckoned, and these four millions, we were told, were unfit for political exist- 
ence. The framers of the Constitution never dreamed of reckoning in the 
basis of representation those who were denied all political rights. Our fa, 
thers trusted to gradual and voluntary emancipation, which would go hand 
in hand with education and enfranchisement. They never peered into the 
bloody epoch when four million fetters would be at once melted off in the 
fires of war—four millions, each a Caspar Hauser, long shut up in darkness, 
and suddenly led out into the full flash of noon, and each, it was said, too 
blind to walk politically. No one foresaw such an event, and no provision 
was made for it. The three-fifths rule gave the slaveholding states over and 
above their just representation as a political community eighteen represent: 
atives. The new situation would enable these states to claim 28 repre- 
sentatives besides their just proportion. These 28 votes were to be con- 
trolled by those who once betrayed the government, and for those so des- 
titute, it was claimed, of intelligence as not to be fit to vote for themselves. 
The result of this would be that while 127,000 white people in New York 
cast but one vote in the House, the same number of white men in Missis- 
sippi would cast three votes. Thus the death of slavery would add two 
fifths to the power which slavery exercised while it lived. Should one 
white man have as much share in the government as three other white 
men merely because he lived where blacks outnumbered whites two to 
one? Should this inequality exist, and exist only in favor of those who, 
without cause, drenched the land with blood, and covered it with mourn- 
ing? Should such be the reward of those who did the foulest and guiltiest 
act which crimsons the annals of recorded time? To prevent this, three 
modes had been proposed : 

1. To make the basis of representation in Congress and the Electoral Col- 
lege consist of sufficiently qualified voters alone. 


ROSCOE CONKLING,. os 


Oe 


Pa ee EE EEE ee 


JANvARY, 1866.] 


2. To deprive the states of the power to disqualify or discriminate polit- 
ically on account of race or color. 

8. To leave every state free to decide who should belong to its political 
community, and who should vote. Those decided unworthy to vote to be 
excluded from the basis of representation. 

The last of these methods had been adopted by the committee. If voters 
alone were made the foundation of representation, the actual ratio would 
differ infinitely among different states. In the strife of unbridled suffrage, a 
state might give the franchise to women, minors, and aliens. In the second 
method, a great objection was encountered on the very threshold, because 
this plan denied to states the right to regulate their own affairs. The plan 
adopted by the committee had several advantages over the others. 

1. It provided for representation going hand in hand with taxation, 

2. It brought into the basis both sexes and all ages, and thus counteract- 
ed casual and geographical inequalities of population. 

8. It put every state on an equal footing in the requirement prescribed. 

4. It left every state free to enumerate all its people for representation or 
not, as it might choose. 

If the amendment was adopted, and suffrage remained confined, as it was 
now, upon the census of 1860, the gains and losses would be these: Wiscon- 
sin, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and 
Maine would gain one representative each, and New York would gain three; 
Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee would 
each lose one; Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia would each lose two, and 
Mississippi three.? 

Such was the argument of Roscoe Conkling—a statement so full and so 
conclusive in its reasoning that it is unnecessary to introduce the other ar- 
guments presented in favor of the proposition. "When Stevens introduced 
the proposition, he demanded its adoption or rejection before the going down 
ofthe sun. The committee, of which he was so prominent a member, might 
be allowed weeks for deliberation, but the moment any of its measures were 
brought before the House, he deemed a few hours sufficient for their disposi- 
tion. The House, however, did not seem inclined to amend the Constitution 
of the United States with such haste, and Stevens yielded. 

The debate in the House was continued for several days. The proposition 
of the committee was opposed by those who desired to prevent the South- 
ern States from disfranchising races, and also by those who, for political pur- 
poses, objected both to the enfranchisement of the negro race and to the 
equalization of representation, one or the other of which results would nec- 
essarily follow the adoption of the amendment. There was also a large 
number of Republicans who preferred that representation should be based 
upon the number of voters. This, it will be remembered, was the preference 
of the President. The objections to this basis (that of voters) which had been 
offered by Roscoe Conkling could easily be obviated, it was argued, by re- 
strictions excluding women, minors, and aliens. But stillit would remain 
true that such restrictions would limit the power of the states to regulate the 
franchise of their citizens—a power which they would not willingly abdi- 
cate, and thus the amendment might be defeated. The basis furnished by 
the committee’s amendment was open to the somewhat serious objection that 
it left room for evasion on the part of the Southern States. Negroes or 
other races were excluded from representation only in case they were denied 
“franchise on account of race and color.” But might not the Southern States 
prescribe as a qualification that no one should vote who had ever been a 
slave, and thus secure at once the exclusion of negroes from the franchise, 
and their inclusion in the basis of representation? Or might they not se- 
cure the same results by establishing a property qualification and then mak- 


1 The following is the estimate for the several states : 


Se So Boe sob d & {a:/8./4 |4 12 
gs(Sslesi[a [a | 2 BS /SS(Ss|a la | 2, 
we|oel/sas/2 |3 | 28 2S|eailae|/2 (4 | 28 
go] §s | P4135] as | SB g. | 52| 27/23 ao | 
Free States. So /HB| hel Sel ae] Sg Stave STATEs. BC IRSA wel/ eR ae] sa 
SS] e% | es] et] sé | 85 Boyes ek] at | ch] es 
33 So os ) ° Ze SQ| oo os i) ° 6g 
20/34/28 /3 |3 | 3° go /32|%212 /% | 5" 
B \g@la-(a a [2 & |a"|a [a [a [8 
Sisisieisleisiete 3; — 3 6 *6 3 BlaDaMS <cicciele = usi0 6 i Y Y f 5 
Seguboes 4); — 4 5 4 4 Arkansas.......... 8 1 3 3 8 
ARCA COSCOOE 14] — | 13} 16] 18] 181}) Delaware..........} 1 | — 1 1 1 
i} — TOP TT Oi} 912 Florida..... Lows if 1 1 
6; — 5 5 5 6 || Georgia .... 7 2 8 7 5 
1; — 1 1 1 1|| Kentucky... oh 9 1 9 8 8 
5| — 5 6 5 6 Louisiana.......... 5 2 6 6 3 
10; — 9] 12] 10] 11 Maryland.......... 5] — 5 5 5 
6); — 6 if 6 7 Mississippi ........ 5 2 6 6 3 
2); — 2 2 2 2 Miasourls ties aacsie's 9 1 9 9 | 10 
3) — 3 3 3 3 North Carolina .... 7 2 8 T 6 
Tebeticwte 5| — 5 6 5 6 South Carolina..... 4 2 5 5 3 
Cor score 81| — | 20:| 85] 81] 84]| Tennessee.........| 8 1 9 8 7 
Sesmadelct.ce gels 19} — |} 18} 19] 17] 20 TELAT cecdgtece ee 4 1 5 5 4 
rey rere 1); — 1 1 1 yf Mirginidstesiscic sce seh ete 2) 12 9 
Pennsylvania ...... 24) — | 22| 24) 22) 25 9 E 
Rhode Island ...... 3); — 2 2 2 2 
Vermont s| — 3 3 3 3 
Wisconsin ......... 6); — 6 Ls 6 7 * Not including Chinamen, 
Bree Eee 156 | — | 147 | 170 | 152 | 168 


‘*Norr.—In these several plans of apportionment the results are arrived at in the mode prac- 
ticed under the present law, namely, the total representative population of all the states is first as- 
certained ; this number is divided by 233, the number of representatives provided by law at the 
time of the taking of the last census. This gives the requisite ratio to a member. The represent- 
ative population of each state is then divided by the ratio, and the result, rejecting fractions, shows 
the number of representatives to each state. The number unapportioned, in consequence of the 
fractions, is then added to the eight additional members provided by the law of 1862, and these are 
apportioned to the states having the largest fractions. 


The ratio under the present apportionment is,.............sssssscsscsocessconcesseceeess 127,000 
The ratio on the basis of population, including the negroes, is........ssseseeseereeees 133,700 
The, ratio on the basis Of WHItG: SUMTAGC 19... ci.0vseccseesacesccecscsecocsoest coccseeesess 29,300 
The ratio on the basis of equal suffrage, white and black, is............sceseseeeseees 33,500 
The ratio on the basis of the proposed amendment is..........sseeseeeeesseceeseesenees 114,800 


“Entirely accurate data of the number of voters in the several states can not be obtained from 
any recorded statistics. It is not shown by the presidential vote of 1860, for the reason that in 
some of the states where there was little real contest the vote was far from full. The number of 
males above the age of twenty years, aliens included, as given by the census of 1860, is taken as the 
nearest approximate to the number of voters. ‘The proportion of aliens will not hold alike in all 
the states, there being a larger ratio in the northern than in the southern section of the Union; but 
it is believed the results indicated in the table will be sufficiently accurate for present purposes. ”— 
Congressional Globe, 39th Session, p. 357-8, 


RECONSTRUCTION.—1865-1867. Sil 


ing negroes incompetent to own real estate? But, it was answered, these 
were evasions so evident that the courts would prevent their success. The 
object of the amendment was not to invite to negro suffrage, but simply to 
equalize representation upon a just and impartial basis, and the arguments 
brought forward in the course of the debate as to the probable effect of the 
amendment upon negro suffrage were of secondary importance, and foreign 
to the object which was meant to be accomplished. The amendment, if 
passed, would leave the subject of suffrage just where it was before. 

There were a few gentlemen on the Republican side of the House who 
opposed the amendment of the committee because they agreed with the 
President that there was no good reason why Southern representatives 
should not be immediately admitted, if loyal, and who opposed any farther 
amendments to the Constitution as conditions to complete restoration. The 
most prominent of these was Henry J. Raymond, of New York, whose argu- 
ment may stand as an exemplification of the views of those members of the 
House who adopted the President’s policy. This argument was presented on 
the 28th of January, toward the close of the debate. Raymond was a man 
46 years of age. He had graduated at the University of Vermont in 1840. 
The next year after his graduation he became managing editor of the New 
York Tribune. Subsequently he became leading editor of the New York 
Courier and Enquirer, performing at the same time the duties of reader for 
the firm of Harper & Brothers. In 1849 he was elected to the New York 
State Assembly ; was re-elected and made Speaker. In 1851 he established 
the New York Times. Five years afterward he became a leader in the Re- 
publican party, and was subsequently chosen Lieutenant Governor of New 
York. He had been a delegate to the Chicago Convention of 1860, and, 
after having again served in the New York Legislature, was in 1864 elected 
representative from New York to the Thirty-ninth Congress. He was one 
of the most influential members of that Congress, and his opinions were al- 
ways worthy of consideration. His speech on the 29th of January, 1866, 
was his first elaborate effort in Congress. He began his argument by stat- 
ing that he looked upon all propositions for the amendment of the Consti- 
tution with hesitation and distrust. The Constitution had proved itself ade- 
quate to all the emergencies of peace and war. It had not been made for 
days or for years, but for all time. Yet he recognized the wisdom and ne- 
cessity of amendments to meet changed circumstances and an altered con- 
dition of facts. In the fact that slavery was destroyed, he recognized the 
propriety of so amending the Constitution as to make the re-establishment 
of that institution impossible. The specific evil which the amendment of 
the Reconstruction Committee was intended to remedy properly demanded 
attention. By emancipation, 1,600,000 had been added to the representa- 
tive population of the South. Thus arose an inequality which demanded 
attention and remedy. The committee had reported this amendment as a 
remedy. He did not suppose it would be possible to propose any remedy 
which would not be open to some objections. He thought, however, that 
this amendment was open to objections of a very serious nature. It changed 
the basis of representation from population to something else, and the same 
objection applied to the other remedies which had been proposed. It was 
a fundamental principle of free government that the population, the inhab- 
itants, all who were subjects of law, should be represented in the enactment 
of law, “and in the election of men by whom the law is to be executed, ei- 
ther directly by their own votes, or through the votes of others, so connect- 
ed with them as to afford a fair presumption that their wishes, their rights, 
and their interests will be consulted.” This proposition departed from that 
principle, and thus disturbed the corner-stone of our Democratic institutions, 
Another objection was that it deprived of representation the whole of any 
race in a state if the state should extend to a portion only of that race the 
elective franchise. Thus the anomaly was introduced of having voters for 
representatives who were not themselves entitled to representation. It held 
out to the states no encouragement to enfranchise any portion of the colored 
race without enfranchising all. The effect of this would be most disastrous 
upon the relations of the Union to the Southern States, and upon the wel- 
fare of the states themselves and of the colored people within their borders, 
But he could not regard this as a distinct proposition standing upon its own 
merits alone, but as one of a series of amendments which, as the House had 
been given to understand, were yet to be proposed as preliminary to the 
admission of Southern representatives. He thought the House was en- 
titled to know the whole programme before it acted upon specific features 
of it. It should know the relation of this proposition to those which were 
to follow. It should know “ whether the powers of the general government 
of the United States are to be so enlarged as to destroy the rights which 
those states now hold under the Constitution.” He was not willing to act 
on this proposition till he knew the rest of the schedule. He could not 
help believing that this was part of a scheme for reconstructing the govern- 
ment and the Constitution upon a distinct principle which had been an- 
nounced over and over again in the House—that by the rebellion certain 
states had ceased to exist as states, the people of which were to be treated 
as vanquished enemies, subject to no law but our own discretion. He de- 
nied in toto the fact of such subjugation. Of defeated rebels we had a right 
to demand the surrender of their arms and of the principles on which their 
rebellion had been based. This surrender had been made and accepted. 
But the states still remained with all their constitutional powers. Ray- 
mond went on to illustrate the present situation of the Southern States by 
comparing it with that of a state whose government had been disturbed by 
a foreign power. The only conquest which had been made of the South- 
ern States was their subjugation to the Constitution and the laws. He 
showed conclusively that every department of the government had recog: 
nized the late Confederate States as in the Union. It was possible that 


if} 


THADDEUS STEVENS. 


Congress might attempt to expel them, but he did not think it would. He 
traced the various stages of the President’s action since the close of the war, 
and added that it only remained for Congress to complete the work of res- 
toration by the admission of the Southern representatives. If these repre- 
sentatives were loyal men, and each house was judge of that, then their ac- 
tion could not be disloyal, and there was no occasion for apprehension. We 
needed just the information which such loyal representatives could bring us, 
But Congress had given the whole subject over to a committee “ which sits 
with closed doors, which deliberates in secret, which shuts itself out from 
the knowledge and observation of Congress, and which does not even deign 
to give us the information it was appointed to collect, and on which we are 
to base our action—but which sends its rescripts into this house, and de- 
mands their ratification, and without reasons and without facts, before the 
going down of the sun!” He thought the House ought to emancipate it- 
self from the domination of this committee, and take the subjects assigned 
to it into its own keeping. There was too great reliance, he thought, placed 
in constitutional amendments as guarantees of the national safety. The 
Constitution had not prevented rebellion; was it probable that amendments 
could be more efficient? We must depend upon the patriotism of the 
American people—upon the national will and conscience. When these 
ceased to be efficient, what dependence was to be placed upon “‘ paper Con- 
stitutions?” In conclusion, Raymond thus expressed his views as to what 
the government ought to do: 

“In the first place, I think we ought to accept the present status of the 
Southern States, and regard them as having resumed, under the President’s 
guidance and action, their functions of self-government in the Union. In 
the second place, I think this house should decide on the admission of repre- 
sentatives by districts, admitting none but loyal men who can take the oath 
we may prescribe, and holding all others as disqualified; the Senate acting, 
at its discretion, in the same way in regard to representatives of states, I 
think, in the third place, we should provide by law for giving to the freed- 
men of the South all the rights of citizens in courts of law and elsewhere. 
In the fourth place, I would exclude from federal office the leading actors 
in the conspiracy which led to the rebellion in every state. In the fifth 
place, I would make such amendments to the Constitution as may seem wise 
to Congress and the states, acting freely and without coercion, And, sixth, 
I would take such measures and precautions, by the disposition of military 
forces, as will preserve order and prevent the overthrow, by usurpation or 
otherwise, in any state, of its republican form of government. . . . . Above 
all, I beg this house to bear in mind, as the sentiment that should control 
and guide its action, that we of the North and they of the South are at war 
no longer. The gigantic contest is at an end. The courage and devotion 
on either side which made it so terrible and so long, no longer owe a divided 
duty, but have become the common property of the American name, the 
priceless possession of the American republic through all time to come. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE 


CIVIL WAR. 


The dead of the contending hosts sleep beneath the 
soil of a common country and under one common flag. 
Their hostilities are hushed, and they are the dead of 
the nation forever more. The victor may well exult 
in the victory he has achieved. Let it be our task, as 
it will be our highest glory, to make the vanquished, 
and their posterity to the latest generation, rejoice in 
their defeat.” 

Raymond’s argument may be fairly called a state- 
ment of the views entertained by the President, and it 
was open to precisely the same objections. It over- 
looked the necessity not only of the proposed amend- 
ment, but of others equally important. It underrated 
the value of constitutional provisions for national se- 
curity. It is true that in extraordinary emergencies, 
like that presented at the opening of the rebellion, a 
section of the country might, in the madness of treason, 
throw the Constitution to the winds; but that was an 
appeal to arms. Congress was now considering the 
motives which regulate and restrain men in times of 
peace, and when obedience is universally yielded to 
law. In such a time, certainly, an amendment to the 
Constitution would be more efficient than a resolution 
or a sentiment. 

The proposition was referred back to the committee 
for amendment, and was again reported in the House, 
January 31, so altered as to leave out the matter of 
taxation, but in no other respect. Thaddeus Stevens 
called the previous question, but yielded ten minutes 
of his time to other gentlemen. His address to the 
House on this occasion was characteristic. Ile had 
been informed, he said, by high authority “at the oth- 
er end of the avenue,” introduced through an unusual 
conduit (the “unusual conduit” being intended to des- 
ignate Raymond), that no amendment to the Consti- 
tution was necessary. He then proceeded to consider 
the present amendment. He denied that it contained 
an implied permission to the general government to 
regulate the franchise of states. It left the rights of 
states just where they were. Butit punished the abuse 
of this right. In making this statement Stevens com- 
mitted a blunder. The object of the amendment was 
to remove an inequality which had hitherto existed 
in the basis of representation. If New York or South Carolina has the ad- 
mitted right to exclude negroes from the franchise, then their exercise of 
that right could not be called an abuse, subject to legal penalty. Under 
the operation of the amendment, each state had to choose between impartial 
suffrage and a diminution of its representation, and its choice was not con- 
trolled. Ifthe Southern States, continued Stevens, adopt the colored pop- 
ulation as a part of their political community, they will have 88 votes in the 
House ; if not, they will only have from 45 to 48, and with this diminution 
of their power all the Copperhead assistance they might receive could not 
enable them to do injury. He preferred that to an immediate declaration 
that all should be represented; “for, if you make them all voters, and let 
them into this hall, not one beneficial act for the benefit of the freedmen or 
for the benefit of the country would ever be passed. Their 83 votes, with 
the representatives from the Five Points and other dark corners, would be 
sufficient to overrule the friends of progress here, and this nation would be 
in the hands of secessionists at the very next congressional election, and at 
the very next presidential election. I do not, therefore, want to grant them 
this privilege, at least for some years. I want, in the mean time, our Chris- 
tian men to go among them — the philanthropists of the North, the honest 
Methodists, my friends the Hardshell Baptists, and all others; and then, four 
or five years hence, when these freedmen shall have been made free indeed 
—when they shall have become intelligent enough, and there are sufficient 
loyal men there to control the representation from those states, I shall be 
glad to see them admitted here; but I do not want them to have represent- 
ation—I say it plainly—I do not want them to have the right of suffrage 
before this Congress has done the great work of regenerating the Constitu- 
tion and laws of this country according to the principles of the Declaration 
of Independence.” 

Stevens did not disguise his opinion that this amendment would result in 
the exclusion of Southern representatives for a period of years. It was for 
this reason that he preferred it to that which had been proposed fixing the 
representation upon voters. The latter would be more readily acceded to. 
An encouragement would thus be offered to extend the suffrage to the col- 
ored race. That, said Stevens, is the very objection. The Southern States 
would admit those whose political action they could control, and then, on 
this basis, enter Congress and make our laws for us; but they would not 
accede now to the present amendment—he did not expect to see that dur- 
ing his lifetime. In the mean time the freedmen would be educated, and 
finally receive universal suffrage (how many years hence Stevens did not 
conjecture), and then the Southern representatives might be admitted. 

Stevens went on to say that he had a proposition which was the genuine 
one for the present situation—one which he loved, and which he hoped Con- 
gress would educate itself to the idea of adopting: “That all national and 
state laws shall be equally applicable to every citizen, and that no discrimi- 
nation shall be made on account of race or color.” But he was content to 


[ JANUARY, 1866. 


June, 1866. J 


take what was practicable—what would be carried by the states. He then 
alluded to Raymond’s argument, which he pronounced not pertinent to the 
question, but proceeded to controvert by an argument equally impertinent. 
He endeavored to prove, by Vattel, that the late Confederate States were 
out of the Union. 

Stevens had already, on the 18th of December, announced his theory of 
the situation. He had then insisted upon two things as of vital importance : 

1. That the principle should be established that none of the late Con- 
federate states should be counted in any of the amendments to the Consti- 
tution before they were “duly admitted into the family of states by the 
law-making power of their conqueror.” ‘I take no account,” said he, “of 
the aggregation of whitewashed rebels who, without any legal authority, 
have assembled in the capitals of the late rebel states and simulated leg- 
islative bodies; nor do I regard with any respect the cunning by-play 
into which they deluded the Secretary of State by frequent telegraphic an- 
nouncements that ‘South Carolina has adopted the amendment,’ ‘ Alabama 
has adopted the amendment, being the twenty-seventh state,’ etc. This was 
intended to delude the people, and accustom Congress to hear repeated the 
names of these extinct states as if they were alive; when, in truth, they 
have now no more existence than the revolted cities of Latium, two thirds 
of whose people were colonized, and their property confiscated, and their 
right of citizenship withdrawn by conquering and avenging Rome.” 

2. It was also important that it should then be solemnly decided what 
power could revive, recreate, and reinstate these provinces into the family 
of states, and invest them with the rights of American citizens. It was time 
that Congress should assert its sovereignty, and assume something of the 
dignity of the Roman Senate. 

The doctrine, added Stevens on that occasion, “ of a white man’s govern- 
ment is as atrocious as the infamous sentiment that damned the late chief 
justice to everlasting fame, and, I fear, to everlasting fire.” 

Stevens’s argument upon the present proposition regarding the basis of 
representation did not improve its prospect of adoption. He adroitly man- 
aged to connect it with his own peculiar theories. In his entire argument 
he assumed that its ratification by three fourths of the states then represent- 
ed in Congress was sufficient. He distinctly advocated a postponement of 
restoration until it could be accomplished upon the principles asserted by 
the extremists of the Republican party. This connection of the proposed 
amendment with Stevens’s peculiar theories was not necessary, and tended 
to misrepresent its object to Congress and the people. It furnished more 
arguments for the enemies than for the friends of the amendment. Not- 
withstanding this speech, however, the joint resolution passed the. House 
120 to 46. Eleven Republicans voted in the negative.’ 

In the Senate the resolution failed to receive a two-thirds vote. Indeed, 
it only passed by a bare majority.? One ofits principal opponents was Sen- 
ator Sumner. Charles Sumner differed from Thaddeus Stevens. Both were 
theorists on a grand scale, but the latter could let slip his splendid theory 
for a moment in order to grasp tangible objects in his way, while the for- 
mer would accept nothing which did not to him seem true when tested by 
the plummet of absolute truth and eternal justice.? Of the 22 votes cast 
against the resolution in the Senate, one half were Republican. This op- 
position arose from motives so various that we find in the list of Nays the 
names of Democrats, and of the most extreme as well as of the most moder- 
ate Republicans. 


1 Baldwin, Eliot, Hale, Jenckes, Latham, Phelps, W. H. Randall, Raymond, Rousseau, Smith, 
and Whaley. 

The following is the vote in detail : 

Yras.—Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, James M. Ashley, Baker, Banks, Barker, Bax- 
ter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, Brandegee, Bromwell, Broom- 
all, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W. Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, 
Davis, Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon, Donnelly, Eckley, Eggleston, Farnsworth, Farqu- 
har, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, Griswold, Abner C. Harding, Hart, Hayes, Hill, Holmes, Hooper, 
Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Demas Hubbard, John H. Hubbard, James 
H. Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Kuy- 
kendall, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, Marvin, 
McClurg, McIndoe, McKee, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton, Myers, O’Neill, 
Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, Pike, Plants, Pomeroy, Price, Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, 
Rollins, Sawyer, Schenck, Schofield, Shellabarger, Sloan, Spalding, Starr, Stevens, Stillwell, Thay- 
er, Francis Thomas, John L. Thomas, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, 
Ward, Warner, Elihu B. Washburne, William B. Washburn, Welker, Wentworth, Williams, James 
F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, and Woodbridge—120, 

Nars.—Messrs. Baldwin, Bergen, Boyer, Brooks, Chanler, Dawson, Denison, Eldridge, Eliot, 
Finck, Grider, Hale, Aaron Harding, Harris, Hogan, Edwin N, Hubbell, James M. Humphrey, 
Jenckes, Johnson, Kerr, Latham, Le Blond, Marshall, McCullough, Niblack, Nicholson, Noell, 
Phelps, Samuel J. Randall, William H. Randall, Raymond, Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Rousseau, Shank- 
lin, Sitgreaves, Smith, Strouse, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, Voorhees, Whaley, and Wright 
—46, 

Nor Vorrnc.—Messrs. Ancona, Delos R. Ashley, Culver, Driggs, Dumont, Glossbrenner, Good- 
year, Henderson, Higby, Jones, Loan, McRuer, Newell, Radford, Trowbridge, and Winfield—16, 

2 March 9,1866. The following is the vote in detail : 

Yras.—Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, 
Harris, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, McDougall, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Ramsey, 
Sherman, Sprague, Trumbull, Wade, Williams, and Wilson—25, 

Nays.—Messrs. Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Henderson, Hen- 
dricks, Johnson, Lane of Kansas, Nesmith, Norton, Pomeroy, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stewart, Stock- 
ton, Sumner, Van Winkle, Willey, and Yates—22. 

Axsent.—Messrs. Foot, Howard, and Wright—3. 

2 The following is a recapitulation of Sumner’s argument against the amendment : . 

“< Following it from the beginning, you have seen, first, how this proposition carries into the Con- 
stitution itself the idea of inequality of rights, thus defiling that unspotted text ; secondly, how it is 
an express sanction of the acknowledged tyranny of taxation without representation ; thirdly, how 
it is a concession to State Rights at a moment when we are recovering from a terrible war waged 
against us in the name of State Rights; fourthly, how it is the constitutional recognition of an oli- 
garchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color ; fifthly, how it petrifies in the Constitu- 
tion the wretched pretension of a white man’s government; sixthly, how it assumes what is false 
in constitutional law, that color can be a ‘ qualification’ for an elector ; seyenthly, how it positively 
ties the hands of Congress in fixing the meaning of a republican government, so that under the 
guaranty clause it will be constrained to recognize an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly 
founded on color, together with the tyranny of taxation without representation, as not inconsistent 
with such a government; eighthly, how it positively ties the hands of Congress in completing and 
consummating the abolition of slavery according to the second clause of the constitutional amend- 
ment, so that it can not for this purpose interfere with the denial of the elective franchise on ac- 
count of color; ninthly, how it installs recent rebels in permanent power over loyal citizens ; and, 
tenthly, how it shows forth in unmistakable character as a compromise of human rights, the most 
immoral, indecent, and utterly shameful of any in our history.” 


9U 


RECONSTRUCTION. —1865-1867. 


813 


The Reconstruction Committee after this defeat—which was due to the 
dissensions that divided the Republican party—again proceeded to deliber- 
ate, and on the 80th of April Thaddeus Stevens offered another resolution 
for the amendment of the Constitution. This new proposition covered a 
great deal of ground. It contemplated four results: 

1. The equal protection of all citizens under the laws ; 

2. The equalization of representation ; 

3. The exclusion of all who had engaged in rebellion from the right to 
vote for representatives in Congress and presidential electors until July 4, 
1870; and, 

4, The repudiation of the rebel debt, and of any claim for compensation 
on account of the loss of slaves.' 

In explaining the provisions of this amendment,’ Stevens said they were 
not all that he desired, but all that he expected he could obtain, by the 
ratification of nineteen of even the loyal states. The idea that the ratifi- 
cation of amendments by the other states were to be counted he considered 
absurd. He would take all he could get in the cause of humanity, and leave 
it to be perfected by better men in better times. It might be that he would 
not be here to enjoy that glorious triumph, but it was as certain to come as 
that there is a just God. He animadverted with some bitterness to the man- 
ner in which the amendment formerly offered by the committee had been 
slaughtered in the Senate—in the house of its friends—by ‘puerile and pe- 
dantic criticism.” The present amendment was, he thought, less efficient, 
but some way had to be devised “to overcome the united forces of self- 
righteous Republicans and unrighteous Copperheads.” Evidently Thad- 
deus Stevens was disgusted with his brethren; but, said he, “it will not 
do for those who for thirty years have fought the beasts at Ephesus to 
be frightened by the fangs of modern catamounts.” He wanted to secure 
more than was secured by this amendment. We should not approach the 
measure of justice until we gave every adult freedman a homestead on the 
land where he had toiled and suffered. Forty acres of land and a hut would 
be more valuable to the negro than the right to vote. Unless we gave this 
we should receive the censure of mankind and the curse of Heaven. The 
section excluding rebels from voting for a period of years he considered the 
mildest of all punishments ever inflicted on traitors. He might not consent 
to the extreme severity denounced upon them by a provisional governor 
of Tennessee—“ the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory”— 
but he would have increased the severity of this section. On the 10th of 
March, the resolution, as presented by the committee, was passed 128 to 87.3 
Baldwin, Hale, Eliot, Jenckes, W. H. Randall, and Raymond—Republicans 
who had voted against the former amendment, gave their support to this one. 

The resolution passed the Senate, after numerous amendments, on the 8th 
of June, by a two-thirds vote (33 to 11),* and went back to the House, where 
the Senate amendments were adopted, June 13th. The following is the text 
of the proposed amendment as finally passed : 

“ ARTICLE XIV. Sec. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United 
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United 
States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce 
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the 
United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or prop- 
erty without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its juris- 
diction the equal protection of the laws. 

« Sec, 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states ac- 
cording to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons 


1 The following is the text of the proposed amendment as first presented by Stevens: 

“¢ ARTICLE —. Sec. 1. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privi- 
leges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, 
liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the 
equal protection of the laws. ; é ; 

‘« Sec. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included 
within this Union according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in 
each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But whenever in any state the elective franchise shall be 
denied to any portion of its male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age, or in any way 
abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation in such 
state shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of male citizens shall bear to the whole 
number of such male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age. 

‘¢ Sec, 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the 
late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for representa~ 
tives in Congress, and for electors for President and Vice-President of the United States. 

“ Sec. 4. Neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation al- 
ready incurred, or which may hereafter be incurred, in aid of insurrection or war against the United 
States, or any claim for compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor. 

“ Sec, 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of 
this article.” % March 8, 

2 Ypas.—Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, Delos R. Ashley, James M. Ashley, Baker, 
Baldwin, Banks, Barker, Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, 
Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W. Clark, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, 
Cullom, Darling, Davis, Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon, Dodge, Donnelly, Driggs, Du- 
mont, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, Griswold, Abner C. Hard- 
ing, Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Holmes, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester 
D. Hubbard, Demas Hubbard, James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Jenckes, 
Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Kuykendall, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Law- 
rence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, McClurg, McIndoe, McKee, McRuer, Mercur, Miller, 
Moorhead, Morrill; Morris, Moulton, Myers, Newell, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, 
Pike, Plants, Price, William H. Randall, Raymond, Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Rollins, 
Sawyer, Schenck, Schofield, Shellabarger, Spalding, Stevens, Stillwell, Thayer, Francis Thomas, 
John L. Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward, 
Warner, Elihu B. Washburne, Henry D. Washburn, William B. Washburn, Welker, Williams, 
James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, Woodbridge, and the Speaker—128. 

Nars.—Messrs. Ancona, Bergen, Boyer, Chanler, Coffroth, Dawson, Eldridge, Finck, Glossbren- 
ner, Goodyear, Grider, Aaron Harding, Harris, Kerr, Latham, Le Blond, Marshall, McCullough, 
Niblack, Phelps, Radford, Samuel J. Randall, Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Rousseau, Shanklin, Sitgreaves, 
Smith, Strouse, Tabor, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, Whaley, Winfield, and W right—37. 

Nor Vorinc.—Messrs. Brandegee, Culver, Denison, Farquhar, Hale, Hill, Hogan, John H, 
Hubbard, Edwin N. Hubbell, James M. Humphrey, Johnson, Jones, Marvin, Nicholson, Noell, 
Pomeroy, Sloan, Starr, and Wentworth—19. . 

4Yxras.—Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Edmunds, Fessenden, 
Foster, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, 
Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, 
Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates—33. 

Nays.—Messrs. Cowan, Davis, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, McDougall, Norton, 
Riddle, Saulsbury, and Van Winkle—11. 

AxsENnT.—Messrs. Brown, Buckalew, Dixon, Nesmith, and Wright—5. 


814 


in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at 
any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of 
the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial 
officers of a state, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any 
of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age and citi- 
zens of the United States, or in any way abridged except for participation 
in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be re- 
duced in proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to 
the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. 

“« Sec. 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or 
elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, 
under the United States or under any state, who, having previously taken an 
oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a 
member of any state Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any 
state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged 
in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to 
the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each 
house, remove such disability. 

“Sec. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States authorized 
by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for 
services in suppressing insurrection and rebellion, shall not be questioned. 
But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt 
or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United 
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave, but all such 
debts, obligations, or claims shall be held illegal and void. 

“Sec. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legis- 
lation, the provisions of this article.” 

The joint resolution did not require the assent of the President. But a 
resolution having been passed by the House requesting the President to 
transmit the proposed amendment to the several state Legislatures, he took 
occasion to reply, expressing his opinion, and protesting that the ministerial 
act of transmitting the amendment to the state Legislatures did not commit 
the executive to an approval or recommendation of it.! 

The amendment covered the whole ground of reconstruction, so far as 
Congress was concerned. There was no reason why its ratification might 
not be properly required of every Southern State as an evidence of its good 
faith, which would not also apply to the amendment abolishing slavery. 
Just after the war closed its ratification would have been readily acceded ; 
but it was certain to be refused now by almost every Southern State on ac- 
count of the encouragement afforded by President Johnson’s policy, and the 
hope that this might prevail sooner or later with the Northern people. No 
other attitude could have been expected of the South under the circumstan- 
ces. It was in the condition of an army which acknowledges its defeat, but 
insists upon the best terms of accommodation which there is the slightest 
ground to hope the conqueror will grant. 

The Reconstruction Committee submitted its full report to Congress on 
the 18th of June, 1866—or rather it submitted two reports, one represent- 
ing the views of the majority of its members, and the other those of the 
minority, consisting of Reverdy Johnson, A. J. Rogers, and Henry Grider. 
The latter report almost entirely ignores the fact of the war, and the nature 
of the situation immediately consequent. It refuses the right of the govern- 
ment to deny even temporarily, and for its own safety, to states which have 
been in rebellion, the resumption of all their rights and privileges; whereas, 
if there is any political principle clearly established and beyond dispute, it 
is, that the security of government lies back of even its written Constitu- 
tion, and is the supreme law of national existence. 

The report of the majority we shall consider more in detail. It contains 
many false constructions of the Constitution, based upon the erroneous the- 
ories of some members of the committee, and to which exception might be 
taken. Its denial to the President of any other powers, outside of his posi- 
tion as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, except those involved in 
the execution of the laws of Congress, is inconsistent with the whole spirit 
of the Constitution, according to which the executive is a co-ordinate branch 
of the government, and not vested merely with subordinate and ministerial 
functions. It is inconsistent also with the President’s oath of office, by which 
he is bound not simply to execute the laws, but to protect the Constitution. 
The assumption made in the report that upon Congress alone devolves the 
duty to guarantee to every state a republican form of government, is con- 
tradicted by the very words of the constitutional provision making this 
guaranty the duty of the United States; and, as if with the very purpose 
of not confining it to either the President or to Congress exclusively, this 
provision occurs in neither of the articles defining respectively the powers 
of the executive and of Congress. This assumption that Congress is, in an 
exclusive sense, the government of the United States, pervades the whole 
report. 

But, laying aside all matters which might be made the subject of criti- 
cism, we must regard this report as a conclusive argument in justification of 
the action of Congress in refusing representation to the Southern States until 


’ “Even in ordinary times,” said the President, ‘‘ any question of amending the Constitution 
must be justly regarded as of paramount importance. This importance is at the present time en- 
hanced by the fact that the joint resolution was not submitted by the two houses for the approval 
of the President, and that, of the thirty-six states which constitute the Union, eleven are excluded 
from representation in either house of Congress, although, with the single exception of Texas, they 
have been entirely restored to all their functions as states in conformity with the organic law of the 
land, and have appeared at the national capital by senators and representatives, who have applied 
for and have been refused admission to the vacant seats. Nor have the sovereign people of the na- 
tion been afforded an opportunity of expressing their views upon the important questions which 
the amendment involves. Grave doubts, therefore, may naturally and justly arise as to whether 
the action of Congress is in harmony with the sentiments of the people, and whether state Legisla- 
tures elected without reference to such an issue should be called upon by Congress to decide re- 
specting the ratification of the proposed amendment.” 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


a 


[ JUNE, 1866. 


certain measures necessary to the national safety should be secured beyond 
the possibility of doubt through constitutional amendment. The nature and 
extent of the outrage which had been committed against the government, ar- 
gues the committee, gave the government the right to exact indemnity for 
the injuries done, and security against their recurrence. The decision as to 
what that security should be, as to what proof should be required of return- 
ed allegiance, must depend upon grave considerations of the public safety 
and the general welfare. If it were true that, the moment when rebels la 
down their arms and actual hostilities cease, all political rights of the rebel- 
lious communities are at once restored—if their right to participate in the 
government of the country must be allowed under these cireumstances—then 
the government would be powerless for its own protection, “and flagrant 
rebellion, carried to the extreme of civil war, is a pastime which any state 
can play at, not only certain that it can lose nothing in any event, but may 
even be the gainer by defeat. If rebellion succeeds, it accomplishes its pur- 
pose and destroys the government. If it fails, the war has been barren of 
results, and the battle may still be fought out in the legislative halls of the 
country. Treason, defeated in the field, has only to take possession of Con- 
gress and the cabinet.” 

“Tt is desirable,” continues the report, “that the Union of all the states 
should become perfect at the earliest moment consistent with the peace and 
welfare of the nation; that all these states should become fully represented 
in the national councils, and take their share in the legislation of the coun- 
try. The possession and exercise of more than the just share of power by 
any section is injurious, as well to that section as to all others, Its tend- 
ency is distracting and demoralizing, and such a state of affairs is only to 
be tolerated on the ground of a necessary regard to the public safety, As 
soon as that safety is secured it should terminate.” 

Before the restoration of the states to their original privileges, the rights, 
as free men and citizens, of millions belonging to the colored race must be 
secured, and the basis of representation must be altered to prevent some 
states from exercising a disproportionate share in the government. Accord- 
ingly, the committee had submitted the constitutional amendment embrac- 
ing these provisions, together with others, “after a long and careful com- 
parison of conflicting opinions.”! 


* We subjoin the concluding portion of this report: 


“Your committee have been unable to find, in the evidence submitted to Congress by the Pres- 
ident, under date of March 6, 1866, in compliance with the resolutions of January 5 and February 
27, 1866, any satisfactory proof that either of the insurrectionary states, except perhaps the State 
of Tennessee, has placed itself in a condition to resume its political relations to the United States. 
The first step toward that end would necessarily be the establishment of a republican form of goy- 
ernment by the people. It has been before remarked that the provisional governors, appointed by 
the President in the exercise of his military authority, could do nothing by virtue of the power thus 
conferred toward the establishment of a state government. They were acting under the War De- 
partment, and paid out of its funds. They were simply bridging over the chasm between rebellion 
and restoration. And yet we find them calling Conventions and convening Legislatures. Not only 
this, but we find the Conventions and Legislatures thus convened acting under executive direction 
as to the provisions required to be adopted in their Constitutions and ordinances as conditions 
precedent to their recognition by the President. The inducement held out by the President for 
compliance with the conditions imposed was, directly in one instance, and presumably, therefore, in 
others, the immediate admission of senators and representatives to Congress. The character of 
the Conventions and Legislatures thus assembled was not such as to inspire confidence in the good 
faith of their members. Governor Perry, of South Carolina, dissolved the Convention assembled 
in that state before the suggestion had reached Columbia from Washington that the rebel war 
debt should be repudiated, and gave as his reason that it was a ‘revolutionary body.’ There is 
no evidence of the loyalty or disloyalty of the members of those Conventions and Legislatures ex- 
cept the fact of pardons being asked for on their account. Some of these states now claiming rep- 
resentation refused to adopt the conditions imposed. No reliable information is found in these 
papers as to the constitutional provisions of several of these states, while in not one of them is there 
the slightest evidence to show that these ‘amended Constitutions,’ as they are called, have ever 
been submitted to the people for their adoption. In North Carolina alone an ordinance was 
passed to that effect, but it does not appear to have been acted on. Not one of them, therefore, 
has been ratified. Whether, with President Johnson, we adopt the theory that the old Constitu- 
tions were abrogated and destroyed, and the people ‘deprived of all civil government,’ or whether 
we adopt the alternative doctrine that they were only suspended, and were revived by the suppres- 
sion of the rebellion, the new provisions must be considered as equally destitute of validity before 
adoption by the people. If the Conventions were called for the sole purpose of putting the state 
government into operation, they had no power either to adopt a new Constitution or to amend an 
old one without the consent of the people. Nor could either a Convention or a Legislature change 
the fundamental law without power previously conferred. In the view of your committee, it fol- 
lows, therefore, that the people of a state where the Constitution has been thus amended might 
feel themselves justified in repudiating altogether all such unauthorized assumptions of power, and 
might be expected to do so at pleasure. 

‘*So far as the disposition of the people of the insurrectionary states, and the probability of their 
adopting measures conforming to the changed condition of affairs can be inferred from the papers 
submitted by the President as the basis of his action, the prospects are far from encouraging. It 
appears quite clear that the anti-slavery amendments, both to the State and Federal Constitutions, 
were adopted with reluctance by the bodies which did adopt them, while in some states they have 
been either passed by in silence or rejected. The language of all the provisions and ordinances 
of these states on the subject amounts to nothing more than an unwilling admission of an unwel- 
come truth. As to the Ordinance of Secession, it is in some cases declared ‘null and void,’ and in 
others simply ‘repealed ;’ and in no instance is a refutation of this deadly heresy considered worthy 
of a place in the new Constitution. 

‘*Tf, as the President assumes, these insurrectionary states were, at the close of the war, wholly 
without state governments, it would seem that, before being admitted to participation in the direc- 
tion of public affairs, such governments should be regularly organized. Long usage has estab- 
lished, and numerous statutes have pointed out the’mode in which this should be done. A Con- 
vention to frame a form of government should be assembled under competent authority. Ordinarily 
this authority emanates from Congress; but, under the peculiar circumstances, your committee is 
not disposed to criticise the President’s action in assuming the power exercised by him in this re- 
gard. The Convention, when assembled, should frame a Constitution of government, which should 
be submitted to the people for adoption. If adopted, a Legislature should be convened to pass 
the laws necessary to carry it into effect. When a state thus organized claims representation in 
Congress, the election of representatives should be provided for by law, in accordance with the 
laws of Congress regulating representation, and the proof that the action taken has been in con- 
formity to law should be submitted to Congress, 

“In no case have these essential preliminary steps been taken. The Conventions assembled 
seem to have assumed that the Constitutions which had been repudiated and overthrown were still 
in existence, and operative to constitute the states members of the Union, and to have contented 
themselves with such amendments as they were informed were requisite in order to insure their 
return to an immediate participation in the government of the United States. Not waiting to as- 
certain whether the people they represented would adopt even the proposed amendments, they at 
once ordered elections of representatives to Congress, in nearly all instances before an executive 
had been chosen to issue writs of election under the state laws, and such elections as were held 
were ordered by the Conventions. In one instance, at least, the writs of election were signed 
by the provisional governor. Glaring irregularities and unwarranted assumptions of power are 
manifest in several cases, particularly in South Carolina, where the Convention, although disband- 
ed by the provisional governor on the ground that it was a revolutionary body, assumed to redis- 
trict the state. 

“Tt is quite evident from all these facts, and indeed from the whole mass of testimony submit- 
ted by the President to the Senate, that in no instance was regard paid to any other consideration 
than obtaining immediate admission to Congress under the barren form of an election in which 


June, 1866. ] 


The committee had been working hard for six months, and with the re- 
sults of its deliberations no reasonable ground of complaint can be found. 


no precautions were taken to secure regularity of proceedings or the assent of the people. No 
Constitution has been legally adopted except perhaps in the State of Tennesee, and such elections 
as have been held were without authority of law. Your committee are accordingly forced to the 
conclusion that the states referred to have not placed themselves in a condition to claim representa- 
tion in Congress, unless all the rules which haye, since the foundation of the government, been 
deemed essential in such cases should be disregarded. 

«Tt would, undoubtedly, be competent for Congress to waive all formalities, and to admit these 
Confederate States to representation at once, trusting that time and experience would set all things 
right. Whether it would be advisable to do so, however, must depend upon other considerations 
of which it remains to treat. But it may well be observed that the inducements to such a step 
should be of the very highest character. It seems to your committee not unreasonable to require 
satisfactory evidence that the ordinances and constitutional provisions which the President deemed 
essential in the first instance will be permanently adhered to by the people of the states seeking 
restoration after being admitted to full participation in the government, and will not be repudi- 
ated when that object shall have been accomplished. And here the burden of proof rests upon 
the late insurgents who are seeking restoration to the rights and privileges which they willingly 
abandoned, and not upon the people of the United States who have never undertaken, directly or 
indirectly, to deprive them thereof. It should appear affirmatively that they are prepared and 
disposed in good faith to accept the results of the war, to abandon their hostility to the govern- 
ment, and to live in peace and amity with the people of the loyal states, extending to all classes of 
citizens equal rights and privileges, and conforming to the republican idea of liberty and equality. 
They should exhibit in their acts something more than an unwilling submission to an unavoidable 
necessity—a feeling, if not cheerful, certainly not offensive and defiant; and they should evince 
an entire repudiation of all hostility to the general government by an acceptance of such just and 
reasonable conditions as that government should think the public safety demands. Has this been 
done? Let us look at the facts shown by the evidence taken by the committee. 

‘*Hardly is the war closed before the people of these insurrectionary states come forward and 
claim as a right the privilege of participating at once in that government which they had for four 
years been fighting to overthrow. Allowed and encouraged by the executive to organize state 
governments, they at once placed in power leading rebels, unrepentant and unpardoned, excluding 
with contempt those who had manifested an attachment to the Union, and preferring, in many in- 
stances, those who had rendered themselves the most obnoxious. In the face of the law requiring 
an oath which would necessarily exclude all such men from federal offices, they elect, with very 
few exceptions, as senators and representatives in Congress, men who had actively participated in 
the rebellion, insultingly denouncing the law as unconstitutional. It is only necessary to instance 
the election to the Senate of the late Vice-President of the Confederacy, a man who, against his 
own declared convictions, had lent all the weight of his acknowledged ability and of his influence 
as a most prominent public man to the cause of the rebellion, and who, unpardoned rebel as he is, 
with that oath staring him in the face, had the assurance to lay his credentials on the table of the 
Senate. Other rebels of scarcely less note or notoriety were selected from other quarters. Pro- 
fessing no repentance; glorying apparently in the crime they had committed; avowing still, as 
the uncontradicted testimony of Mr. Stephens and many others proves, an adherence to the perni- 
cious doctrine of secession, and declaring that they yielded only to necessity, they insist, with unan- 
imous voice, upon their rights as states, and proclaim that they will submit to no conditions what- 
eyer as preliminary to their resumption of power under that Constitution which they still claim 
the right to repudiate. 

‘‘Hxamining the evidence taken by your committee still farther, in connection with facts too 
notorious to be disputed, it appears that the Southern press, with few exceptions, and those mostly 
of newspapers recently established by Northern men, abound with weekly and daily abuse of the 
institutions and people of the loyal states; defends the men who led, and the principles which in- 
cited the rebellion; denounces and reviles Southern men who adhered to the Union ; and strives, 
constantly and unscrupulously, by every means in its power, to keep alive the fire of hate and dis- 
cord between the sections, calling upon the President to violate his oath of office, overturn the gov- 
ernment by force of arms, and drive the representatives of the people from their seats in Congress. 
The national bamner is openly insulted, and the national airs scoffed at, not only by an ignorant 
populace, but at public meetings, and once, among other notable instances, at a dinner given in 
honor of a notorious rebel who had violated his oath and abandoned his flag. The same individ- 
ual is elected to an important office in the leading city of his state, although an unpardoned rebel, 
and so offensive that the President refuses to allow him to enter upon his official duties. In an- 
other state the leading general of the rebel armies is openly nominated for governor by the speaker 
of the House of Delegates, and the nomination is hailed by the people with shouts of satisfaction, 
and openly indorsed by the press. 

‘¢ Looking still farther at the evidence taken by your committee, it is found to be clearly shown, 
by witnesses of the highest character, and having the best means of observation, that the Freed- 
men’s Bureau, instituted for the relief and protection of freedmen and refugees, is almost univer- 
sally opposed by the mass of the population, and exists in an efficient condition only under mili- 
tary protection, while the Union men at the South are earnest in its defense, declaring with one 
voice that without its protection the colored people would not be permitted to labor at fair prices, 
and could hardly live in safety. They also testify that without the protection of United States troops, 
Union men, whether of Northern or Southern origin, would be obliged to abandon their homes. 
The feeling in many portions of the country toward the emancipated slaves, especially among 
the uneducated and ignorant, is one of vindictive and malicious hatred. This deep-seated preju- 
dice against color is assiduously cultivated by the public journals, and leads to acts of cruelty, op- 
pression, and murder, which the local authorities are at no pains to prevent or punish. There is 
no general disposition to place the colored race, constituting at least two fifths of the population, 
upon terms eyen of civil equality. While many instances may be found where large planters and 
men of the better class accept the situation, and honestly strive to bring about a better order of 
things by employing the freedmen at fair wages and treating them kindly, the general feeling and 
disposition among all classes are yet totally averse to the toleration of any class of people friendly 
to the Union, be they black or white; and this aversion is not unfrequently manifested in an in- 
sulting and offensive manner. 

‘The witnesses examined as to the willingness of the people of the South to contribute, under 
existing laws, to the payment of the national debt, prove that the taxes levied by the United States 
will be paid only on compulsion and with great reluctance, while there prevails, to a considera- 
ble extent, an expectation that compensation will be made for slaves emancipated and property 
destroyed during the war. The testimony on this point comes from officers of the Union army, 
officers of the late rebel army, Union men of the Southern States, and avowed secessionists, almost 
all of whom state that, in their opinion, the people of the rebellious states would, if they should see 
a prospect of success, repudiate the national debt. 

‘© While there is scarcely any hope or desire among leading men to renew the attempt at seces- 
sion at any future time, there is still, according to a large number of witnesses, including A. H. 
Stephens, who may be regarded as good authority on that point, a generally prevailing opinion 
which defends the legal right of secession, and upholds the doctrine that the first allegiance of the 
people is due to the states, and not to the United States. This belief evidently prevails among 
leading and prominent men, as well as among the masses every where, except in some of the north- 
ern counties of Alabama and the eastern counties of Tennessee. 

‘The evidence of an intense hostility to the Federal Union, and an equally intense love of the 
late Confederacy, nurtured by the war, is decisive. While it appears that nearly all are willing to 
submit, at least for the time being, to the federal authority, it is equally clear that the ruling mo- 
tive is a desire to obtain the advantages which will be derived from a representation in Congress. 
Officers of the Union army on duty, and Northern men who go South to engage in business, are 
generally detested and proscribed. Southern men who adhered to the Union are bitterly hated 
and relentlessly persecuted. In some localities prosecutions have been instituted in state courts 
against Union officers for acts done in the line of official duty, and similar prosecutions are threat- 
ened elsewhere as soon as the United States troops are removed. All such demonstrations show 
a state of feeling against which it is unmistakably necessary to guard. 

“The testimony is conclusive that, after the collapse of the Confederacy, the feeling of the peo- 
ple of the rebellious states was that of abject submission. Having appealed to the tribunal of arms, 
they had no hope except that by the magnanimity of the conquerors their lives, and possibly their 
property, might be preserved. Unfortunately, the general issue of pardons to persons who had 
been prominent in the rebellion, and the feeling of kindness and conciliation manifested by the 
executive, and very generally indicated through the Northern press, had the effect to render whole 
communities forgetful of the crime they had committed, defiant toward the federal government, 
and regardless of their duties as citizens. The conciliatory measures of the government do not 
seem to have been met even half way. The bitterness and defiance exhibited toward the United 
States under such circumstances is without a parallel in the history of the world. In return for 
our leniency we receive only an insulting denial of our authority. In return for our kind desire 
for the resumption of fraternal relations we receive only an insolent assumption of rights and priv- 
ileges long since forfeited. ‘The crime we have punished is paraded as a virtue, and the principles 
of republican government which we have vindicated at so terrible cost are denounced as unjust and 
oppressive. 

“If we add to this evidence the fact that, although peace has been declared by the President, 
he has not, to this day, deemed it safe to restore the writ of habeas corpus, to relieve the insurrec- 
tionary states of martial law, nor to withdraw the troops from many localities, and that the com- 
manding general deems an increase of the army indispensable to the preservation of order and the 


RECONSTRUCTION.—1865-1867. 


815 


But the necessity of every measure which it had submitted to Congress was 
just as clear at the beginning of the session as at the close. It had accu- 


protection of loyal and well-disposed people in the South, the proof of a condition of feeling hos- 
tile to the Union and dangerous to the government throughout the insurrectionary states would 
seem to be overwhelming. 

‘* With such evidence before them, it is the opinion of your committee— 

“TY. That the states lately in rebellion were, at the close of the war, disorganized communities, 
without civil government, and without Constitutions or other forms by virtue of which political re- 
lations could legally exist between them and the federal government. 

‘Tl. That Congress can not be expected to recognize as valid the election of representatives 
from disorganized communities which, from the very nature of the case, were unable to present 
their claim to representation under those established rules the observance of which has been hith- 
erto required. 

“II. That Congress would not be justified in admitting such communities to a participation 
in the government of the country without first providing such constitutional or other guarantees 
as will tend to secure the civil rights of all citizens of the republic; a just equality of representa- 
tion ; protection against claims founded in rebellion and crime; a temporary restoration of the 
right of suffrage to those who have not actively participated in the efforts to destroy the Union and 
overthrow the government; and the exclusion from positions of public trust of at least a portion 
Spee: whose crinfés have proved them to be enemies to the Union, and unworthy of public con- 

dence. 

‘*Your committee will, perhaps, hardly be deemed excusable for extending this report farther ; 
but inasmuch as immediate and unconditional representation of the states lately in rebellion is de- 
manded as a matter of right, and delay, and even hesitation, is denounced as grossly oppressive 
and unjust, as well as unwise and impolitic, it may not be amiss again to call attention to a few 
undisputed and notorious facts, and the principles of public law applicable thereto, in order that 
the propriety of that claim may be fully considered and well understood. 

‘The State of Tennessee occupies a position distinct from all the other insurrectionary states, 
and has been the subject of a separate report, which your committee have not thought it expedient 
to disturb. Whether Congress shall see fit to make that state the subject of separate action, or to 
include it in the same category with all others, so far as concerns the imposition of preliminary 
conditions, it is not within the province of this committee either to determine or advise. 

‘*'To ascertain whether any of the so-called Confederate States ‘are entitled to be represented 
in either house of Congress,’ the essential inquiry is whether there is, in any one of them, a con- 
stituency qualified to be represented in Congress. The question how far persons claiming seats in 
either house possess the credentials necessary to enable them to represent a duly qualified constit- 
uency is one for the consideration of each house separately, after the preliminary question shall 
have been finally determined. 

‘“We now propose to restate, as briefly as possible, the general facts and principles applicable 
to all the states recently in rebellion. 

““Ist. The seats of the senators and representatives from the so-called Confederate States became 
vacant in the year 1861, during the second session of the Thirty-sixth Congress, by the voluntary 
withdrawal of their incumbents, with the sanction and by direction of the Legislatures or Conven- 
tions of their respective states. ‘This was done as a hostile act against the Constitution and goy- 
ernment of the United States, with a declared intent to overthrow the same by forming a Southern 
Confederation. This act of declared hostility was speedily followed by an organization of the same 
states into a confederacy, which levied and waged war by sea and land against the United States. 
This war continued four years, within which period the rebel armies besieged the national capital, 
invaded the loyal states, burned their towns and cities, robbed their citizens, destroyed more than 
250,000 loyal soldiers, and imposed an increased national burden of not less than $3,500,000,000, 
of which seven or eight hundred millions haye already been met and paid. From the time these 
confederated states thus withdrew their representation in Congress and levied war against the United 
States, the great mass of their people became and were insurgents, rebels, traitors, and all of them 
assumed and occupied the political, legal, and practical relation of enemies of the United States. 
This position is established by acts of Congress and judicial decisions, and is recognized repeated- 
ly by the President in public proclamations, documents, and speeches. 

‘2d, The states thus confederated prosecuted their war against the United States to final arbit- 
rament, and did not cease until all their armies were captured, their military power destroyed, their 
civil officers, state and confederate, taken prisoners or put to flight, every vestige of state and con- 
federate government obliterated, their territory overrun and occupied by the federal armies, and 
their people reduced to the condition of enemies conquered in war, entitled only by public law to 
such rights, privileges, and conditions as might be vouchsafed by the conqueror. ‘This position is 
also established by judicial decisions, and is recognized by the President in public proclamations, 
documents, and speeches. 

‘*3d. Having voluntarily deprived themselves of representation in Congress for the criminal pur- 
pose of destroying the Federal Union, and haying reduced themselves, by the act of levying war, to 
the condition of public enemies, they have no right to complain of temporary exclusion from Con- 
gress; but, on the contrary, haying voluntarily renounced the right to representation, and disqual- 
ified themselves by crime from participating in the government, the burden now rests upon them, 
before claiming to be reinstated in their former condition, to show that they are qualified to resume 
federal relations. In order to do this, they must prove that they have established, with the con- 
sent of the people, republican forms of government in harmony with the Constitution and laws of 
the United States, that all hostile purposes haye ceased, and should give adequate guarantees against 
future treason and rebellion—guarantees which shall prove satisfactory to the government against 
which they rebelled, and by whose arms they were subdued. 

‘4th, Having, by this treasonable withdrawal from Congress, and by flagrant rebellion and war, 
forfeited all civil and political rights and privileges under the Constitution, they can only be restored 
thereto by the permission and authority of that constitutional power against which they rebelled 
and by which they were subdued. 

‘*5th, These rebellious enemies were conquered by the people of the United States, acting through 
all the co-ordinate branches of the government, and not by the executive department alone. The 
powers of conqueror are not so vested in the President that he can fix and regulate the terms 
of settlement, and confer congressional representation on conquered rebels and traitors. Nor can 
he in any way qualify enemies of the government to exercise its law-making power. The author- 
ity to restore rebels to political power in the federal government can be exercised only with the con- 
currence of all the departments in which political power is vested ; and hence the several proclama- 
tions of the President to the people of the Confederate States can not be considered as extending 
beyond the purposes declared, and can only be regarded as provisional permission by the command- 
er-in-chief of the army to do certain acts, the effect and validity whereof is to be determined by the 
constitutional government, and not solely by the executive power. 

‘*6th. The question before Congress is, then, whether conquered enemies have the right, and 
shall be permitted, at their own pleasure and on their own terms, to participate in making laws for 
their conquerors ; whether conquered rebels may change their theatre of operations from the battle- 
field, where they were defeated and overthrown, to the halls of Congress, and, through their repre- 
sentatives, seize upon the government which they fought to destroy ; whether the national treasury, 
the army of the nation, its navy, its forts and arsenals, its whole civil administration, its credit, its 
pensioners, the widows and orphans of those who perished in the war, the public honor, peace, and 
safety, shall all be turned over to the keeping of its recent enemies without delay, and without im- 
posing such conditions as, in the opinion of Congress, the security of the country and its institutions 
may demand. 

‘¢7th. The history of mankind exhibits no examples of such madness and folly. The instinct 
of self-preservation protests against it. ‘The surrender by Grant to Lee, and by Sherman to John- 
ston, would have been disasters of less magnitude, for new armies could have been raised, new bat- 
tles fought, and the government saved. ‘The anti-coercive policy, which, under pretext of avoiding 
bloodshed, allowed the rebellion to take form and gather force, would be surpassed in infamy by the 
matchless wickedness that would now surrender the halls of Congress to those so recently in rebel- 
lion, until proper precautions shall have been taken to secure the national faith and the national 
safety. 

‘*8th, As has been shown in this report, and in the evidence submitted, no proof has been afford- 
ed by Congress of a constituency in any one of the so-called Confederate States, unless we except 
the State of Tennessee, qualified to elect senators and representatives in Congress. No state Con- 
stitution, or amendment to a state Constitution, has had the sanction of the people. All the so- 
called legislation of state Conventions and Legislatures has been had under military dictation. If 
the President may, at his will, and under his own authority, whether as military commander or 
chief executive, qualify persons to appoint senators and elect representatives, and empower others 
to appoint and elect them, he thereby practically controls the organization of the legislative depart- 
ment. The constitutional form of government is thereby practically destroyed, and its powers ab- 
sorbed in the executive. And while your committee do not for a moment impute to the President 
any such design, but cheerfully concede to him the most patriotic motives, they can not but look 
with alarm upon a precedent so fraught with danger to the republic. 

‘9th. The necessity of providing adequate safeguards for the future, before restoring the insur- 
rectionary states to a participation in the direction of public affairs, is apparent from the bitter hos- 
tility to the government and people of the United States yet existing throughout the conquered ter- 
ritory, as proved incontestably by the testimony of many witnesses and by undisputed facts. 

‘10th. The conclusion of your committee therefore is, that the so-called Confederate States are 
not at present entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States; that, before allowing 
such representation, adequate security for future peace and safety should be required; that this can 


816 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


mulated volumes of testimony in regard to the condition of the Southern 
States. That was proper enough, but it was not necessary to wait for the 
development of all this evidence before submitting to Congress the meas- 
ures which it finally proposed. By the delay of Congress to declare its 
policy, its measures did not come before the country until after the conflict 
between the President and Congress had produced dissensions in the Re- 
publican party, increased agitation throughout the country, and exaggerated 
the contumacious spirit of the Southern people to such an extent as to 
greatly diminish the prospect that the latter would accede to the conditions 
offered for its acceptance. Carly in the session the resistance to the Con- 
gressional plan of restoration would not have been formidable ; now it was 
plain that it would be resisted by the executive, by the Southern States, 
and by a large portion of the Republican party. This delay was only less 
unfortunate in its consequences than the President’s hasty action and his 
failure to convene Congress at the beginning of his administration. 

Some time before the full report of the Reconstruction Committee, the 
latter had presented a concurrent resolution declaring “that, in order to 
close agitation upon a question which seems likely to disturb the action of 
the government, as well as to quiet the uncertainty which is agitating the 
minds of the people of the eleven states which have been declared to be in 
insurrection, no senator or representative shall be admitted into either branch 
of Congress from any of the said states until Congress shall have declared 
such state entitled to such representation.” As usual, Stevens cut off de- 
bate in the House by demanding the previous question, and the resolution 
was adopted in that body without discussion, 109 to 40.1 

It was a strange measure, when considered in reference to its declared 
purpose, “to close agitation” and “to quiet the uncertainty” of the unrep- 
resented section! The reasons which induced the committee to introduce 
this resolution were more clearly stated by Fessenden in the Senate, where 
the measure was debated at length, than in the resolution itself. In his 
speech upon the resolution, Senator Fessenden confessed that the committee 
introduced the resolution because President Johnson had denounced it as 
“an irrepressible central directory” in which was lodged the concentrated 
power of a few, and because in his veto (February 19th) of the Freedman’s 
Bureau Bill he had indicated “ that no legislation affecting the states which 
have recently been in rebellion would meet with the approval of the Presi- 
dent while those states were not represented.” Under these circumstances, 
he thought the resolution necessary “in order that Congress may assert dis- 
tinetly its own rights and its own powers; in order that there may be no 
mistake any where, in the mind of the executive or in the minds of the peo- 
ple of this country, that Congress, under the circumstances of this case, with 
this attempted limitation of its powers with regard to its own organization, 
is prepared to say to the executive and to the country, respectfully but 
firmly, over this subject they have, and they mean to exercise, the most 
plenary jurisdiction ; they will be limited with regard to it by no considera- 
tions arising from the views of others than themselves, except so far as those 
considerations may affect the minds of individuals ; we will judge for our- 
selves not only upon credentials, and the character of men and the position 
of men, but upon the position of the states which sent those men here. In 
other words, to use the language of the President again, when the question 
is to be decided whether they obey the Constitution, whether they have a 
fitting Constitution of their own, whether they are loyal, whether they are 
prepared to obey the laws as a preliminary, as the President says it is, to 
their admission, we will say whether those preliminary requirements have 
been complied with, and not he, and nobody but ourselves.” The war, ad- 
mitted the senator, was not commenced with the idea of subjugation ; “but 
if subjugation must come in order to accomplish what we desire to accom- 


only be found in such changes of the organic law as shall determine the civil rights and privileges 
of all citizens in all parts of the republic, shall place representation on an equitable basis, shall fix a 
stigma upon treason, and protect the loyal people against future claims for the expenses incurred 
in support of rebellion and for manumitted slaves, together with an express grant of power in Con- 
gress to enforce those provisions. To this end they offer a joint resolution for amending the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and the two several bills designed to carry the same into effect, be- 
fore referred to. 

“* Before closing this report, your committee beg leave to state that the specific recommendations 
submitted by them are the result of mutual concession, after a long and careful comparison of con- 
flicting opinions. Upon a question of such magnitude, infinitely important as it is to the future of 
the republic, it was not to be expected that all should think alike. Sensible of the imperfections 
of the scheme, your committee submit it to Congress as the best they could agree upon, in the hope 
that its imperfections may be cured, and its deficiencies supplied by legislative wisdom; and that, 
when finally adopted, it may tend to restore peace and harmony to the whole country, and to place 
our republican institutions on a more stable foundation. 

‘“W. P. FessenpEn, 

“* James W. Grimes, 
“Tra Harris, 

“J. M. Howarp, 
““Grorce H. Wini1aMs, 
“THADDEUS STEVENS, 


* Yras.—Messrs, Allison, Anderson, James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Baxter, Bea- 
man, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Boutwell, Brandegee, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, 
Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Dawes, Defrees, Deming, Donnelly, Driggs, Eckley, 
Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Farquhar, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, Griswold, Abner C, Harding, 
Hart, Hays, Henderson, Higby, Holmes, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asahel W. HMubbard, Chester D. Hub- 
bard, Demas Hubbard, John H. Hubbard, James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian, 
Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, 
Marston, McClurg, McIndoe, McKee, McRuer, Mercur, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton, Myers, 
O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, Pike, Plants, Pomeroy, Price, William H. Randall, John 
H. Rice, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Sloan, Spalding, Starr, Stevens, Thayer, John L. 
Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Ward, Warner, Elihu B. Washburne, 
William B. Washburn, Welker, Wentworth, Williams, James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Win- 
dom, and Woodbridge—109, 

Nays.—Messrs. Bergen, Boyer, Brooks, Chanler, Coffroth, Dawson, Eldridge, Finck, Glossbren- 
ner, Goodyear, Grider, Hale, Aaron Harding, Hogan, James M. Humphrey, Kerr, Latham, Mar- 
shall, McCullough, Newell, Niblack, Nicholson, Phelps, Radford, Samuel J. Randall, Raymond, 
Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Rousseau, Shanklin, Sitgreaves, Smith, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, 
Voorhees, Whaley, and Wright—40. 

Nor Vorinc.—Messrs, Alley, Ames, Ancona, Delos R. Ashley, Barker, Blow, Bundy, Reader 
W. Clarke, Culver, Darling, Davis, Delano, Denison, Dixon, Dumont, Harris, Hill, Edwin N. Hub- 
bell, James Humphrey, Johnson, J ones, Kasson, Kuykendall, Le Blond, Marvin, Miller, Noell, 


mips H. Rice, Rollins, Stillwell, Strouse, Francis Thomas, Robert T. Van Horn, and Win- 
eld—34, 


Exiuu B. WASHBURNE, 
Justin S. Morritz, 
Joun A. Brneuam, 
Roscor Conxuine, 
Groree S. Bourwe.t.” 


[ JUNE, 1866. 


plish and what we must accomplish, it is not our fault.” We could not, he 
added, consider the country safe when the President himself does not with- 
draw his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 

Senator Sherman, of Ohio, followed in opposition to the resolution. He 
did not differ from Fessenden as to the power of Congress or as to the pro- 
priety of the two houses acting in concert upon this subject of admitting 
Southern representatives. He considered the adoption of the resolution, 
therefore, as unnecessary, and as calculated to increase rather than to close 
agitation. The true way to assert the proper powers of Congress was to 
exercise them. He held that the real difficulty in this whole matter had 
been the unfortunate failure of the executive and legislative branches of 
the government to agree upon the plan of reconstruction. The blame on 
this account did not rest wholly with the President. If Congress had, at its 
last session, provided a law by which these states might be guided in their 
efforts toward restoration, the controversy would have been at an end. He 
alluded to the Wade and Davis bill, which had been passed at the first ses- 
sion of the Thirty-eighth Congress, but which failed to receive the signa- 
ture of President Lincoln. Here Senator Sumner remarked that President 
Lincoln, in an interview with him, had expressed his regret that he had not 
accepted that bill. Sherman thought every patriotic citizen would express 
his regret not so much that the President did not approve that bill, but that 
Congress did not, in connection with the President, agree upon some plan 
for reconstruction. Why, he asked, now arraign Andrew Johnson for fol- 
lowing out the plan which he deemed best, especially when it was the same 


plan which had been adopted by Lincoln, and which had the apparent rati- 


fication of the people in Lincoln’s re-election? “One whole session inter- 
vened after this vote, as I may call it, of President Lincoln, and no effort 
was made by Congress to reconcile this conflict of views; and when Presi- 
dent Johnson came suddenly, by the hand of an assassin, into the presiden- 
tial chair, what did he have before him to guide his steps? The forces of 
the rebellion had been subdued; all physical resistance was soon after sub- 
dued. . . . . Who doubts, then, that if there had been a law upon the stat- 
ute-book by which the people of the Southern States could have been guided 
in their efforts to come back into the Union, they would have cheerfully fol- 
lowed it, although the conditions had been hard?” Lincoln and Johnson 
had both been obliged to follow out a plan of their own. We might find 
fault with the conditions imposed by them, but Lincoln’s plan had been sub- 
stantially sanctioned by the people in his re-election. At the very time 


Johnson was nominated for Vice-President he was, as military governor of 


Tennessee, executing the very plan which he subsequently adopted as Presi- 
dent. There was now no difference between the President and Congress as 
to the condition of the Southern States. By both they were treated as states 
in insurrection, but still as states. It only remained for Congress to provide 
a method by which the condition of states might be tested, and they might 


come back, one by one, each upon its own merits, upon complying with such 


conditions as the public safety demands. Senator Sherman then proceeded 
to explain the policy which Johnson had adopted. He had retained Lin- 
coln’s cabinet, and had thus far received its full support. He had executed 
every law passed by Congress. He had in his proclamations adopted al- 
most the precise words used by Lincoln in like cases, Only that he had ex- 
tended and made more severe the policy of the latter. In carrying out his 
plans he had adopted all the main features of the Wade and Davis bill—the 
only law bearing upon the subject ever passed by Congress. In his am- 
nesty proclamation of May 29th he had excepted from pardon some four- 
teen classes of persons, “‘more than quadrupling the exceptions of the pre- 
vious proclamation of Mr. Lincoln; so that, if there was any departure in 
this connection from the policy adopted by Mr. Lincoln, it was a departure 
against the rebels, and especially against those wealthy rebels who gave 
life, and soul, and power to the rebellion.” He had required of the South- 
ern States the adoption of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, 
had enforced the test oath in the case of every officer receiving his commis- 
sion under the law, and had insisted upon the full protection of the freedmen. 
Now what were the objections to this policy? It was said that the pardon- 
ing power had been abused; but this power had been sanctioned by Congres- 
sional enactment. It was also objected that Johnson had not extended the 
suffrage to negroes; but there were only six of the Northern States in which 
negroes had the right to vote, and until the present session the proposition 
to give negroes this right in the District of Columbia had never been seri- 
ously considered, although Congress had complete jurisdiction over the dis- 
trict. Even in the Territories, also under the unrestricted jurisdiction of 
Congress, the franchise had never been extended to the colored race. In 
the Wade and Davis bill Congress expressly refused to make negro suffrage 
a part of their plan. 

We have given Senator Sherman’s arguments so much space not only on 
account of his recognized position as one of the most eminent statesmen of 
the country, but because they furnish the fullest possible defense of Presi- 
dent Johnson’s policy. This defense was just, so far as it went, but still it 
must be remembered that the senator’s argument entirely ignored the pe- 
cular features of the political situation at the time he spoke. The Presi- 
dent's policy could not be separated from the President’s conduct of that 
policy. Johnson had not confined himself to issuing proclamations and to 
vetoes of Congressional enactments. He had in an unbecoming manner en- 
tered into a bitter antagonism with Congress in occasional harangues before 
the people. Perhaps Sherman paid less regard to the objectionable features 
of the President's conduct because these features had not as yet assumed 
their peculiarly offensive character. Sherman defended the President in 
a UREERaoa eee Ee 


* See page 660 of this History. 


: 
: 


JuLy, 1866. ] 


February, 1866—what his judgment would have been five months later is 
another question. 

Notwithstanding his speech, Sherman voted in favor of the resolution, 
which was passed 29 to 18." 

The House on the 19th, and the Senate on the 21st of July, passed a reso- 
lution declaring the State of Tennessee entitled to representation in Con- 
gress, that state having ratified the constitutional amendment proposed by 
the Thirty-ninth Congress. The President signed the resolution on the 
24th, and at the same time sent a message to the House, scolding Congress 
for its previous contumacy, and denying its right to pass laws preliminary 
to the admission of duly qualified members from any of the states. The 
members elected from Tennessee were then duly qualified. 

Two important bills were passed during this session, having for their 
principal object the protection of freedmen, both of which were vetoed by 
the President, but afterward became laws by a two-thirds vote. 

The first of these was a bill to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen’s Bu- 
reau. This bureau had been established by the previous Congress, while 
the war was still in progress, and was styled “a Bureau of Refugees, Freed- 
men, and Abandoned Lands.’? It passed Congress March 38d, 1867, and re- 
ceived within the week following the approval of President Lincoln, who 
appointed Major General O. O. Howard as commissioner. This choice was 
very judicious, as General Howard was not only an able military officer, 
but had also a thorough knowledge of the South, and of the special duties 
of the office to which he was assigned. He was, moreover, a conscientious 
Christian gentleman. He was retained at the head of the bureau by Presi- 
dent Johnson. The abandoned lands consisted of some 770,000 acres of 
lands scattered over the Southern States, the most valuable portion of which 
were the sea islands off the South Carolina coast, which had been given to 
the freedmen by General Sherman, acting in consultation with the Secretary 
of War. 

By President Johnson’s amnesty proclamation the most valuable lands 
were restored to their original owners, and this circumstance seriously em- 
barrassed the operations of the bureau. Notwithstanding this obstacle, how- 
ever, the bureau proved a beneficent institution to the freed slave and refu- 
gee. It secured them many educational privileges hitherto denied, stood 
between them and the avarice of their employers, and provided medical re- 
lief to their sick, and assistance to the old and decrepit. Great opposition 
was manifested to the education of freedmen. The educational statistics of 
October 31, 1865, show that there were at that time 560 schools in opera: 
tion, with 1135 teachers, and 68,241 pupils. Toward the close of the year, 
General Howard estimated the number of persons receiving rations from the 
bureau at 45,035, which he thought would be increased during the ensuing 
winter to 100,000. The expenses of the bureau for 1865 amounted to near- 
ly $12,000,000. 

The bill enlarging the powers of the Freedmen’s Bureau passed the Sen- 
ate January 24, 1866, by a party vote. A substitute for this bill passed the 
House, which was subsequently accepted by the Senate. This bill contin- 
ued in force the bureau until otherwise ordered by law, and provided for its 
extension to freedmen and refugees in all parts of the United States, the en- 
tire section containing such persons to be divided into twelve districts, over 
each of which an assistant commissioner should preside. These districts, in 
turn, were to be subdivided, so that there should be one for each county or 
parish, each of which was to be controlled by an agent. It provided for the 
issue by the Secretary of War of provisions, clothing, fuel, and other sup- 
plies, including medical stores and transportation; and that the secretary 
might afford such aid as was necessary for the temporary shelter and sup- 
ply of destitute freedmen and refugees, with their wives and children, The 
President was authorized to reserve from sale and set apart unoccupied pub- 
lic lands in the South for the use of freedmen and loyal refugees, the amount 
thus appropriated not to exceed three millions of,acres of good land, to be 
allotted in parcels of not more than forty acres each, the tenants to be pro- 
tected in the use thereof for such time and at such rental as should be agreed 
upon between the commissioners and freedmen. This land might ultimate- 
ly be purchased by the occupants. Those occupying land under General 
Sherman’s special order of January 16, 1865, were confirmed in possession 
for three years. This act also provided for the erection of asylums and 


1 Yrvas.—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fessenden, Fos- 
ter, Grimes, Ifarris, Henderson, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, 
Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Trumbull, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates—29, 

Nays.—Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, Lane 
of Kansas, McDougall, Morgan, Nesmith, Norton, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stewart, Stockton, and Van 
Winkle—18. 

Apsent.—Messrs. Foot, Howard, and Wright—3. 

2 The bill established in the War Department for the war and one year thereafter a Bureau of 
Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, for the supervision and management of all abandoned 
lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states, or from 
any district of the country within the territory embraced in the operations of the army, under rules 
to be approved by the President. The bureau to have a commissioner at $3000 year, and $50,000 
bonds, with an assistant commissioner for each rebel state, not exceeding ten, at $2500 a year, and 
$20,000 bonds. ‘The assistants to make quarterly reports to the commissioner, and he a report at 
each session of Congress. 

Section 2 authorizes the Secretary of War to direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel 

as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suf- 
fering refugees and freedmen, and their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he 
may direct. 
' The bill also gives the commissioner, under the direction of the President, authority to set apart 
for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as 
shall have been abandoned, or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation, 
or sale, or otherwise. And to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid, there 
shall be assigned not more than forty acres of such land, and the persons to whom it is so assigned 
shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the land for the term of three years, at an annual 
rent not exceeding six per cent. upon the value of said land as it was appraised by the state authori- 
ties in 1860 for the purpose of taxation, and in case no such appraisal can be found, then the rental 
shall be based upon the estimated value of the land in said year, to be ascertained in such manner 
as the commissioner may, by regulation, prescribe. At the end of said term, or at any time during 
said term, the occupants of any parcels so assigned may purchase the land and receive such title 
thereto as the United States can convey upon paying therefor the value of the land, as ascertained 
and fixed for the purpose of determining the annual rent as aforesaid. 


9X 


RECONSTRUCTION. —1865-1867, 


817 


schools. It also contained provisions for the protection of the civil rights 
of freedmen.! 

This bill was vetoed by the President February 19th, 1866. His objec. 
tions may be briefly stated thus: 

1, The act was unnecessary, the original act not having yet expired. 
That act was considered sufficiently stringent in time of war. Before its 
expiration, farther experience may lead to a wise policy for a time of peace. 

2. The act contained provisions not warranted by the Constitution. It 
substituted military for civil tribunals, and military law for civil law in time 
of peace. 

3. The exercise of such arbitrary power by so vast a number of agents 
must be attended by acts of caprice, injustice, and passion. From these offi- 
cers of the bureau there was no appeal. 

4, The continuance of this military establishment was not limited to any 
definite period of time. 

5. While it was intended to protect the negro, it deprived other citizens 
of constitutional rights. ‘I can not,” said the President, ‘reconcile a sys- 
tem of military jurisdiction of this kind with the words of the Constitution, 
which declare that ‘no person shall be held to answer for a capital or other- 
wise infamous crime unless upon a presentment or indictment of a grand 
jury, except in cases arising in the land and naval forces, or in the militia 
when in actual service in time of war or public danger;’ and that ‘in all 
criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and pub- 
lic trial by an impartial jury of the state or district wherein the crime shall 
have been committed.’ ” 

6. It placed too much power in the hands of the President. It would 
enable him to control four millions of people for his own political ends. 

7. A system for the support of indigent persons in the United States was 
never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, nor could any good 
reason be given why it should be founded for one class of our people more 
than another. The idea on which the slaves were assisted to freedom was 
that, on becoming free, they would be a self-sustaining population. 

8. It was an expensive system. 

9. It deprived the rightful owners of certain lands of their property with- 
out due process of law. 

10. It was injurious to the freedman, encouraging him to entertain idle 
and vague expectations. 

11. Eleven states were still unrepresented, and these were the very states 
most nearly concerned in the operations of the bill. 

The House passed the bill over the President’s veto, but it failed to re- 
ceive a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and thus failed to become alaw. Be- 
fore the end of May a new bill was presented in the House by Thomas D. 
Eliot, of Massachusetts, apparently obviating many of the objections which 
had been urged by the President against the former enactment. This new 
bill simply sought to supplement the act already in operation by provisions 
applicable to the altered situation since that act had been passed. It con- 
tinued that act in force for two years; appropriated one million instead of 
three millions of acres for the use of the freedmen, and embodied the provi- 
sions of the Civil Rights Bill. This bill, after various amendments, passed 
both houses, and was presented to the President for his approval. On the 
16th of July Johnson returned the bill with objections similar to those 
urged against the previous act. It was again passed in both houses by a 
two-thirds vote, and became a law. 

In the mean time Congress had passed the Civil Rights Bill. This act 
was supported in both houses by the entire Republican party.? It was 


1 «¢ Sec, 7. That whenever in any state or district in which the ordinary course of judicial pro- 
ceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, and wherein, in consequence of any state or local 
law, ordinance, police or other regulation, custom, or prejudice, any of the civil rights or immunities 
belonging to white persons, including the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, 
and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and 
to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and estate, in- 
cluding the constitutional right of bearing arms, are refused or denied to negroes, mulattoes, freed- 
men, refugees, or any other persons, on account of race, color, or any previous condition of slavery 
or involuntary servitude, or wherein they or any of them are subjected to any other or different 
punishment, pains, or penalties for the commission of any act or offense than are prescribed for 
white persons committing like acts or offenses, it shall be the duty of the President of the United 
States, through the commissioner, to extend military protection and jurisdiction over all cases af- 
fecting such persons so discriminated against. 

‘¢ Sec. 8. That any person who, under color of any state or local law, ordinance, police, or other 
regulation or custom, shall, in any state or district in which the ordinary course of judicial pro- 
ceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, subject, or cause to be subjected, any negro, mulat- 
to, freedman, refugee, or other person, on account of race or color, or any previous condition of 
slavery or involuntary servitude, or for any other cause, to the deprivation of any civil right secured 
to white persons, or to any other or different punishment than white persons are subject to for the 
commission of like acts or offenses, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by 
fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both; and it 
shall be the duty of the officers and agents of this bureau to take jurisdiction of, and hear and de- 
termine all offenses committed against the provisions of this section, and also of all cases affecting 
negroes, mulattoes, freedmen, refugees, or other persons who are discriminated against in any of 
the particulars mentioned in the preceding section of this act, under such rules and regulations as 
the President of the United States, through the War Department, shall prescribe. The jurisdic- 
tion conferred by this and the preceding section on the officers and agents of this bureau shall 
cease and determine whenever the discrimination on account of which it is conferred ceases, and 
in no eyent to be exercised in any state in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has 
not been interrupted by the rebellion, nor in any such state after said state shall have been fully re- 
stored in all its constitutional relations to the United States, and the courts of the state and of the 
United States within the same are not disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice.” 

2 The following is the text of the bill: 

“¢ Be it enacted, etc., That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign 
power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and 
such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or inyol- 
untary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convict- 
ed, shall have the same right in every state and territory in the United States to make and enforce 
contracts; to sue, be parties, and give evidence; to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey 
real estate and personal property ; and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the 
security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punish- 
ment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation. or custom to 
the contrary notwithstanding. 

‘* Sec. 2. That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or cus- 
tom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any state or territory to the depriva- 
tion of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on 
account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servi- 
tude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by 


818 


vetoed by the President March 27,1866. This veto was not based upon 
sound reasoning, and the message of the President totally disregarded the 
obvious necessity of the Congressional enactment. The bill was again pass- 
ed by both houses over the executive veto. 

A bill was passed early in May admitting Colorado as a state, but it was 
vetoed by the President on the ground that it was doubtful whether the 
majority of the people of that Territory desired a state government, that the 
population was insufficient, and that, until the Southern section of the coun- 
try was represented in Congress, it was undesirable to admit new states. 
The bill was not repassed. 

A bill was introduced early in the session to extend the right of suffrage 
to negroes in the District of Columbia. It passed the House, after an un- 
successful attempt on the part of a Republican member to obtain its post- 
ponement, by a vote of 116 to 54. It was not brought to a vote in the Sen- 
ate until the next session, when it passed, was vetoed by the President, and 


reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed 
guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand 
dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court. 

** Sec. 3. That the District Courts of the United States, within their respective districts, shall 
have, exclusively of the courts of the several states, cognizance of all crimes and offenses commit- 
ted against the provisions of this act, and also, concurrently with the Circuit Courts of the United 
States, of all causes, civil and criminal, affecting persons who are denied or can not enforce in the 
courts or judicial tribunals of the state or locality where there may be any of the rights secured to 
them by the first section of this act; and if any suit or prosecution, civil or criminal, has been or 
shall be commenced in any state court against any such person, for any cause whatsoever, or against 
any officer, civil or military, or other person, for any arrest or imprisonment, trespasses, or wrongs 
done or committed by virtue or under color of authority derived from this act, or the act establish- 
ing a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees, and all acts amendatory thereof, or for refus- 
ing to do any act upon the ground that it would be inconsistent with this act, such defendant shall 
have the right to remove such cause for trial to the proper District or Circuit Court in the manner 
prescribed by the ‘ Act relating to Habeas Corpus and regulating Judicial Proceedings in certain 
cases,’ approved March 3, 1863, and all acts amendatory thereof. The jurisdiction in civil and 
criminal matters hereby conferred on the District and Circuit Courts of the United States shall be 
exercised and enforced in conformity with the laws of the United States so far as such laws are suit- 
able to carry the same into effect; but in all cases where such laws are not adapted to the object, 
or are deficient in the provisions necessary to furnish suitable remedies and punish offenses against 
law, the common law, as modified and changed by the Constitution and statutes of the state where- 
in the court having jurisdiction of the cause, civil or criminal, is held, so far as the same is not in- 
consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, shall be extended to and govern said 
courts in the trial and disposition of such cause, and, if of a criminal nature, in the infliction of pun- 
ishment on the party found guilty. 

“Sec, 4. That the district attorneys, marshals, and deputy marshals of the United States, the 
commissioners appointed by the Circuit Court and territorial courts of the United States, with pow- 
ers of arresting, imprisoning, or bailing offenders against the laws of the United States, the officers 
and agents of the F'reedmen’s Bureau, and every other officer who may be specially empowered by 
the President of the United States, shall be, and they are hereby specially authorized and required, 
at the expense of the United States, to institute proceedings against all and every person who shall 
violate the provisions of this act, and cause him or them to be arrested and imprisoned, or bailed, 
as the case may be, for trial before such court of the United States or territorial court as by this act 
has cognizance of the offense. And with a view to affording reasonable protection to all persons in 
their constitutional rights of equality before the law, without distinction of race or color, or previous 
condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted, and to the prompt discharge of the duties of this act, it shall be the 
duty of the Circuit Courts of the United States and the Superior Courts of the Territories of the 
United States, from time to time to increase the number of commissioners, so as to afford a speedy 
and convenient means for the arrest and examination of persons charged with a violation of this 
act. And such commissioners are hereby authorized and required to exercise and discharge all 
the powers and duties conferred on them by this act, and the same duties with regard to offenses 
created by this act, as they are authorized by law to exercise with regard to other offenses against 
the laws of the United States. 

“Sec. 5. That it shall be the duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute all 
warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act when to them directed; and should 
any marshal or deputy marshal refuse to receive such warrant or other process when tendered, or 
to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in 
the sum of one thousand dollars, to the use of the person upon whom the accused is alleged to have 
committed the offense. And the better to enable the said commissioners to execute their duties 
faithfully and efficiently, in conformity with the Constitution of the United States and the require- 
ments of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respectively, to 
appoint, in writing, under their hands, any one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to exe- 
cute all such warrants and other process that may be issued by them in the lawful performance of 
their respective duties ; and the persons so appointed to execute any warrant or process as afore- 
said shall have authority to summon and call to their aid the by-standers or the posse comitatus of 
the proper county, or such portion of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the mili- 
tia, as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they are charged, and to insure 
a faithful observance of the clause of the Constitution which prohibits slavery, in conformity with 
the provisions of this act; and said warrants shall run and be executed by said officers any where 
in the state or territory within which they are issued. 

“Sec. 6. That any person who shall knowingly and willfully obstruct, hinder, or preyent any offi- 
cer, or other person charged with the execution of any warrant or process issued under the provi- 
sions of this act, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him or them, from arresting any per- 
son for whose apprehension such warrant or process may have been issued, or shall rescue or at- 
tempt to rescue such person from the custody of the officer, other person or persons, or those law- 
fully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested pursuant to the authority herein given and declared, 
or shall aid, abet, or assist any person so arrested as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from 
the custody of the officer or other person legally authorized as aforesaid, or shall harbor or conceal 
any person for whose arrest a warrant or process shall have been issued as aforesaid, so as to pre- 
vent his discovery and arrest after notice or knowledge of the fact that a warrant has been issued 
for the apprehension of such person, shall, for either of said offenses, be subject to a fine not ex- 
ceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and con- 
viction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which said offense may have 
been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of 
the organized territories of the United States. 

“Sec. 7. That the district attorneys, the marshals, their deputies, and the clerks of the said Dis- 
trict and Territorial Courts shall be paid for their services the like fees as may be allowed to them 
for similar services in other cases; and in all cases where the proceedings are before a commis- 
sioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of ten dollars in full for his services in each case, inclusive of all 
services incident to such arrest and examination. ‘The person or persons authorized to execute 
the process to be issued by such commissioners for the arrest of offenders against the provisions of 
this act shall be entitled to a fee of five dollars for each person he or they may arrest and take be- 
fore any such commissioner as aforesaid, with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by 
such commissioner for such other additional services as may be necessarily performed by him or 
them, such as attending at the examination, keeping the prisoner in custody, and providing him 
with food and lodging during his detention, and until the final determination of such commissioner, 
and in general for performing such other duties as may be required in the premises ; such fees to 
be made up in conformity with the fees usually charged by the officers of the courts of justice with- 
in the proper district or county, as near as may be practicable, and paid out of the treasury of the 
United States on the certificate of the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and to 
be recoverable from the defendant as part of the judgment in case of conviction. 

‘Sec. 8. That whenever the President of the United States shall have reason to believe that 
offenses have been, or are likely to be committed against the provisions of this act within any ju- 
dicial district, it shall be lawful for him, in his discretion, to direct the judge, marshal, and district 
attorney of such district to attend at such place within the district, and for such time as he may 
designate, for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged with a violation 
of this act ; and it shall be the duty of every judge or other officer, when any such requisition shall 
be received by him, to attend at the place and for the time therein designated. 

“* Sec. 9. That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, or such person as he 
may empower for that purpose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United States, 
or of the militia, as shall be necessary to preyent the violation and enforce the due execution of 
this act. 

Sec. 10, That upon all questions of law arising in any cause under the provisions of this act, a 
final appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States.” 


HARPER’S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


= 


[ JULY, 1866. 


on the 7th and 8th of January, 1867, was repassed by a two-thirds vote in 
the Senate and House.! 

The first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress closed on the 28th of J uly, 
after a continuance of nearly eight months. During this period the political 
situation had been radically changed. When the Thirty-ninth Congress as- 
sembled, there was no strongly-marked popular dissatisfaction on account 
of the measures adopted by President Johnson in the early stages of recon- 
struction. Now the people murmured against the administration; the Pres- 
ident had lost his hold upon the popular confidence. Radical Republicans 
now as vehemently denounced him as Copperheads had at the time of his in- 
auguration. The latter, from calling him a boor, had come to grant him a 
place among the gods; the former, who had once shouted his praises to the 
echo, now not only took the scoffers’ place, but boldly proclaimed him a 
traitor. 

There had been in the ranks of the dominant party some apprehension of 
Johnson’s policy at the outset, but it scarcely found a voice before the meet- 
ing of Congress. There was a feeling of insecurity, caused by the prospect 
of a too hasty admission of the Southern representatives to Congress, and 
enhanced by the half-hearted expression of loyalty on the part of the South- 
ern Conventions and Legislatures; but this was to a great degree counter- 
acted by the hope that Congress and the President would unite upon some 
plan by which harmony would soon be restored, the wounds occasioned by 
civil strife healed, and the national safety secured. No conflict between the 
executive and Congress—at least none which would prove irreconcilable— 
was apprehended. The war record of President Johnson, his vehement de- 
nunciation of treason, his oft-repeated expressions of deference to the popu- 
lar will, and the fact that thus far he had been carrying out the policy of 
restoration which Lincoln had inaugurated, and had only modified that pol- 
icy by severer features as against rebels—all these were taken as assurances 
that he, at least, would not be a ready party to such a conflict, And, on the 
other hand, the popular confidence in the wisdom of Congress was a source 
of encouragement. It was well known that there were in that body certain 
members who would push their extreme and impracticable theories to the 
utmost ; but, if Sumner, and Stevens, and Boutwell, and Ashley were there, 
there also were Fessenden, Sherman, Trumbull, Colfax, Conkling, Doolit- 
tle, and Raymond. The factious disposition and the partisan fury of the few, 
it was thought, would be controlled and overruled by the unsectional patri- 
otism of wiser and better-tempered statesmen. 

But scarcely had Congress assembled before this feeling of assurance, this 
anticipation of harmony, began to be disturbed. We regret that we must 
attribute to President Johnson’s policy so much of the responsibility for 
the discord—the more shameful because it was unnecessary—which now 
began to develop into the most violent antagonism. He had already estab- 
lished a basis for this conflict by not convening and consulting Congress at 
the outset. Undoubtedly he thought that the policy which he had adopt- 
ed was supported by the people, and that nothing more than that was nec- 
essary. He had good reasons for judging thus. But, in carrying out this 
policy, some circumstances presented themselves to which he did not pay 


' The following is the text of this enactment : 

** Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in 
Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act, each and every male person, ex- 
cepting paupers and persons under guardianship, of the age of twenty-one years and upward, who 
has not been convicted of any infamous crime or offense, and excepting persons who may haye 
voluntarily given aid and comfort to the rebels in the late rebellion, and who shall have been born 
or naturalized in the United States, and who shall have resided in the said District for the period 
of one year, and three months in the ward or election precinct in which he shall offer to vote next 
preceding any election therein, shall be entitled to the elective franchise, and shall be deemed an 
elector, and entitled to vote at any election in said District, without any distinction on account of 
color or race. 

“Sno. 2, And be it further enacted, That any person whose duty it shall be to receive yotes at 
any election within the District of Columbia, who shall willfully refuse to receive, or who shall will- 
fully reject, the vote of any person entitled to such right under this act, shall be liable to an action 
of tort by the person injured, and shall be liable, on indictment and conviction, if such act was done 
knowingly, to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or to imprisonment for a term not exceed- 
ing one year in the jail of said District, or to both. 

“Suc. 3. And be it further enacted, That if any person or persons shall willfully interrupt or dis- 
turb any such elector in the exercise of such franchise, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a mis- 
demeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not to exceed one thousand dol- 
lars, or be imprisoned in the jail in said District for a period not to exceed thirty days, or both, at 
the discretion of the court. 

“Sexo. 4. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the several courts having crimi- 
nal jurisdiction in said District to give this act in special charge to the grand jury at the com- 
mencement of each term of the court next preceding the holding of any general or city election 


| in said District. 


“Suc. 5. And be it further enacted, That the mayors and aldermen of the cities of Washington 
and Georgetown respectively, on or before the first day of March in each year, shall prepare a list 
of the persons they judge to be qualified to vote in the several wards of said cities in any election ; 
and said mayors and aldermen shall be in open session to receive evidence of the qualification of 
persons claiming the right to vote in any election therein, and for correcting said list, on two days 
in each year, not exceeding five days prior to the annual election for the choice of city officers, giv- 
ing previous notice of the time and place of each session in some newspaper printed in said Dis- 
trict. 

“Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That on or before the first day of March, the mayors and 
aldermen of said cities shall post up a list of voters thus prepared‘in one or more public places in 
said cities respectively, at least ten days prior to said annual election. 

“Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the officers presiding at any election shall keep and use 
the check-list herein required at the polls during the election of all ofticers, and no vote shall be re- 
ceived unless delivered by the voter in person, and not until the presiding officer has had opportu- 
nity to be satisfied of his identity, and shall find his name on the list, and mark it, and ascertain 
that his vote is single. 

“Suc. 8. And be it further enacted, That it is hereby declared unlawful for any person, directly 
or indirectly, to promise, offer, or give, or procure, or cause to be promised, offered, or given, any 
money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or reward, or any promise, understanding, obligation, 
or security for the payment or delivery of any money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or re- 
ward, or any other valuable thing whatever, to any person with intent to influence his vote to be 
given at any election hereafter to be held within the District of Columbia ; and every person so of- 
fending shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in any sum not exceeding two thousand dollars, or 
imprisoned not exceeding two years, or both, at the discretion of the court. 

“Sno. 9. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall accept, directly or indirectly, any 
money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or reward, or any promise, understanding, obligation, 
or security, for the payment or delivery of any money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or re- 
ward, or any other valuable thing whatever, to influence his vote at any election hereafter to be held 
in the District of Columbia, shall, on conviction, be imprisoned not Jess than one year, and be for- 
ever disfranchised. 

“Sec. 10, And be it further enacted, That all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act 
be, and the same is hereby repealed.” 


. 
. 
4 
; 


Fesrvary—May, 1866. ] 


sufficient regard. He had thrown the burden of reconstruction upon the 
Southern people, which was right. But they had not taken up this burden 
in the proper spirit; he was himself dissatisfied, and he must have known 
that the loyal people would not be less so; yet, although he had expressed 
his disappointment, he had shown a lack of firmness and of judgment in 
allowing this spirit to have full sway ; in finally sanctioning it by his as- 
sent, however reluctant, and without consultation with Congress; in encour- 
aging the idea that the Southern States might hope for representation in 
that body on the basis of their imperfectly expressed allegiance. Congress, 
with good reason, felt aggrieved by this action of the President. 

Congress, upon its meeting, did exactly what it would have done if Lin- 
coln had been President. It appointed a joint committee to investigate the 
whole subject. Upon mature consideration, it felt that it could not, with a 
proper regard to the national safety, respond to the expectations which the 
President had encouraged the Southern people to entertain. Thus the di- 
vergence between the executive and Congress began. On the part of the 
majority there was no misconstruction of the motives of the President and 
no ill temper; but there were some members who could not refrain from 
denouncing “the man at the other end of the avenue.” Stevens went so 
far as to say that the President’s usurpation of authority was no less hein- 
ous a crime than that which had cost Charles the First his head. 

And just here it was that President Johnson began to show his most ex- 
traordinary lack of judgment. Harmony of action was still possible be- 
tween the two branches of government. The only necessity on the Presi- 
dent’s part was that he should keep his temper. Whether he ought to have 
kept or abandoned his policy may be a debatable question, about which 
much might be said on both sides; but certainly he ought not to have lost 
his temper and self-control, since that loss would prove fatal alike to his 
own good fame and to his policy. Unfortunately, Johnson belonged to that 
class of politicians who can never refuse a challenge to antagonism, and fool- 
ishly took up the gauntlet which Stevens had so adroitly flung. The chal- 
lenge did not come from Congress. It did come from a man who, without 
self-conceit, could boast that he had the power arbitrarily to control the de- 
bates of the House, but that was no excuse for such an acceptance of the 
challenge by the President of the United States as that into which John- 
son was betrayed in his speech at Washington on the 22d of February, 1866. 
He then and there publicly declared that, after one rebellion had been sub- 
dued, another had just begun. An attempt, he said, was being made “to 
concentrate all power in the hands of a few at the federal head, and thereby 
bring about a consolidation of the republic, which is equally objectionable 
with its dissolution. We find a power assumed and attempted to be exer- 
cised of a most extraordinary character. We see now that governments can 
be revolutionized without going into the battle-field, and sometimes the rev- 
olutions most distressing to a people are effected without the shedding of 
blood; that is, the substance of your government may be taken away, 
while there is held out to you the form and the shadow. And now, what 
are the attempts, and what is being proposed? We find that by an irre- 
sponsible central directory nearly all the powers of Congress are assumed, 
without even consulting the legislative and executive departments of the 
government. By a resolution reported by a committee, upon whom and in 
whom the legislative power of the government has been lodged, that great 
principle in the Constitution which authorizes and empowers the legislative 
department, the Senate and House of Representatives, to be the judges of 
elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, has been virtu- 
ally taken away from the two respective branches of the national Legisla- 
ture, and conferred upon a committee, who must report before the body 
can act on the question of the admission of members to their seats. By this 
rule they assume a state is out of the Union, and to have its practical rela- 
tions restored by that rule before the House can judge of the qualifications 
of its own members. What position is that? You have been struggling 
for four years to put down a rebellion. You contended at the beginning of 
that struggle that a state had not a right to go out. You said it had neither 
the right nor the power, and it has been settled that the states had neither 
the right nor the power to go out of the Union. And when you determine 
by the executive, by the military, and by the public judgment that these 
states can not have any right to go out, this committee turns around and as- 
sumes that they are out, and that they shall not come in.” In this strain the 
President continued. Not satisfied with denouncing a proceeding of Con- 
gress which was evidently proper, and the purport of which he wholly mis- 
construed, he, in answer to a call from the crowd, went so far as to mention 
the names of Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Wendell Phillips as 
men ‘opposed to the fundamental principles of the government, and now 
laboring to destroy them.” He called the Secretary of the Senate a “dead 
duck.” He said he did not intend to be governed by real or pretended 
friends, nor to be bullied by his enemies. When he was beheaded, like 
Charles the First, he wanted the American people to be the witness, He 
foolishly attached serious importance to Stevens’s equally foolish insinua- 
tion about his deserving execution. ‘I do not want,” he said, “ by innuen- 
does of an indirect character in high places, to have one say to a man who 
has assassination broiling in his heart, ‘there is a fit subject,’ and also ex- 
claim that the ‘presidential obstacle’ must be got out of the way, when pos- 
sibly the intention was to institute assassination. Are those who want to 
destroy our institutions and change the character of the government not 
satisfied with the blood that has been shed? Are they not satisfied with 
one martyr? Does not the blood of Lincoln appease the vengeance and 
wrath of the opponents of this government? Is their thirst still unslaked? 
Do they want more blood? Have they not honor and courage enough to 
effect the removal of the presidential obstacle otherwise than through the 


RECONSTRUCTION.—1865-1867. 


819 


hands of the assassin? Iam not afraid of assassins; but if it must be, I 
would wish to be encountered where one brave man can oppose another. 
I hold him in dread only who strikes cowardly. But if they have courage 
enough to strike like men (1 know they are willing to wound, but they are 
afraid to strike)—if my blood is to be shed because I vindicate the Union 
and the preservation of this government in its original purity and charac- 
ter, let it be so; but when it is done, let an altar of the Union be erected, 
and then, if necessary, lay me upon it, and the blood that now warms and 
animates my frame shall be poured out in a last libation as a tribute to the 
Union; and let the opponents of this government remember that when it is 
poured out the blood of the martyr will be the seed of the Church. The 
Union will grow. It will continue to increase in strength and power, though 
it may be cemented and cleansed with blood.” 

Nothing could have been more unwise than this speech of Johnson’s, He 
showed himself too ready to answer vituperation with vituperation. It was 
the speech of a demagogue and not of a statesman. It manifested his inca- 
pacity to become a popular leader, whatever might be the merits of his pol- 
icy. 

Thus the conflict progressed and continually increased in bitterness. 
Johnson committed himself to it with gladiatorial eagerness. He was in 
no fit temper to listen to the wisest and most potent arguments which Con- 
gress might suggest. All hope of reconciliation soon disappeared. In his 
veto messages he plumply denied the right of Congress to adopt legislative 
measures preliminary to the admission of duly qualified members from the 
Southern States, and Congress, in its turn, denied his right to adopt the 
measures which he had adopted preliminary to his recognition of those 
states. The appeal, therefore, was to the people. 

The Republican party was divided. The people were divided, and it ap- 
peared for a long time difficult to decide whether its verdict would be for 
the executive or for Congress. In the mean time, a decision had been ren- 
dered by the Supreme Court of the United States against the constitution- 
ality of test oaths. Certain Republicans in Washington, coinciding with 
the views of the President, formed an organization known as the “ National 
Union Club.” This organization was subsequently united with another of 
similar character in Washington, and a National Union executive commit- 
tee was appointed. On the 23d of May the members of this league sere- 
naded the President and the officers of his cabinet to elicit an expression 
of views on the existing crisis. In most cases, and especially in that of 
Secretary McCulloch, the ministerial advisers of the President sustained his 
policy of restoration. Secretary Stanton did not commit himself. He said 
that “no one better than Johnson understood the solemn duty imposed 
upon the national executive to maintain the national authority, vindicated 
at so great a sacrifice, and the obligation not to suffer the just fruits of so 
many battles and victories to slip away or turn to ashes.” After a calm 
and full discussion, he said that he had yielded to the President’s opinion 
against negro suffrage. He distinctly declared that the plan reported by 
the Congressional Committee on Reconstruction did not receive his assent. 
Postmaster General Dennison regretted the difference between the Presi- 
dent and Congress. He did not believe it rested upon any good reasons, 
and thought that time and discussion would bring reconciliation. Secre- 
tary Seward was absent at Auburn, New York, but he there indulged in a 
frank expression of his views. He was hopeful—‘hopeful of the President, 
hopeful of Congress, hopeful of the National Union party, hopeful of the un- 
represented states—above all, hopeful of the favor of Almighty God.” He 
ought ever afterward to be styled “Secretary Hopeful.” 

On the 25th of June a call was issued for a National Union Convention, 
to be composed of at least two delegates from each Congressional District in 
every state, two from each Territory, two from the District of Columbia, and 
four delegates at large from each of the states, to meet at Philadelphia Au- 
cust 14. This call was signed by A.W. Randall, J. R. Doolittle, O. H. Brown- 
ing, Edgar Cowan, Charles Knapp, and Samuel Fowler, members of the ex- 
ecutive committee of the National Union Club. The delegates, however, 
were to agree upon the following principles: That the Union could not be 
dissolved even by Congressional action; that each state has the undoubted 
right to prescribe the qualifications of its own electors, and no external 
power rightfully can or ought to dictate, control, or influence the free and 
voluntary action of the states in the exercise of that right; that the main- 
tenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially of the right of 
each state to order and control its own domestic concerns, according to its 
own judgment exclusively, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States, is essential to the balance of power on which the perfection and en- 
durance of our political fabric depend, and the overthrow of that system by 
the usurpation and centralization of power in Congress would be a revolu. 
tion dangerous to republican government and destructive of liberty ; and 
that each house of Congress is made, by the Constitution, the sole judge of 
the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members; but the exclusion 
of loyal senators and representatives, properly chosen and qualified under 
the Constitution and laws, is unjust and revolutionary. 

This call was followed on the 4th of July by an address to the people, 
signed by 41 Democratic members of Congress, who approved the call and 
the principles therein set forth. The executive committee addressed letters 
to each member of the cabinet, to obtain, in reply, an expression of their 
views as to the propriety ofsuch a Convention, and as to the principles upon 
which the call had been based. Seward replied that he considered restora- 
tion the most vital interest of the country. Nothing could complete this 
but the admission of loyal members from the Southern States. Every day’s 
delay increased our domestic and foreign embarrassment. It seemed not 
only proper, but expedient, therefore, that all parties should unite in remon- 


820 


strance against the Congressional policy. Secretary Welles was not less 
strong and explicit in the position taken by him in favor of the Conven- 
tion. Attorney General Speed expressed far different views. Many of the 
principles set forth in the call for the Convention he deemed unobjection- 
able. But the formation of this new party would dissolve the old Union 
party, which had, in face of the prophecies of half the New and all the Old 
world, saved the government from demoralization and utter ruin. The 
scheme of this new party was, in his view, a distraction from the real and 
all-absorbing question of the moment—the acceptance or rejection by the 
people of the Congressional amendment. Being himself decidedly in favor 
of the amendment, he could not identify himself with an organization which 
ignored its importance and smothered its discussion. Postmaster General 
Dennison replied on July 11th by tendering his resignation, which was ac- 
cepted by the President, who appointed A. W. Randall, of Wisconsin, to act 
as his successor. The causes given by Dennison for his resignation were 
his difference of opinion with the President in regard to the proposed amend- 
ment and the movement for the Philadelphia Convention. The attorney 
general soon after resigned, and was succeeded by Henry Stansberry, of 
Ohio. The Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Harlan, of Iowa, having been elect- 
ed senator, resigned, and Orville H. Browning, of Ohio, was appointed in his 
stead. 

And here let us pause for a moment to look at the various phases of the 
political situation which presented itself in the summer of 1866, just before 
the meeting of the Philadelphia Convention. In this connection the mis- 
takes of the President or of Congress are not to be considered; for, even 
if we admit that Congress had erred as well as the President, these errors 
belonged to the past, and could not be reversed. It was evident that the 
conflict between the two departments of the government now admitted of 
no reconciliation. We are not now to consider how previously reconcilia- 
tion could have been effected ; it was not now possible. We must also con- 
cede both to the President and to Congress the constitutional right to act 
precisely as they had acted. Whatever want of tact there may have been 
on the part of either is not here a subject for consideration. Neither party 
to the conflict had been in the slightest degree guilty of any usurpation, 
We are to forget all extraneous and incidental considerations, and confine 
ourselves to the precise issue presented to the people. For the moment we 
are to banish both the President and Congress from a place in our thoughts, 
and weigh the two policies between which the people must decide. We 
must not forget, however, that the people had not been all this while a silent 
party to the contract. The President believed that his policy was support- 
ed by the people, and Congress had been restrained from the adoption of 
more radical measures by the fear that these would not obtain the popular 
assent. Both the President and Congress appealed to the people. And the 
issue presented was a very plain one: it was simply a question whether it 
should ignore the President and accept the Congressional amendment as a 
preliminary to the admission of Southern representatives, or ignore Con- 
gress and decide in favor of immediate representation on the President’s 
plan. 

It was a plain question. Kither the policy of the President or that of 
Congress must receive the popular sanction. But, although the line drawn 
between the two policies was so clearly defined, the motives influencing the 
popular judgment were various and complex. The question resolved it- 
self into one of expediency. Which plan, under the circumstances, ought 
to be adopted? Thus all mere theories were swept out of the arena of dis- 
cussion. The issue was intensely practical, and pressed instantly for deci- 
sion—neither time nor room was left for speculation. There were dangers 
to be avoided, there were benefits to be maintained and secured. Which 
plan most surely averted danger? Which secured the most lasting good ? 

The ploa put in for each policy was strong, and urgently demanded care- 
ful and calm consideration. The advocates of the executive plan for res- 
toration claimed that the war had a distinct purpose which had already 
been accomplished—the extinction of armed rebellion. Slavery also had 
been extinguished with rebellion. Thus the root and seed of all our strife 
had been removed. But, although the slave had departed, the negro remain- 
ed. In many of the states the negro population at the close of the war ex- 
ceeded the white. The two races would naturally abide together, for each 
needed the other. The white race needed the black for labor, not because 
it would not itself labor, but because of the extraordinary resources of the 
southern section of the country, which demanded for their full develop- 
ment not only all the white and black inhabitants already occupying it, but 
thousands upon thousands more who would come from the Northern States 
as immigrants, and from all the nations of Kurope. The black race stood 
in no less need of the white, because the latter had intelligence in a great- 
er degree, was used to the exercise of political power, and must therefore, 
of necessity, be the regulative and controlling race. Not regulative in the 
despotic sense, in which it had been hitherto as the task-masters over the 
black, but, because of its greater civilization, it was more competent to carry 
out the ends of civilization. To change this relation, to give the black race 
all the political mastery to which it might be entitled merely on the basis of 
numbers, would be to fight Nature, who gives sovereignty not to numbers, 
but to developed capacity. Such a revolution against Nature would neces- 
sarily put back the civilization of one half of the nation by a foolish sur- 
render of power to ignorance or incompetency. We must trust to Nature, 
whose movements, if they are large in their cycles and slow of accomplish- 
ment, are nevertheless efficient. Before the war, Nature had already decreed 
the death of slavery, and the war itself had grown out of an attempt on the 
part of slaveholders to defy Nature; for they saw that slavery, restricted 
as it must be by the nation under the pressure of moral opinion, would 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


[AUGUST, 1866. 


surely die. They said, therefore, we will resist the pressure; we will make 
a new nation, with slavery for the corner-stone; there shall be no restric- 
tion, and this peculiar institution shall live forever! They defied Nature, 
and were defeated; and the very institution which by revolution they hoped 
to save, was by revolution destroyed. By this revolution the society of the 
South was reduced back to first principles—to a new beginning. A new 
era was opened to labor, now emancipated. A period of transition was now 
commenced. Might we not trust to Nature, and to the new influences in 
operation, and to time for results? Labor, free, must have a destiny of its 
own. Intelligence must follow, and the development of political capacity 
in the masses. The revolution had been radical. All things were new, and 
must grow out ofa new beginning. Might we not trust to this new growth? 
Would we not best help it on by an era of mutual trust and good feeling? 
Might not the North say to the South, “ Work out your destiny for your- 
self under these new and better influences, and we will await with patience 
the result, and will not interfere?” Would not legislative interference, de- 
fying Nature, defeat its own purpose? Was it necessary to add to the 
changes produced by the war any change in the organic law beyond the 
declaration of the death of slavery? That dead, would not the new life of 
the South, under the new circumstances, develop satisfactory results? 

Thus questioned and reasoned those, who, without partisan motives and 
from simple patriotism, supported the President’s policy. Among the best 
representatives of this class was Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 

But to all this reasoning Congress, and the supporters of Congress, had a 
reply. It is true, said they, that we are to begin anew, and that we must 
largely trust to the working of Nature and the influences of time. But the 
South does not begin anew as a separate section, but as a part of a great 
nation. The responsibilities of the moment do not rest upon a part alone, 
but upon the whole. The whole nation is beginning anew, and not one 
section alone. The South does not stand by itself in this new era. The na- 
tional Legislature, acting under the organic law—the Constitution—is the 
regulative power. The revolution which has taken place must be recog- 
nized here, in this Legislature, in this organic law. It is true that Nature 
is large in movement, slow, and in the end efficient. But Nature is some- 
times diseased, abnormal in its action, and may be helped by remedies. The 
diseases of the past, the result of slavery, still cling to the ruling, regulative 
race in the South, and will injuriously affect not only Southern develop- 
ment, but the national growth. Labor in the South is emancipated, but, in 
those who control labor there, the oppressive spirit developed by slavery 
still remains. With this oppressive class, whose political power in the na- 
tional councils is rather increased than diminished by the death of slavery, 
there is a party in the North at this moment ready to strike hands and 
unite in a treaty, offensive and defensive, for the control of the country. It 
is within our power, and is therefore a duty for which we are responsible, 
to avert this possible evil. So far as possible, we must start aright and upon 
correct principles on this new era upon which the nation is entering. We 
can not act arbitrarily, we can not exercise the power of despotism, but we 
can submit to the people such changes in the organic law of the nation as, 
if the people will ratify them, will establish the new nation upon a secure 
basis. We therefore submit to the people an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion which will give to all citizens equal rights and equal representation, 
secure the repudiation of the rebel debt and the adoption of the national 
debt in good faith, and disable leading traitors for such time as we may 
deem expedient. 

Such were the pleas in behalf of the Presidential and Congressional pol- 
icies. And the appeal was to the people. 

On the 14th of August the National Union Convention assembled at 
Philadelphia. Every state and Territory was represented excepting Ari- 
zona, Montana, and Utah. General John A. Dix was chosen temporary 
Chairman, and Senator Doolittle President. At the opening of the Con- 
vention quite a sensation was created by the entrance of the delegates from 
Massachusetts and South Carolina arm in arm. The Convention did its 
work rapidly. On the third day an address was read by Henry J. Ray- 
mond, and approved by the Convention, and resolutions were adopted, de- 
claring that the rights, dignity, and authority of the states were perfect and 
unimpaired ; that Congress had no right to deny representation to any state; 
that the right to regulate the elective franchise was reserved to the states; 
that amendments to the Constitution might be made in the usual way, and 
that in rectifying the same all the states of the Union had an equal and in- 
defeasible right to a voice and a vote thereon; that slavery was abolished, 
and the enfranchised slaves should receive equal protection with other citi- 
zens in every right of person or property; that any debt incurred in the 
execution of rebellion was invalid, and that the national debt was sacred and 
inviolable ; and that President Johnson was a chief magistrate worthy of 
the nation, and equal to the great crisis upon which his lot was cast.! 


* “ The National Union Convention now assembled in the city of Philadelphia, composed of dele- 
gates from every state and territory in the Union, admonished by the solemn lessons which, for the 
last five years, it has pleased the Supreme Ruler of the Universe to give to the American people ; 
profoundly grateful for the return of peace; desirous, as are a large majority of their countrymen, 
in all sincerity, to forget and forgive the past ; revering the Constitution as it comes to us from our 
ancestors ; regarding the Union in its restoration as more sacred than ever ; looking with deep 
anxiety into the future, as of instant and continuing trials, hereby issues and proclaims the follow- 
ing declaration of principles and purposes, on which they have, with perfect unanimity, agreed : 

“1. We hail with gratitude to Almighty God the end of the war and the return of peace to our 
afflicted and beloved land. 

“2. The war just closed has maintained the authority of the Constitution, with all the powers 
which it confers, and all the restrictions which it imposes upon the general government, unabridged 
and unaltered, and it has preserved the Union, with the equal rights, dignity, and authority of the 
states perfect and unimpaired. . " 

“*3. Representation in the Congress of the United States and in the electoral college is a right 
recognized by the Constitution as abiding in every state, and as a duty imposed upon the people, 
fundamental in its nature, and essential to the existence of our republican institutions, and neither 


Jury, 1866.] 


A committee was appointed to present to the President a copy of the pro- 
ceedings of the Convention. Senator Reverdy Johnson acted as the repre- 
sentative of this committee. The President, in his reply, spoke of Congress 
as a body which was preventing the restoration of peace and harmony—a 
body which, pretending to be a Congress of the United States, but which 
was, in fact, a Congress of only part of the states—a body “hanging upon 
the verge of the government.” 

Other Conventions also were held. The Southern Loyalists’ Convention 
met at Philadelphia on the 1st of September, and adopted resolutions in 
favor of the Congressional policy. On the 17th of September, the Conven- 
tion of soldiers and sailors assembled at Cleveland, Ohio, and adopted reso- 
lutions of a similar character with those adopted by the Philadelphia Con- 
vention of August 14th. Of this Convention Major General Gordon Gran- 
ger was President. On the 25th of September, a Convention of soldiers 
and sailors sustaining the action of Congress assembled at Pittsburg, Penn- 
sylvania, and Major General J. D. Cox was elected President. A series of 
resolutions was reported by Major General B. F. Butler, of which the two 
following were the most characteristic : 

“« Resolved, That the President, as an executive officer, has no right to a 
policy as against the legislative department of the government. That his 
attempt to fasten his scheme of reconstruction upon the country is as dan- 
gerous as it is unwise; his acts in sustaining it have retarded the restora- 
tion of peace and unity; they have converted conquered rebels into impu- 
dent claimants to rights which they have desecrated. If consummated, it 
would render the sacrifices of the nation useless, the loss of the lives of our 
buried comrades vain, and the war in which we have so gloriously triumph- 
ed what his present friends at Chicago, in 1864, declared it to be, a failure. 

“* Resolved, That the right of the conqueror to legislate for the conquered 
has been recognized by the public law of all civilized nations. By the op- 
eration of that law for the conservation of the good of the whole country, 
Congress had the undoubted right to establish measures for the conduct of 
the revolted states, and to pass all acts of legislation that are necessary for 
the complete restoration of the Union.” 

In the mean time, an event had occurred which had created the most in- 
tense excitement throughout the country. In 1864, the Louisiana State 
Convention had made a new Constitution, and submitted it to the people 
of that state. T'his Constitution had been ratified. Among its provisions 
was one for its amendment, requiring that the proposition for amendment 
should proceed from the state Legislature. Two years had passed, and the 
Convention was dissatisfied with its own work, and had grown rabid for 
negro suffrage. It was no longer a legitimate organization after the ratifi- 
eation of its Constitution. It attempted, however, to revive itself; it ob- 
tained the support of Governor Wells, who appointed an election to secure 
delegates from the parishes not represented in the original Convention, and 
the 80th of July was appointed for the revival of the Convention. The 
plan proposed by this Convention involved the overturning of its own Con- 
stitution, which had already been sanctioned by the people. It was a revo- 
lutionary body. It is not wonderful that its scheme occasioned excitement. 
As if for the purpose of revolution and tumult, this Convention held a pre- 
liminary meeting in New Orleans, at which speeches were made appealing 
to the negroes to come forth in force for the protection of the Convention. 
The mayor of New Orleans at this time was John T. Monroe. His ante- 
cedents were not of a favorable character. In company with Lieutenant 
Governor Voorhees, he had waited upon General Absalom Baird, who, in 
the absence of Major General Sheridan, commanded the United States mili- 
tary force at New Orleans, to ascertain whether, if the members of the Con- 
vention were arrested, the military would interfere. General Baird’s an- 
swer was, that the sheriff, attempting such an arrest, would himself be ar- 
rested; that the Convention, meeting peaceably,could not be interfered with 
by the officers of the law. But the Convention could not be said to have 
met peaceably, having directly provoked tumult. A telegram was sent to 


Congress nor the general government has any authority or power to deny this right to any state, or 
to withhold its enjoyment under the Constitution from the people thereof. 

“*4, We call upon the people of the United States to elect to Congress as members thereof none 
but men who admit this fundamental right of representation, and who will receive to seats therein 
loyal representatives from every state in allegiance to the United States, subject to the constitution- 
al right of each house to judge of the elections, returns, and qualification of its own members. 

‘*5. The Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, are the su- 
preme law of the land, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwith- 
standing. All the powers not conferred by the Constitution upon the general government, nor 
prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states, or to the people thereof; and among the 
rights thus reserved to the states is the right to prescribe qualifications for the elective franchise 
therein, with which right Congress can not interfere. No state or combination of states has the 
right to withdraw from the Union, or to exclude, through their action in Congress or otherwise, any 
other state or states from the Union. The Union of these states is perpetual. 

“6. Such amendments to the Constitution of the United States may be made by the people there- 
of as they may deem expedient, but only in the mode pointed out by its provisions ; and in propos- 
ing such amendments, whether by Congress or by a Convention, and in ratifying the same, all the 
states of the Union have an equal and indefeasible right to a voice and a vote thereon. 

“*7, Slavery is abolished and forever prohibited, and there is neither desire nor purpose on the 
part of the Southern States that it should ever be re-established upon the soil, or within the juris- 
diction of the United States ; and the enfranchised slaves in all the states of the Union should re- 
ceive, in common with all their inhabitants, equal protection in every right of person and property. 

“*8, While we regard as utterly invalid, and never to be assumed or made of binding force, any 
obligations incurred or undertaken in making war against the United States, we hold the debt of 
the nation to be sacred and inviolable ; and we proclaim our purpose in discharging this, as in per- 
forming all other national obligations, to maintain unimpaired and unimpeached the honor and faith 
of the republic. 


‘*9. It is the duty of the national government to recognize the services of the Federal soldiers | 
and sailors in the contest just closed, by meeting promptly and fully all their just and rightful claims | 


RECONSTRUCTION.—1865-1867. 


for the services they have rendered the nation, and by extending to those of them who have sur- | 


vived, and to the widows and orphans of those who have fallen, the most generous and considerate 
eare. 

‘©10. In Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, who, in his great office, has proved 
steadfast in his devotion to the Constitution, the laws, and interests of his country, unmoved by per- 
secution and undeserved reproach, having faith unassailable in the people and in the principles of 


free government, we recognize a chief magistrate worthy of the nation, and equal to the great crisis | 


upon which his lot is cast ; and we tender to him, in the discharge of his high and responsible du- 
ties, our profound respect, and assurance of our cordial and sincere support.” 


9 Y 


\ 


821 


the President inquiring whether the process of the court to arrest the mem- 
bers could be thwarted by the military. The President replied that the 
military would sustain, and not interfere with the proceedings of the courts. 
The Convention met on the 80th, but there was not a quorum. Plainly ei- 
ther the majority of the members were timid, or were satisfied of the irregu- 
larity of the Convention. The negroes whom Dr. Dostie, a member of that 
body, had called forth in prospect of a conflict, were ready at the time ap- 
pointed. ‘The citizens of New Orleans were, on the other hand, also ready. 
The collision was inevitable. Just how the riot began is uncertain. But 
there is no question of the fact that both the negroes and the citizens were 
gathered together for no other purposes than those of strife. The result 
was disgraceful to the negroes, to the citizens, to the Convention, and to the 
New Orleans police, whose brutality can scarcely be distinguished from 
murder} 

This occurrence was made use of by both parties as political capital. The 
supporters of Congress pointed to it as an indication of the disloyalty of the 
Southern people, and the Democrats, on the other hand, held up the revo- 
lutionary Convention as an example of radical violence. The prevailing 
popular impression acquitted the negroes of any desire to disturb the peace, 
and threw the blame partly upon the Convention, which, by the incendiary 
speech of at least one of its members, had incited tumult; but chiefly upon 
the white citizens of New Orleans, who had been organized for a riot, and 
who had met at a preconcerted signal for the purpose of violently dispers- 
ing the Convention. The mayor, John T. Monroe, was supposed to be on 
the side of the rioters, and was held by General Sheridan to be largely re- 
sponsible for their action. President Johnson suffered much loss in the 
people’s estimation from his support of Mayor Monroe hitherto, but he can 
not be held consciously responsible for the violence of July 30th. 

On the 28th of August President Johnson left Washington for Chicago, 
to be present at the laying of the corner-stone of a monument to be erected 
to the memory of Stephen A. Douglas. He was accompanied by Secreta- 
ries Seward and Welles, by General Grant and Admiral Farragut. In all 
the cities through which the President passed, he was accorded that courte- 
ous welcome which the people are always ready to extend to their chief 
magistrate. His speeches on the route were full of the most bitter denun- 
ciation of Congress, which he described as a body hanging upon the verge 
of the government. In some cases he descended to bandy words with a 
crowd, and to answer ill-tempered jeers at himself by an echo of their bad 
temper. His utter lack of tact disgusted even his friends. He too clearly 
proved that, whatever might be the merits of his policy, he could not be safe- 
ly trusted as leader with any policy. As Henry Ward Beecher soon after- 
ward aptly said, “The greatest obstacle to the success of Andrew Johnson’s 
policy is Andrew Johnson.” 

The autumn elections of 1866 were now at hand. The President, sure 
of Democratic support, desired also to retain a good portion of the Repub- 
lican vote. His especial favorites—those who received the largest share of 
his patronage, were Republicans of the Philadelphia Convention school. 
But the defection from the Republican ranks caused by the Philadelphia 
Convention movement was not large. The old Union party still maintain- 
ed its ranks unbroken, and refused to be distracted from the main issue— 
the Congressional amendment to the Constitution. The national executive 
committee, which had been appointed in 1864, held its regular meeting at 
Philadelphia. Governor Marcus L. Wood, of New Jersey, was elected chair. 
man. The places on that committee of Henry J. Raymond, and others who 
had participated in the Philadelphia Convention, were filled, and an address 
was issued to the people calling upon them to support the Congressional 
plan of restoration. 

The late riots in New Orleans, the President’s tour to the tomb of Doug- 
las, the attempt of the President to influence the prospective elections by 
the distribution of patronage to his special adherents, and his evident deter- 
mination to use Democrats, pardoned rebels, and every possible available 
element to carry out his policy, tended to consolidate the Republican party 
in opposition. Another circumstance which conduced to this result was 
the fact that the nominees of the so-called Conservatives were in most cases 
men in whom the Union party of the country had no confidence. 

The popular vote was decidedly in favor of the Congressional policy. In 
Maine, Chamberlain, the Republican candidate, was elected over Pillsbury 


1 The views of General Sheridan, in military command of the Department, are expressed in the 
following dispatches : 


‘*New Orleans, August 1, 1866. 
‘¢ U.S. Grant, General : 


‘* You are doubtless aware of the serious riot which occurred in this city on the 30th. A polit- 
ical body, styling itself the Convention of 1864, met on the 30th, for, as it is alleged, the purpose of 
remodeling the present Constitution of the state. The leaders were political agitators and revolu- 
tionary men, and the action of the Convention was liable to produce breaches of the public peace. 
I had made up my mind to arrest the head men if the proceedings of the Convention were calculated 
to disturb the tranquillity of the Department, but I had no cause for action until they committed the 
overt act, In the mean time official duty called me to Texas, and the mayor of the city, during my 
absence, suppressed the Convention by the use of the police force, and,in doing so, attacked the 
members of the Convention and a party of two hundred negroes with fire-arms, clubs, and knives, 
in a manner so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say that it was murder. About forty 
whites and blacks were thus killed, and about one hundred and sixty wounded. Every thing is now 
quiet, but I deem it best to maintain a military supremacy in the city for a few days, until the affair 
is fully investigated. I believe the sentiment of the general community is great regret at this un- 
necessary cruelty, and that the police could have made any arrrest they saw fit without sacrificing 
lives. P. H. Suerrpan, Major General Commanding.” 

** New Orleans, Louisiana, August 2, 1866. 
“U.S. Grant, General, Washington, D. C.: 

‘The more information I obtain of the affair of the 30th in this city, the more revolting it be- 
comes. It was no riot; it was an absolute massacre by the police, which was not excelled in mur- 
derous cruelty by that of Fort Pillow. It was a murder which the mayor and police of the city 
perpetrated without the shadow of a necessity. Furthermore, I believe it was premeditated, and 
every indication points to this. I recommend the removing ofthis bad man. I believe it would be 
hailed with the sincerest gratification by two thirds of the populatien of the city. There has been 
a feeling of insecurity on the part of the people here on account of this man, which is now so much 
increased that the safety of life and property does not rest with the civil authorities, but with the 
military. P. H. SHeriwan, Msjor General Commanding.” 


822 


by twenty-seven thousand votes, and every Republican delegate to Con- 
gress was chosen by a considerable majority. In N ew Hampshire, the Re- 
publican majority for Governor Smyth over Sinclair was nearly 5000. In 
Connecticut, the Republican candidate, General Joseph R. Hawley, was elect- 
ed over English by a few hundred votes. General Burnside was chosen 
Governor of Rhode Island by a majority of over 5000. Alexander H. Bul- 
lock, in Massachusetts, received a majority over Sweetser of over 65,000. 
Among the members elected to the state Legislature were two colored men. 
In Vermont, Paul Dillingham received a majority of nearly 23,000 over 
Davenport, the Democratic candidate for governor. In New Jersey, out of 
five members elected to the Fortieth Congress, three were Republican. In 
New York, Governor Fenton was elected over Hoffman, the Democratic 
candidate, by a majority of nearly 14,000. In Delaware, Saulsbury, the 
Democratic candidate for governor, was elected by some 1200 votes. In 
Kentucky, the election was not for the principal officers, but the Democratic 
majority was about 38,000. In California, a judge of the Supreme Court 
was elected by the Republican party by a majority of 7000. In Oregon, 
the Republican majority for Woods as governor was 827. In Ohio, the 
Republican majority for secretary of state was nearly 43,000. In Indiana 
also a Republican secretary was elected by 14,000 majority. Kansas gave 
a Republican majority for Crawford, as governor, of over 11,000. In Iowa, 
the Republican majority for secretary of state was over 35,000. In Penn- 
sylvania, Major General Geary, the Republican candidate, was elected gov- 
ernor over Heister Clymer by 17,000 majority. In Michigan, Crapo, Re- 
publican candidate for governor, was elected over Williams by a majority 
of 29,000. Minnesota elected Republican representatives to Congress by 
about 10,000 majority. In Illinois, General John A. Logan was elected 
Congressman at large over Dickey by nearly 56,000. Wisconsin gave a 
Republican majority of 24,000 for Congressmen. 

From this estimate, it is clear that the people repudiated the President’s 
policy, and by overwhelming majorities in nearly all the states supported 
Congress. This was not more decisively shown in the election of state offi- 
cers than in the vote for members of the Fortieth Congress. 

From this point a new stage in the reconstruction movement commenced. 
The antagonism of the President was still continued against Congress, not- 
withstanding the popular decision in favor of the Congressional amendment. 
The Southern States still refused to accept the conditions submitted by Con- 
gress and supported by the loyal people. Thus there was a dead-lock in 
the process of restoration. There were then two methods of procedure. Hi- 
ther Congress and the whole country could wait until the Southern States 
should accept the amendment, or they could take the whole affair into their 
own hands, and decide arbitrarily that the movement should go on, and upon 
what conditions. Congress adopted the latter method. Just before the close 
of its second session, the Thirty-ninth Congress passed an act known as the 
Military Bill. his act declared that no legal state governments existed in 
the late rebel states (excluding Tennessee), and that in these states there was 
no adequate protection for life or property. These states were therefore dis- 
tributed into military districts, subject to the military authority of the Onit- 
ed States, as follows: 

I. Virginia. 
Il. North Carolina and South Carolina, 

Ill. Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. 

IV. Mississippi and Arkansas. 

VY. Louisiana and Texas. 

The President was to appoint as a commander of each district an officer 
of the army not below the rank of brigadier general, and to detail a suffi- 
cient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce 
his authority. 

The duties of these commanders were—to protect all persons in their 
rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and vio- 
lence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public 
peace and criminals. To this end they might allow local civil tribunals to 
take jurisdiction of and try offenders, or, at their discretion, might organize 
military commissions for the trial of offenders, and this exercise of military 
authority should exclude interference on the part of the state government. 
No sentence of death should be carried into effect without the approval of 
the President. 

The fifth section of this act provided that when the people of any of these 
states should have formed a Constitution in conformity with the Constitu- 
tion of the United States in all respects, and which should be framed by 
delegates elected by the male citizens of said state 21 years old and up- 
ward, “of whatever race, color, or previous condition, resident in the state 
for one year, excepting those disfranchised for participation in rebellion,” 
and when such Constitution should provide for universal suffrage, with the 
exception of those disfranchised for participation in rebellion, and be rati- 
fied by the people and approved by Congress, and the Congressional amend- 
ment should have been adopted, the said state should be admitted to repre- 
sentation in Congress. 

The sixth section of the bill provided that until this admission of repre- 
sentatives to Congress the civil government of each state should be consid- 
ered as provisional only. 

The President vetoed this bill, and it was passed over his veto by both 
houses March 2,1867. He then,in obedience to the act thus passed against 
his remonstrance, appointed Brevet Major General John M. Schofield, com- 
mander of the First District; Major General Daniel E. Sickles, commander 
of the Second; Major General Pope, commander of the Third; Major Gen- 


eral E. QO, C. Ord, commander of the Fourth; and Major General Philip H. 
Sheridan, commander of the Fifth. 


HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


| MARCH, 1867. 


The Fortieth Congress assembled on the 4th of March, 1867, immediately 
succeeding and receiving the mantle of the Thirty-ninth. Soon after its as- 
sembling it passed an act supplementary to the Military Bill adopted at the 
previous session, ‘This supplementary act provided in detail for the regis- 
tration of voters... It was vetoed by the President, and then passed over 
the veto by each house. 

The supplementary act was vetoed as the original act had been, but was 
on the 23d of March passed, notwithstanding the President’s objections.* 


! An Act supplementary to an Act entitled ‘An Act to Provide for the more efficient Government of 
the Rebel States,” passed March 2d, 1867, and to facilitate Restoration. 

‘*Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in 
Congress assembled, That before the first day of September, 1867, the commanding general in each 
district defined by an act entitled ‘An Act to Provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel 
States,’ passed March 2d, 1867, shall cause a registration to be made of the male citizens of the 
United States, twenty-one years of age and upward, resident in each county or parish in the state 
or states included in his district, which registration shall include only those persons who are quali- 
fied to vote for delegates by the act aforesaid, and who shall have taken and subscribed the follow- 
ing oath or affirmation: ‘I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm), in the presence of Almighty God, 
that Lam a citizen of the State of ; that I have resided in said state for — months next pre- 
ceding this day, and now reside in the county of , or the parish of ,in said state (as 
the case may be); that I am twenty-one years old; that I have not been disfranchised for participa- 
tion in any rebellion or civil war against the United States, nor for felony committed against the 
laws of any state or of the United States; that I have never been a member of any state Legisla- 
ture, nor held any executive or judicial office in any state, and afterward engaged in insurrection 
or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I have 
never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States, or as an officer of the United 
States, or as a member of any state Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, 
to support the Constitution of the United States, and afterward engaged in insurrection or rebel- 
lion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully 
support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will, to the best of my abil- 
ity, encourage others so to do: so help me God;’ which oath or affirmation may be administered 
by any registering officer, 

“Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That after the completion of the registration hereby provided 
for in any state, at such time and places therein as the commanding general shall appoint and di- 
rect, of which at least thirty days’ public notice shall be given, an election shall be held of delegates 
to a Convention for the purpose of establishing a Constitution and civil government for such state 
loyal to the Union, said Convention in cach state, except Virginia, to consist of the same number of 
members as the most numerous branch of the state Legislature of such state in the year 1860, to be 
apportioned among the several districts, counties, or parishes of such state by the commanding gen- 
eral, giving each representation in the ratio of voters registered as aforesaid as nearly as may be. 
The Convention in Virginia shall consist of the same number of members as represented the terri- 
tory now constituting Virginia in the most numerous branch of the Legislature of said state in the 
year 1860, to be apportioned as aforesaid. 

“Sno. 3. And be it further enacted, That at said election the registered voters of each state shall 
vote for or against a Convention to form a Constitution therefor under this act. Those voting in 
favor of such a Convention shall have written or printed on the ballots by which they vote for dele- 
gates as aforesaid the words ‘ For a Convention,’ and those voting against such a Convention shall 
have written or printed on such ballot the words ‘Against a Convention.’ The persons appointed 
to superintend said election, and to make return of the votes given thereat, as herein provided, shall 
count and make return of the votes given for and against a Convention; and the commanding gen- 
eral to whom the same shall have been returned shall ascertain and declare the total vote in each 
state for and against a Convention, Ifa majority of the votes given on that question shall be for a 
Convention, then such Convention shall be held as hereinafter provided; but if a majority of said 
votes shall be against a Convention, then no such Convention shall be held under this act: Provided, 
That such Convention shall not be held unless a majority of all such registered voters shall have 
voted on the question of holding such Convention. 

“Suro. 4, And be it further enacted, That the commanding general of each district shall appoint 
as many boards of registration as may be necessary, consisting of three loyal officers or persons, to 
make and complete the registration, superintend the election, and make return to him of the votes, 
list of voters, and of the persons elected as delegates by a plurality of the votes cast at said election ; 
and upon receiving said returns he shall open the same, ascertain the persons elected as delegates, _ 
according to the returns of the officers who conducted said election, and make proclamation there- 
of; and if a majority of the votes given on that question shall be for a Convention, the command- 
ing general, within sixty days from the date of election, shall notify the delegates to assemble in 
Convention, at a time and place to be mentioned in the notification, and said Convention, when or- 
ganized, shall proceed to frame a Constitution and civil government according to the provisions of 
this act, and the act to which it is supplementary ; and when the same shall have been so framed, 
said Constitution shall be submitted by the Convention for ratification to the persons registered un- 
der the provisions of this act at an election to be conducted by the officers or persons appointed or 
to be appointed by the commanding general, as hereinbefore provided, and to be held after the ex- 
piration of thirty days from the date of notice thereof, to be given by said Convention; and the re- 
turns thereof shall be made to the commanding general of the district. 

“Suc. 5. And be it further enacted, That if, according to said returns, the Constitution shall be 
ratified by a majority of the votes of the registered electors qualified as herein specified, cast at said 
election, at least one half of all the registered voters voting upon the question of such ratification, 
the president of the Convention shall transmit a copy of the same, duly certified, to the President 
of the United States, who shall forthwith transmit the same to Congress, if then in session, and if 
not in session, then immediately upon its next assembling ; and if it shall moreover appear to Con- 
gress that the election was one at which all the registered and qualified electors in the state had an 
opportunity to vote freely, and without restraint, fear, or the influence of fraud, and if the Congress 
shall be satisfied that such Constitution meets the approval of a majority of all the qualified electors 
in the state, and if the said Constitution shall be declared by Congress to be in conformity with the 
provisions of the act to which this is supplementary, and the other provisions of said act shall have 
been complied with, and the said Constitution shall be approved by Congress, the state shall be de- 
clared entitled to representation, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom as 
therein provided. 

‘* Spo. 6, And be it further enacted, That all elections in the states mentioned in the said ‘Act to 
Provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States’ shall, during the operation of said 
act, be by ballot; and all officers making the said registration of voters and conducting said elec- 
tions shall, before entering upon the discharge of their duties, take and subscribe the oath prescribed 
by the act approved July 2d, 1862, entitled ‘An Act to prescribe an Oath of Office :’ Provided, That 
if any person shall knowingly and falsely take and subscribe any oath in this act prescribed, such 
person so offending and being thereof duly convicted shall be subject to the pains, penalties, and 
disabilities which by law are provided for the punishment of the crime of willful and corrupt per- 
jury. 

“Src. 7. And be it further enacted, 'That all expenses incurred by the several commanding gen- 
erals, or by virtue of any orders issued, or appointments made by them, under or by virtue of this 
act, shall be paid out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated. 

“* Src. 8. And be it further enacted, That the Convention for each state shall prescribe the fees, 
salary, and compensation to be paid to all delegates and other officers and agents herein authorized 
or necessary to carry into effect the purposes of this act not herein otherwise provided for, and shall 
provide for the levy and collection of such taxes on the property in such state as may be necessary 
to pay the same. 

“Src. 9. And be it further enacted, That the word ‘article,’ in the sixth section of the act to 
which this is supplementary, shall be construed to mean ‘ section.’” 

* To the original bill President Johnson objected on the following grounds : 

1. That ‘‘the mass of the Southern people, while they entertain diverse opinions on questions 
of federal policy, are completely united in the effort to reorganize their society on the basis of 
peace, and to restore their mutual prosperity as rapidly and completely as the circumstances of the 
case will permit.” 

2. The military rule established by the bill is ‘‘ to be used, not for any purpose of order or for 
the prevention of crime, but solely as a means of coercing the people into the adoption of princi- 
ples and measures to which it is known that they are opposed, and upon which they have an un- 
deniable right to exercise their own judgment.” Thus it was in ‘‘ palpable conflict with the plain- 
est provisions of the Constitution.” 

3. The power given by the bill ‘‘ is that of an absolute monarch, his mere will taking the place 
of all law; it places at his free disposal all the lands and goods in his district; and he may dis- 
tribute them to whom he pleases; he may make a criminal code of his own, and he may make it 
as bloody as any recorded in history, or he may reserve the privilege of acting upon the impulse of 
his private humors in each case that occurs... . . It is plain that the authority here given to 
the military officer amounts to absolute despotism. But, to make it still more unendurable, the 
bill provides that it may be delegated to as many subordinates as he chooses to appoint ; for it de- 
clares that he shall ‘punish or cause to be punished.’ Such a power has not been wielded in En- 
gland for more than 500 years. . . . . It reduces the whole population of the ten states—all per- 


Juy, 1867. ] 


The President’s objections to both the original and the supplementary 
acts were theoretically just; but, for all that, they did not touch the ques- 
tion as it offered itself to Congress. He could see in the establishment of 
military power and the suffrage given to the blacks only three things: a de- 
sign on the part of the Republican party to perpetuate its own power; an 
absolute despotism; and a violation of the Constitution. There may have 
been, and probably were, a few members in both houses of Congress who 
were partisans in the sense that they preferred the success of their party to 
the interests of their country; there may have been those who lightly re- 
garded constitutional liberty and constitutional law; but this was not the 
light in which Congress, as a body, looked upon the situation which con- 
fronted it. An appeal had been made to the people of the Northern States, 
and the result had been a Congressional victory. An opportunity had al- 
ready been afforded to the Southern States to regain their representation in 
Congress by doing exactly what Tennessee had done—.e., by accepting a 
Constitutional amendment, which involved no imposition upon them of ne- 
gro suffrage, nor indeed any conditions not really demanded by the situa- 
tion at the close of the war. But they had rejected the advances of Con- 
gress, and stood defiantly upon “their rights” as interpreted for them by 
Andrew Johnson. The work of restoration could not, then, proceed upon 
the plan originally proposed by Congress. But the work must go on upon 
some plan. Hither the people must surrender to the President against their 
own good sense, by reverting to his plan, now that their own had failed, or 
they must adopt still another. And what other was possible? Only one; 
and that was to appeal from the whites of the South to the whole people, 
white and black. In order to do this, it was necessary to give the negroes 
of the South the privilege of voting for Conventions in the several states. 
This plan evidently could not be carried into execution except under the 
supervision of military commanders. We are not, however, in vindicating 
the necessity of the Military Bill, defending every feature of that bill. Un- 
doubtedly it would have been better if Congress had omitted that provision 
by which so large a portion of Southern whites were disfranchised. This 
provision was not essential in order to secure the objects sought. 

It must indeed be admitted that the Military Bill was unconstitutional. 
But so in a greater or less degree had been every measure in the entire pro- 
cess of reconstruction, whether adopted by the President or by Congress. 
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional, and was only 
defensible on the plea of military necessity. But the necessities of war are 
no more binding than those of peace. The object of the war was to con- 
quer peace; and after the war there still remained the no less difficult work 
of securing the peace which had been conquered. Was the security of the 
conquest any less important than the conquest itself? Lincoln issued his 
proclamation after long hesitation and with evident reluctance. But he 
stood face to face with a great necessity, and was compelled to act. The 
deliberations of the Thirty-ninth Congress in 1866 show that that body was 
equally reluctant to interfere directly with the right of states to regulate 
their own system of franchise. But the necessity came, and came as the re- 
sult of the attitude assumed by the Southern people. Congress yielded, as 
Mr. Lincoln had done. 

At first the bill did not strike the South unfavorably. This is probably 
to be accounted for by the fact that the political leaders of the South antic- 
ipated that the votes of the freedmen could easily be regulated by their for- 
mer masters. Every attempt was made to influence the freedmen in this 
direction. Thus General Wade Hampton said to them,’ “ Give your friends 
at the South a fair trial; when they fail you will be time enough to go 
abroad for sympathy; it is for your interest to build up the South, for as 
the country prospers you will prosper.” Similar arguments were used 
in every Southern state. Disfranchised white men addressed assemblages 
mainly composed of enfranchised blacks. But they did not hold the field 
alone, else their success might have been assured. Several Northern men 
traversed the South, and urged the freedmen to act with the Republican 
party. Prominent among these were Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, and 
Mr. Kelley, representative from Pennsylvania. Their speeches were moder- 
ate in tone, but very effective. White men attended these meetings, appar- 
ently willing that both parties should have a fair chance in this contest for 
the negro vote. There was a slight disturbance in Mobile, in which Mr. 


sons, of every color, sex, and condition, and every stranger within their limits—to the most abject 
and degrading slavery. No master ever had a control over his slaves so absolute as this bill gives 
to the military officers over both white and colored persons.” 

4, The bill is unconstitutional in conferring the right of suffrage upon the freedmen. ‘‘ The 
negroes haye not asked for the privilege of voting; the vast majority of them have no idea what it 

‘means. ‘This bill not only thrusts it into their hands, but compels them, as well as the whites, to 
use it in a particular way. If they do not form a Constitution with prescribed articles in it, and 
afterward elect a Legislature which will act upon certain measures in a prescribed way, neither 
blacks nor whites can be relieved from the slavery which the Will imposes upon them. Without 
pausing here to consider the policy or impolicy of Africanizing the southern part of our territory, 
J would simply ask the attention of Congress to that manifest, well-known, and universally-ac- 
knowledged rule of constitutional law which declares that the federal government has no jurisdic- 
tion, authority, or power to regulate such subjects for any state. To force the right of suffrage out 
of the hands of the white people and into the hands of the negroes is an arbitrary violation of this 
principle.” 

5. **We should remember that all men are entitled to at least a hearing in the councils which 
decide upon the destiny of themselves and their children. At present ten states are denied repre- 
sentation ; and when the Fortieth Congress assembles on the 4th day of the present month, sixteen 
states will be without a voice in the House of Representatives. ‘This grave fact, with the impor- 
tant question before us, should induce us to pause in a course of legislation which, looking solely 
to the attainment of political ends, fails to consider the rights which it transgresses, the law which 
it violates, or the institutions which it imperils.”’ 

The yeto to the supplementary act reiterates the objections to the original bill, and adds some 
others. ‘‘ By the oath required at registration,” says the President, ‘‘every elector must decide 
for himself, under peril of military punishment if he makes a mistake, whether he has been dis- 
franchised for participation in rebellion... . . Almost every man—the negro as well as the white 
—aboye 21 years of age, who was resident in the ten states during the rebellion, voluntarily or in- 
xoluntarily, at some time and in some way, did participate in resistance to the lawful authority of 
the general government.” Besides, urges the President, as the people themselves have no voice 
in conducting the registration and the subsequent election, the Conventions elected can not be con- 
sidered as representing the citizens of those states, 

* At Columbia, South Carolina, March 18, 


RECONSTRUCTION, —1865-1867. 


82} 


Kelley was placed in some peril; but in New Orleans, at a meeting ad- 
dressed by Senator Wilson, the Confederate General Longstreet was one 
of the Vice-Presidents. Whatever may have been the hopes entertained 
by the Southern whites as to the possibility of securing the support by 
the freedmen of what was termed the Conservative policy, they were not 
realized. So soon as it became evident that the negroes would support 
Congress, there began to be developed a bitter opposition to the Military 
Bill, both in the South and among those in the North who supported Mr. 
Johnson. Very many, also, who were opposed to Johnson’s policy, thought 
that the disfranchisement of so many whites in the South, and the evident 
purpose shown by those who controlled registration to give political su- 
premacy to the blacks, were not only unnecessary, but also injurious to the 
Republican party. 

Although President Johnson had protested so strongly against the estab- 
lishment of military governments, yet after the passage of the Congressional 
acts he proceeded promptly to their execution. Even in the appointment 
of the military commanders he seems to have sought just those officers in 
the army which would be most likely to meet the approbation of Congress. 
In the case of General Sheridan particularly, the President feared that the 
conduct of that officer might be needlessly arbitrary. Still he yielded to the 
popular sentiment in favor of the general, and gave him the most difficult 
of the five military districts. The President sought, however, in every pos- 
sible way,to regulate the operations of the military government in such a 
manner as to relieve those features which were most obnoxious. But the 
legislation of Congress left him a very limited sphere of action. He could 
not prevent the subordination of the civil governments of the South to the 
military commanders; the provisions of the original Military Bill were ex- 
plicit on that point, and could not be avoided. On the same day that this 
bill was finally passed, the Tenure of Office Bill was also passed over the 
President’s veto. The provisions of this bill, by limiting his authority in 
making official appointments, almost entirely deprived him of the power to 
check any proceedings, however arbitrary, on the part of the military com- 
manders ; it took from him the power of removing even the members of 
his cabinet except by and with the consent of the Senate. Indeed, more 
executive power was delegated to each of the military commanders than 
was left to the executive head of the government. 

Thus cramped and fettered by Congress, the President had recourse to 
Mr, Stansberry, his attorney general. Was there no way in which the exec- 
utive might lay his hand upon the registration of voters in the South, and 
prevent the sweeping disfranchisement contemplated by Congress? Stans- 
berry thought there was. Surely the legal opinion of the highest legal ofti- 
cer in the nation ought to avail somewhat. So the attorney general gave 
an opinion—and a very ingenious and elaborate opinion it was, we must ad- 
mit.! The most important point in this opinion is the statement that the 


1 The principal points are as follows: 1. All who are registered, and none others, have the right 
to vote. 2. No one who is not a citizen of the United States, and of the special state, can properly 
take the oath; but if an alien not naturalized chooses, be can take it, and mnst be registered ; 
but ‘‘ he takes it at his peril, and is liable to prosecution for perjury.” 3. The person who applies 
for registry must be of the age of twenty-one years when he applies ; but the requirement for a res- 
idence of one year applies to the time of voting, not of registration. 

He next proceeds to consider the various grounds of disfranchisement provided for in the bills. 
In his opinion, (4), the sections which ‘‘ deny the right to vote to such as may be disfranchised for 
participation in the rebellion or felony at common law,” must be interpreted to mean that ‘the 
mere fact of such participation, or the commission of the felonious act, does not of itself work as a 
disfranchisement. It must be ascertained by the judgment of a court, or by a legislative act, pass- 
ed by competent authority.” But the applicant for registration must swear that ‘‘I have never 
been a member of any state Legislature, nor held any executive or judicial office, and afterward 
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States; that I have never taken an oath as 
a member of the Congress of the United States, or as an officer of the United States, or as a mem- 
ber of any state Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and afterward engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United 
States.” This provision, in the opinion of the attorney general, certainly excludes (5) members of 
Congress, of state Legislatures, and of Conventions which passed ordinances of secession. Then 
as to who are to be considered as intended by executive and judicial officers of the state, he gives 
his opinion that (6) officers of the militia of a state are not as such intended; that (7) governors, 
state treasurers, and others, commonly designated as ‘‘state officers,” who ‘‘ exercise executive 
functions at the seat of government,” and also judicial officers whose jurisdiction extends through 
the state, are included; but that (8) those functionaries commonly known as ‘‘ county, township, 
and precinct officers,” sheriffs, county judges, commissioners of public works and improvements, 
and the like, are not included. 

Under the provision working disfranchisement on account of the person having taken an oath to 
support the Constitution, and afterward engaged in insurrection, he holds that (9) the two things 
must concur, and ‘‘in the order of time mentioned: First, the office and the oath; and afterward 
engaging in the rebellion or giving aid and comfort.” Hence (10) ‘‘a person who has held an office 
within the meaning of this law, and taken the official oath, and who has not afterward participated 
in the rebellion; and so too the person who has fully participated in the rebellion, but has not prior 
thereto held an office and taken the official oath, may with safety take the oath” required for reg- 
istration. 

The attorney general then proceeds to consider ‘‘ what acts, within the meaning of the law, 
make a party guilty of engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or of giving 
aid or comfort to the enemies thereof?” As to official acts, he thinks that the phrase ‘* enemies,” 
to whom “aid and comfort” has been given, should in strict law be limited to mean only ‘‘ foreign 
enemies ;” but he adds, (11), ‘‘I am not quite prepared to say that Congress may not have used it 
as applicable to the late rebellion,” and therefore he goes on to inquire ‘‘ what is meant by engag- 
ing in insurrection or rebellion against the United States?” It implies, he thinks, (12), *‘ active 
rather than passive conduct, voluntary rather than compulsory action.” Hence it does not include 
(18) such cases as that of a person who has been forced into the ranks by conscription, or a slave 
who, by command of his master, or by military order, has been engaged upon military works or 
served in the ranks of the army. But (14) it does include many who, without having actually 
been in arms, were engaged in the furtherance of the common unlawful purpose, such as ‘*mem- 
bers of Congress and rebel Conventions, diplomatic agents of the rebel Confederacy, or such other 
officials whose duties more especially appertained to the support of the rebel cause.” Yet, on the 
other hand, it does not (15) include “officers in the rebel states who, during the rebellion, dis- 
charged duties not incident to the war. The interests of humanity,” the attorney general argues, 
‘*require such officers for the performance of such official duties in time of war or insurrection as 
well as in time of peace, and the performance of such duties can never be considered as criminal.” 

From official participation the attorney general goes on to discuss what constitutes, in the view 
of this law, individual participation in the rebellion, premising that in the case of a great insurrec- 
tion, which for a time excluded the people from the protection of the lawful government, the ‘* ob- 
ligations of allegiance are necessarily modified,” and that many things should be considered as 
‘* rightfully done which in the case of a mere local insurrection would have no color of legality.” 
He concludes, therefore, (16), that ‘‘ some direct overt act, done with the intent to further the rebel- 
lion, is necessary to bring the party within the purview and meaning of the law.” The expression 
of disloyal sentiments, the performance of acts of ordinary charity and humanity, the payment of 
taxes or forced contributions and the like, are not sufficient. But (17) ‘‘ voluntary contributions 
in furtherance of the rebellion, or subscriptions to the rebel loan, and even organized contributions 
of food and clothing or necessary supplies, except of a strictly sanitary character, are to be class- 
ed with acts which disqualify.” 


824 HARPER'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. 


mere fact of participation in the rebellion does not of itself work disfranchise- 
ment, except as it had been declared to have that effect by the judgment of 
a court or by a legiskative act passed by competent authority. The attor- 
ney general also construed the Military Bill as not intending the disfran- 
chisement of those who had held minor executive offices of a local nature 
under the Confederate government, nor those who had not voluntarily en- 
gaged in rebellion. He declared also that, under the law, registering officers 
could not refuse to permit every applicant to take the oath required; and 
that the oath once taken, and the applicant’s name once registered, the privi- 
lege of voting could not be withdrawn. 

Invested with this legal authority, President Johnson issued an order to 
each of the military commanders, directing them to conform to the opinion 
of the attorney general. The value of a legal opinion had such an impres- 
sion upon the President that he shortly afterward obtained another from the 
same source, the purport of which was that the military commanders had no 
right to remove civil officers, and that therefore Mr. Wells, whom Sheridan 
had removed, was still the rightful governor of Louisiana, and John 'T’. Mon- 
roe (also removed by the same officer) was mayor of New Orleans. 

Congress met again July 4, and continued in session for sixteen days. 
In this brief period a new bill was matured and passed, defining the mili- 
tary acts of the two previous sessions.’ This explanatory act completely 
annulled the attorney general’s opinions, and left no room for doubt as to 
the intentions of Congress in its plan of Southern reconstruction. The 
President returned the bill with his objections July 19. In this veto mes- 
sage he denounced with equal bitterness the despotic powers conferred 
upon military commanders, and the limitations imposed, against the mani- 
fest intent of the Constitution, upon the executive.? The bill was passed 
over Johnson’s veto. 


In respect to the functions of the Boards of Registration and Election, the attorney general 
holds (18) that they can impose no oath other than that prescribed by this law; that (19) they 
must administer the oath to all who will take it, ‘‘the oath being the only and sole test of the 
qualification of the applicant ;” that (20) ifa person takes the oath his name must go upon the 
register; and that (21) his name being on the register, he must be allowed to vote. ‘‘ There is 
no provision,” adds the attorney general, ‘‘ to surcharge or falsify, or add a single name to the reg- 
istration, or erase a single name that appears upon it.” 

' The following are in brief the provisions of this explanatory act : 

Sec. 1. ‘‘ That it is hereby declared to have been the true intent and meaning of the act of the 
2d day of March, 1867, entitled an Act to Provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel 
States, thereto passed the 23d of March, 1867, that the governments then existing in the rebel 
states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Flor- 
ida, Texas, and Arkansas were not legal state governments, and that thereafter said governments, 
if continued, shall be subject in all respects to the military commanders of the respective districts, 
and to the paramount authority of Congress.” 

Sec. 2. ‘* That the commander of any district named in said act shall have power, subject 
to the disapproval of the general of the army of the United States, and to have effect till disap- 
proved, whenever, in the opinion of such commander, the proper administration of said act shall 
require it, to suspend or remove from office, or from the performance of official duties and the ex- 
ercise of official powers, any officer or person holding or exercising, or professing to hold or exer- 
cise, any civil or military office or duty in such district, under any power, election, appointment, or 
authority, derived from, or granted by, or claimed under any so-called state or the government 
thereof, or municipal or other division thereof; and upon such suspension or removal such com- 
mander, subject to the disapproval of the general as aforesaid, shall have power to provide from 
time to time for the performance of the said duties of such officer or person so suspended or re- 
moved by the detail of some competent officer or soldier of the army, or by the appointment of 
some other person to perform the same, and to fill the vacancies occasioned by death, resignation, 
or otherwise.” 

Sec. 3. ‘* That the general of the army of the United States be invested with all the powers of 
suspension, removal, appointment, and detail granted in the preceding section to district com- 
manders.” 

Sec. 4. ‘‘ That the acts of the officers of the army already done in removing, in said districts, 
persons exercising the functions of civil officers, and appointing others in their stead, are hereby con- 
firmed, provided that any person heretofore or hereafter appointed by any district commander to 
exercise the functions of any civil office may be removed, either by the military officer in command 
of the district or by the general of the army, and it shall be the duty of such commander to remove 
from office as aforesaid all persons who are disloyal to the government of the United States, or who 
use their official influence in any manner to hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct the due and proper 
administration of this act and the acts to which it is supplementary.” 


Sec. 5 makes it the duty of the Boards of Registration, before allowing any person to be regis- | 


tered, to ascertain whether he is entitled to registration; and the oath of the person is not to be 
conclusive evidence ; and no person shall be registered unless the board decides that he is entitled 
thereto; and ‘‘no person shall be disqualified as member of any Board of Registration by reason 
of race or color.” 

Sec. 6 declares that the true intent and meaning of the oath prescribed in the supplementary act 
is, among other things, ‘‘ that no person who has been a member of the Legislature of any state, or 
who has held any executive or judicial office in any state, whether he has taken an oath to support the 
Constitution or not, and whether he was holding such office at the commencement of the rebellion, 
or had held it before and who has afterward engaged in rebellion against the United States, or given 
aid and comfort to the enemies thereof, is entitled to be registered or vote; and the words ‘ execu- 
tive or judicial office in any state,’ in said oath mentioned, shall be construed to include all civil of- 
ficers created by law for the administration of any general law of a state, or for the administration 
of justice.” _ 

Sec. 7 authorizes the commander of any district to extend the period for registration until the Ist 
of October, 1867. Makes it their duty, commencing fourteen days previous to any election under 
the act, and for a period of five days, to revise the registration list, strike off the names of all per- 
sons not entitled thereto, and add any names of persons so entitled which have not been register- 
ed; ‘‘and no person shall at any time be entitled to be registered or to vote by reason of any execu- 
tive pardon or amnesty for any act or thing which, without such pardon or amnesty, would disqual- 
ify him from registration or voting.” 

Sec. 8. ‘* That all members of said Boards of Registration, and all persons hereafter elected or 
appointed to office in said military districts, under any so-called state or municipal authority, or by 
detail, or appointment of the district commanders, shall be required to take and subscribe to the 
oath of office prescribed by law for the officers of the United States.” 

Sec. 9. ‘That no district commander or member of the Board of Registration, or any officers or 
appointees acting under them, shall be bound in his action by any opinion of any civil officer of 
the United States.” 

Sec. 10. ‘* That section 4 of said last-named act shall be construed to authorize the command- 
ing general named therein, whenever he shall deem it needful, to remove any member of a Board 
of Registration, and to appoint another in his stead, and to fill any vacancy in such board.” 

Sec. 11. ‘*'That all the provisions of this act, and of the acts to which this is supplementary, 
shall be construed liberally, to the end that all the intents thereof may be fully and perfectly car- 
ried out.” 

? The President thus concludes his message : 

“* Within a period less than a year the legislation of Congress has attempted to strip the execu- 
tive department of the government of some of its essential powers. The Constitution, and the 
oath provided in it, devolve upon the President the power and duty to see that the laws are faith- 
fully executed. The Constitution, in order to carry out this power, gives him the choice of the 
agents, and makes them subject to his control and supervision ; but, in the execution of these laws, 
the constitutional obligation upon the President remains, but the power to exercise that constitu- 
tional duty is effectually taken away. The military commander is, as to the power of appoint- 
ment, made to take the place of the President, and the general of the army the place of the Senate, 
and any attempt on the part of the President to assert his own constitutional power may, under 
pretense of law, be met by official insubordination. It is to be feared that these military officers, 
looking to the authority given by these laws rather than to the letter of the Constitution, will rec- 
ognize no authority but the commander of the district and the general of the army. If there were 
no other objections than this to this proposed legislation, it would be sufficient. “While I hold the 


[ JULY, 1867. 


But the President did not relinquish his claim to the authority which he 
conceived rightfully belonged to him as the executive head of the nation. 
Searcely had Congress adjourned when he addressed a note’ to Secretary 
Stanton, stating that ‘grave public considerations” constrained him to re- 
quest the secretary’s resignation. Mr. Stanton replied, “ Grave public con- 
siderations constrain me to continue in the office of Secretary of War until 
the next meeting of Congress.” 
with the President’s plan of Southern restoration, but after the elections of 
1866 he went over to Congress. His position in the cabinet thus became 
very embarrassing. He could not resign his position without disappointing 
Congress, and, as he believed, the people; nor could he retain the secretary- 
ship without violating the hitherto well understood principles of official 
courtesy. But Johnson relieved him of his embarrassment on the 12th of 
August by removing him, ordering General Grant to assume the duties of 
acting Secretary of War. Stanton then submitted, “under protest,” as he 
said, ‘‘to the superior force of the President.” The general satisfaction of 
the people with the administration of the war office by General Grant soon 
reconciled them to the change, and the President’s palpable defiance of the 
Tenure of Office Bill was for a time substantially ignored. 

Five days after the removal of Secretary Stanton, the President drew up 
an order removing General Sheridan from the command of the Fifth Mili- 
tary District, and appointing General Thomas in his stead. This did not 
meet with General Grant’s approbation. The general boldly defended 
Sheridan on the ground that the military district was the most difficult one 
in the South to manage; that this difficulty had grown out of the prevail- 
ing impression among the people of that district that the President was 
about to remove Sheridan; and that, under these circumstances, General 
Sheridan had been compelled to resort to the arbitrary measures which the 
President disapproved. General Grant also objected to the change as be- 
ing an impolitic one at the time. But the President insisted; Grant sub- 
mitted, and the order was issued on the 26th. General Thomas declined 
the appointment, and General Hancock finally assumed the important office 
from which Sheridan had been removed. 

Almost simultaneously, General Sickles was removed from the command 
of the Second District, embracing North and South Carolina, and General 
Canby was appointed in his stead. The removals of Stanton, Sheridan, and 
Sickles, following each other in quick succession, excited considerable ap- 
prehension in the North, which was exaggerated by flying rumors that the 
President was now prepared to resist Congress by force, that Maryland mi- 
litia were being trained for his support, and that the country was on the 
verge of a coup d’etat. Indeed, it was impossible to say what thunderbolts 
the President was not prepared to fulminate against the legislative depart- 
ment of the government. The autumn elections were at hand, in which a 
second appeal was to be made to the people, and these popular fears were 
used by Republican orators as an argument for the support of Congress and 
its military reconstruction enactments. 

The results of the autumn elections of 1867 were a surprise to the Repub- 
lican party. In California, on the 4th of September, the Democratic candi- 
date for governor was elected by a majority of 7466 over both the opposing 
Republican candidates; a Democratic Legislature was also elected, involving 
the loss of a Republican United States senator. Five days later, the Maine 
election resulted in a falling off from Republican majority of 14,000 votes. 
On the 8th of October elections took place in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, 
Towa, and West Virginia. In Pennsylvania there was a Republican loss of 
18,000 as compared with the previous year. Ohio elected a Republican 
governor, but lost so largely in the Legislature as to secure a Democratic 
United States senator at the expiration of Benjamin F.Wade’s term. There 
was a Republican loss in that state of 40,000 votes. In Indiana only local 
officers were elected. In Iowa there was a Republican loss of over 10,000. 
On the 5th of November, elections were held in New York, New Jersey, 
Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas, and 
with similar results. In New York, a Democratic secretary of state was 
elected by a majority of 48,922. There was in that state a Republican loss 
of over 62,000 votes. In Massachusetts,Governor Bullock, Republican, was 
re-elected by 25,000 majority, showing a falling off of 32,000 from the ma- 
jority of 1866. In New Jersey there was a Democratic majority of about 
15,000, the Republican loss being about 18,000. Maryland went Democratic 
by a majority of 40,000, against 13,000 in 1866. In Illinois the elections 
were local. Wisconsin elected a Republican governor by 4000, a loss from 
the previous year of 20,000. In Minnesota there was a falling off of over 
6000 from the Republican majority of 1866. Estimating by majorities, the 
Republican loss indicated in all the elections was over 250,000, 

In Kansas, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the people voted upon a 
constitutional amendment, allowing negroes to vote in these states. The 
amendment was defeated by heavy majorities in all except Minnesota, 


chief executive authority of the United States, while the obligation rests upon me to see that all 
the laws are faithfully executed, I can never willingly surrender that trust or the powers given for 
its execution. I can never give my assent to be made responsible for the faithful execution of 
laws, and at the same time surrender that trust and the powers which accompany it to any other 
executive officer, high or low, or to any number of executive officers. If this executive trust, vest- 
ed by the Constitution in the President, is to be taken from him and vested in a subordinate offi- 
cer, the responsibility will be with Congress in clothing the subordinates with unconstitutional pow- 
er, and with the officer who assumes its exercise. This interference with the constitutional author- 
ity of the executive department is an evil that will inevitably sap the foundations of our federal 
system ; but it is not the worst evil of this legislation. It is a great public wrong to take from the 
President powers conferred on him alone by the Constitution ; but the wrong is more flagrant and 
more dangerous when the powers so taken from the President are conferred upon subordinate ex- 
ecutive officers, and especially upon military officers. Over nearly one third of the states of the 
Union military power, regulated by no fixed law, rules supreme. Lach of the five district com- 
manders, though not chosen by the people, or responsible to them, exercises at this hour more ex- 
ecutive power, military and civil, than the people have ever been willing to confer upon the head of 
the executive department, though chosen by and responsible to themselves.” 
» August 5, 1867. 


The secretary had originally co-operated © 


; 
Q 
‘ 


DecemBer, 1867.] 


It is evident from these estimates that there had been a popular reaction. 
In 1866, the people had decided against President Johnson—now they ap- 
peared to mutter against Congress. It must be remembered, however, that 
in most of the states the elections were of such a character as not to draw 
out the full strength of the Republican party. Still, even making this al- 
lowance, the people evidently disapproved of the temper and spirit which 
characterized the proceedings of Congress in this matter of reconstruction. 
It would hardly be fair to infer from the elections that the people were op- 
posed to what Congress had done; but the manner in which Congress pro- 
ceeded, apparently assuming that any measures, however extreme, would 
receive popular support, indicated that some check must be put upon that 
body. ‘There was another consideration of the utmost importance, and 
which largely affected the popular vote. Before another general election 
could take place, the party Conventions would meet for the nomination of 
presidential candidates. The prominent leaders of the Republican party 
were evidently determined to select some one representing the extreme 
views of that party. It was important that this should not be done, and yet 
quite certain that it would be attempted, if in the elections the Republic- 
an party should receive the same support as in 1866. This consideration 
materially affected the result of the elections. Thousands of Republicans 
staid away from the polls, wishing neither to support Democratic candidates, 
nor to give their sanction to the extreme views of their own party leaders. 
As to the vote in four of the states upon negro suffrage, the result had no 
special significance, for the issue presented had none. The refusal of Ohio 
to allow colored citizens to vote did not by any means imply opposition to 
negro suffrage as a feature of the military reconstruction bill. In Ohio, 
as in all the Northern States, the only question involved in this matter was 
one between an abstract principle and the prejudice of race; but not so in 
the Southern States, one third of whose entire population was colored. Here 
there were questions of expediency as well as of abstract justice to be con- 
sidered. The exclusion of the vast colored population of the South from 
negro suffrage involved dangers not only to the future tranquillity of the 
states themselves, but to the peace of the nation. The perils which many 
feared from this universal or impartial suffrage were mainly imaginary. 
President Johnson predicted that it would bring on a war of races; but it 
would seem far more reasonable to expect such a war to follow the exclu- 
sion of a very large class from all political power. The moment the negro 
becomes invested with political rights, the very basis for the antagonism of 
races 1s removed. 

When Congress again assembled on the 21st of November, its proceed- 
ings were characterized by greater moderation, but it steadfastly adhered to 
its policy of restoration. The President’s message was for the most part a 
reiteration of the arguments upon which he had insisted from the begin- 
ning of his administration. He urged the repeal of those “acts of Con- 
gress which place ten of the states under the domination of military mas- 
ters.” He denounced the policy of negro suffrage and white disfranchise- 
ment as the “subjugation of these states to negro domination, and worse 
than military despotism.” He alluded to certain cases in which it would 
become the President’s duty to resist Congressional enactments by force, 
“regardless of consequences.” ‘Tf, for instance,” said he, “ the legislative 
department should pass an act, even through all the forms of law, to abol- 
ish a co-ordinate branch of the government, in such a case the President 
must take the high responsibility of his office, and save the nation at all 
hazards.” 

In January, the Thirty-ninth Congress had passed a resolution looking 
toward the impeachment of President Johnson, and directing the judiciary 
committee to investigate his official conduct. This committee, at the close 
of the session on March 4th, had delivered over its duties and the results 
of its inquiry to its natural successor. In June, the judiciary committee of 
the Fortieth Congress, after a careful sifting of the testimony offered, stood 
four for and five against impeachment. But one of the members, who in 
June had been opposed to impeachment—Mr. John C. Churchill—changed 
his mind before the beginning of the November session, and thus the meas- 
ure came before the House on the 25th supported by a majority report.' 
Two minority reports were also submitted. It is clear that the President 
had been guilty of no offense indictable by law; and both the American 
and British law on this subject determine that impeachment can not rest 
except upon offenses of this character. Besides, the impeachment of Presi- 
dent Johnson, simply because his policy was opposed to that of the legisla- 
tive department of the government, would establish a dangerous precedent, 
which could be used against any president by any dominant political party 
opposed to him. The House wisely, therefore, refused to adopt the report 
of the majority. 


1 The charges brought in this report against the President were the following : 

‘¢1st. That the President of the United States, assuming it to be his duty to execute the consti- 
tutional guarantee, has undertaken to provide new governments for the rebellious states without the 
consent or co-operation of the legislative power, and upon such terms as were agreeable to his own 

leasure, and then to force them into the Union against the will of Congress and the people of the 
lara states, by the authority and patronage of his high office. 

‘¢ 9d. That to effect this object he has created offices unknown to the law, and appointed to them, 
without the advice or consent of the Senate, men who were notoriously disqualified to take the test 
oath, at salaries fixed by his own mere will, and paid those salaries, along with the expenses of his 
work, out of the funds of the War Department, in clear violation of law. 

‘¢3d. That, to pay the expenses of the said organizations, he has also authorized his pretended 
officers to appropriate the property of the government, end to levy taxes from the conquered people. 

‘‘4th, That he has surrondered, without equivalent, to the rebel stockholders of Southern rail- 
roads captured by our arms, not only the roads themselves, but the rolling-stock and machinery 
captured along with them, and even roads constructed or renovated at an cnormous ovtlay by the 
government of the United States itself. 

‘*5th. That he has undertaken, without anthority of law, to sell and transfer to the same parties, 
at a private valuation and on a long credit, without any security whatever, an enormous amount of 


9Z 


RECONSTRUCTION. —1865-1867. 825 


President Johnson, after having once entered into the conflict against 
Congress, fought obstinately for the success of his own policy of reconstrue- 
tion. His legal arguments, however wise in theory, were almost always 
practically false. His angry denunciation of his opponents weakened the 
popular confidence in his wisdom and capacity for the successful leadership 
of any party. His subsidizing of all the subordinate offices of the govern- 
ment for his own purposes promised to reinaugurate the system of official 
corruption under which the national politics had degenerated through a long 
series of administrations previous to the election of Mr. Lincoln. This ex- 
cited greater fear and distrust, because an enormous national debt, involv- 
ing a most intricate system of internal revenue, had infinitely increased the 
opportunities for corruption. Johnson’s administration completely disap- 
pointed the American people. It was notoriously corrupt. It misled the 
Southern people, sharpening continually the edge of their defiance. It 
drove Congress and the loyal people to the alternative of a surrender to 
what they believed a mistaken policy, or of adopting extreme measures, 
which otherwise they would have reluctantly sanctioned. It was a failure 
as regarded its own purposes, and an obstruction to the national develop- 
ment. 

As we write (December, 1867) the Congressional plan of reconstruction is 
stillin its preliminary stages. Registrations have been completed in all the 
ten states under military rule, and in most of them show a majority of col- 
ored voters. Elections have been held in several of these states, and in some 
the Conventions are now in session. The delegates of these Conventions 
are almost all supporters of the Congressional policy ; and it is probable that 
the Constitutions framed by them will be ratified by. the several states, and 
that they will include provisions for impartial or universal suffrage. Wheth- 
er in other respects—for example, in the disfranchisement of a large number 
of whites—they will meet the approbation of Congress after the recent elec- 
tions in the North, we can not predict. It seems certain, however, that, what- 
ever else may fail, the principle of “ equal rights for all men, without distine- 
tion of color,” will be maintained in the next presidential election and in 
the election of a new Congress. But prophecy belongs not to the historian. 
We will not seek to lift the veil of our future. With the recital of the 
events of the last seven years our proper work concludes. What remains 
to be written we leave to other hands; what we have written we now sub- 
mit to the charitable but impartial judgment of our readers. 


rolling-stock and machinery, purchased by and belonging to the United States, and after repeated 
defaults on the part of the purchasers, has postponed the debt due to the government in order to 
enable them to pay the claims of other creditors, along with arrears of interest on a large amount 
of bonds of the companies, guaranteed by the State of Tennessee, of which he was himself a large 
holder at the time. 

“6th. That he has not only restored to rebel owners large amounts of cotton and other aban- 
donded property that had been seized by the agents of the treasury, but has presumed to pay back 
the proceeds of actual sales made thereof, at his own will and pleasure, in utter contempt of the law 
directing the same to be paid into the treasury, and the parties aggrieved to seek their remedy in 
the courts, and in manifest violation of the true spirit and meaning of that clause of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States which declares that no ‘money shall be drawn from the treasury but in 
consequence of appropriations made by law.’ 

‘¢7th. That he has abused the pardoning power conferred on him by the Constitution, to the 
great detriment of the public, in releasing, pending the condition of war, the most active and formi- 
dable of the leaders of the rebellion, with a view to the restoration of their property and means of in- 
fluence, and to secure their services in the furtherance of his policy; and, further, in substantially 
deiegating that pcwer for the same objects to his provisional governors. 

‘¢ 8th. That he has further abused this power in the wholesale pardon, in a single instance, of 
193 deserters, with restoration of their justly forfeited claims upon the government for arrears of 
pay, without proper inquiry or sufficient evidence. 

“9th. That he has not only refused to enforce the laws passed by Congress for the suppression 
of the rebellion, and the punishment of those who gave it comfort and support, by directing proceed- 
ings against the delinquents and their property, but has absolutely obstructed the course of public 
justice, by either prohibiting the initiation of legal proceedings for that purpose, or, where already 
commenced, by staying the same indefinitely, or ordering absolutely the discontinuance thereof. 

‘©10th. That he has further obstructed the course of justice by not only releasing from imprison- 
ment an important state prisoner, in the person of Clement C. Clay, charged, among other things, as 
asserted by himself in answer to a resolution of the Senate (Ex. Doc., 39th Congress, No. 7), ‘ with 
treason, with complicity in the murder of Mr. Lincoln, and with organizing bands of pirates, rob- 
bers, and murderers in Canada, to burn the cities and ravage the commercial coasts of the United 
States on the British frontier,’ but has even forbidden his arrest on proceedings instituted against 
him for treason and conspiracy in the State of Alabama, and ordered his property, when seized for 
confiscation by the district attorney of the United States, to be restored. 

‘¢11th. That he has abused the appointing power lodged with him by the Constitution : 

“¢1. In the removal, on system, and to the great prejudice of the public service, of large numbers 
of meritorious public officers, for no other rcason than because they refused to indorse his claim of 
the right to reorganize and restore the rebel states on conditions of his own, and because they favor- 
ed the jurisdiction and authority of Congress in the premises. : 

‘¢9. In reappointing, in repeated instances, after the adjournment of the Senate, persons who had 
been nominated by him and rejected by that body as unfit for the place for which they had been so 
recommended, 

‘19th. That he has exercised a dispensing power over the laws by commissioning revenue ofti- 
cers and others unknown to the law, who were notoriously disqualified by their participation in 
the rebellion from taking the oath of office required by the act of Congress of July 2, 1862, allowing 
them to enter upon and exercise the duties appertaining to their respective offices, and paying to 
them salaries for their services therein. 

‘¢ 13th. That he has exercised the veto power conferred on him by the Constitution in its system~ 
atic application to all the important measures of Congress looking to the reorganization and restora-~ 
tion of the rebel states, in accordance with a public declaration that ‘he would veto all its measures 
whenever they came to him,’ and without other reasons than a determination to prevent the exer- 
cise of the undoubted power and jurisdiction of Congress over a question that was cognizable ex- 
clusively by them. 

‘614th, That he has brought the patronage of his office into conflict with the freedom of elec- 
tions by allowing and encouraging his official retainers to travel over the country, attending politi- 
cal conventions and addressing the people, instead of attending to the duties they were paid to per- 
form, while they were receiving high salaries in consideration thereof. 

‘15th. That he has exerted all the influence of his position to prevent the people of the rebellious 
states from accepting the terms offered to them by Congress, and neutralized, to a large extent, the 
effects of the national victory by impressing them with the opinion that the Congress of the United 
States was bloodthirsty and implacable, and that their only hope was in adhering to him. 

‘16th. That,in addition to the oppression and bloodshed that have every where resulted from his 
undue tenderness and transparent partiality for traitors, he has encouraged the murder of loyal citi- 
zens in New Orleans by a Confederate mob pretending to act as a police, by holding correspondence 
with its leaders, denouncing the exercise of the constitutional right of a political Convention to as- 
semble peacefully in that city as an act of treason proper to be suppressed by violence, and com- 
manding the military to assist instead of preventing the execution of the ayowed purpose of dis- 
persing them. 

‘¢17th. That he has been guilty of acts calculated, if not intended, to subvert the government of 
the United States by denying that the Thirty-ninth Congress was a constitutional body, and foster- 
ing a spirit of disaffection and disobedience to the law and rebellion against its authority, by en- 
deavoring, in public speeches, to bring it into odium and contempt.” 


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Abby Bradford, the, captured by the Sumter, 179. 

Abolitionists, persecution of, 11; not represent- 
ed in the Presidential contest of 1860, 16; 
demonstrations of, restrained while states were 
seceding, 40. 

Acquia Creek, Virginia, Confederate batteries at, 
1861, neglect to dislodge the, 163; Burnside’s 
base of supplies, 408. 

Adams, Charles Francis, proposes resolution in 
Congress against future amendments to the 
Constitution affecting slavery, 31; correspond- 
ence of, with Earl Russell on the Alabama 
claims, 798. 

Adams, Daniel, captured at the battle of Chick- 
amauga, 546. 

Adams, John, on the character of New England 
colonists as distinguished from others, 2. 

Adams, J. H., of South Carolina, commissioner 
to Washington, December, 1860, 27. 

Alabama, career of the, 423, 424, 425; destruc- 
tion of the, by the Kearsarge, 426; claims of 
the United States upon Great Britain for dam- 
ages on account of the depredations of, 798. 

Alabama Convention passes secession ordinance 
January 11, 1861, 39, 122. 

Albemarle, Confederate ram, conflict of the, with 
the Sassacus, 723; destruction of the, by a tor- 
pedo, 723. : 

Alexandria, Louisiana, occupied by the Federal 
fleet in 1863, 460; occupied by Banks and 
Porter, March, 1864, 584. 

Alexandria, Virginia, Federal occupation of, May 
24, 1861, 135. 

Allatoona, Georgia, defense of, against Hood,671. 

American Party, sketch of, 200. 

Ames, Adelbert, in the attack on Fort Fisher, 
728. 

Amnesty Proclamation (Lincoln’s), debate on, 
in Congress, 658; provisions of the proclama- 
tion, 658; (Johnson’s) May 29, 1865, 802, 
803; Johnson’s severer against rebels than 
Lincoln’s, 816. 

Anderson, Robert, commander of U.S. Military 
Post of Charleston Harbor, 27; evacuates Fort 
Moultrie, 27; receives instructions to defend 
the forts to the last extremity, 27; attempt at 
re-enforcement of, by the Star of the West, 
36; under flag of truce, demands an explana- 
tion from Governor Pickens of the firing on 
the Star of the West, 38; text of correspond- 
ence between, and Governor Pickens, 38; 
sends a messenger to Washington for instruc- 
tions, 88; considers 20,000 men necessary to 
prevent his capitulation of Fort Sumter, 52 ; 
receives from Beauregard a summons to sur- 
render, April 11, 1861, which he refuses, 55 ; 
offers to evacuate, April 15, unless he receives 
supplies or instructions to the contrary, 55 ; 
notified on the 12th that he would be fired 
upon at 4 20 A.M.,55; correspondence be- 
tween, and Beauregard, 55 ; is fired upon, 56 ; 
returns the fire, 56; surrenders the fort to the 
insurgents, April 13, 1861, 64; leaves the fort, 
64; dispatch of, to Secretary of War, 65; is 
present at the meeting on Union Square, New 
York, with the flag of Fort Sumter, 96; com- 
mands the Department of Kentucky, Septem- 
ber, 1861, 172. 

Anderson, R. H., in the Shenandoah, opposes 
McDowell's advance, 344; recalled to Rich- 
mond, 349; at Malvern Hill, 376; wounded 
at Antietam, 399; at Chancellorsville, 488, 
489, 492, 498; in the Wilderness, 628; at 
Spottsylvania, 630; commanding Longstreet’s 
corps, re-enforces Petersburg, 640; re-enforces 
Early, 709. 

Anderson, S. R., in conjunction with Forrest, 
threatens Nashville, 1862, 327. 

Andersonville, cruelties inflicted upon Union 
prisoners at, 795. 

Andrew, John A., Governor of Massachusetts, 
asks for the bodies of soldiers killed in the 
Baltimore riot, 88. 

Antietam, Maryland, battle of, 8398; losses at, 
403; criticised, 404; connection of, with Lin- 
coln’s Emancipation Proclamation, 404;  re- 
sult of the battle of, influences the President 
to proclaim emancipation, 207. 

Anti-slavery Constitutional Amendment fails in 
the House, 656; passed, 669; ratified, 804, 
805. 

Apaches, hostility of, to the whites in New Mex- 
ico, 285. 

Appomattox Court-house, surrender of Lee’s 
army at, 771. 

Appomattox Station, Virginia, Custer defeats 
Lee at, 768, 

Aransas Pass, Texas, occupied by Banks, 579. 

Archer, capture of the, by the Florida, 423; re- 
captured with her Confederate crew, 423. 

Ariel, capture of the, by the Alabama, 424. 

Arizona, Confederate government organized in, 
283. 

Arkansas, Confederate ram, attack on the, by the 
Essex and Queen of the West, 441; conflict 
of, with the Federal fleet on the Yazoo, 440; 
connection of, with the battle of Baton Rouge, 
442; destruction of, 443. 

Arkansas, military situation in, in the summer 
of 1862, 290; Steele’s operations in, 1863-4, 
592; political situation of, as affected by the 
failure of the Red River campaign, 593. 

Arkansas Post, capture of, 449. 

Arlington House, Virginia, headquarters of Gen- 
eral McDowell, 1861, 146; connection of, with 
the Washington family, 357. 


NS DawOxe 


Arms, deficiency of the government in, at the be- 
ginning of the war, 145-160. 

Army, Confederate, July, 1861, 211. 

Army, Confederate, of Northern Virginia, McClel- 
lan’s estimate of the force of, 328. 

Army of the Cumberland, history of, 525, 

Army of the Potomac, explanation of its ‘‘ mas- 
terly inactivity,” 168; constitution of, May, 
1864, 623; condition of, when received by 
Hooker, 484. 

Army, United States, resignation of office in, by 
West Point officers on account of secession, 
49; report of the Secretary of War on the 
condition of, December, 1861, 197; strength 
of, May, 1864, 623. 

Arrests, political, discussion of, in Congress, 643. 

Asboth, Federal general, in the advance on 
Springfield, Missouri, October, 1861, 175. 

Ashby, Turner, Confederate cavalry commander, 
killed at Harrisonburg, Virginia, June 7, 1862, 
347. 

Atlanta, Georgia, situation and importance of, 
603; Confederate evacuation of, 620; exodus 
of citizens from, 620; campaign, review of, 
620; destroyed by Sherman, 675. 

Atlantic Squadron, under Flag-officer String- 
ham, 179. 

Atzerott, George A., capture of, 783; executed 
as a fellow-conspirator with Booth, 787. 

Augur, C. C., at Port Hudson, 463. 

Austin, Texas, Union meeting at, in 1861, 288. 

Ayres, Romeyn B., at Gettysburg, 509; at Five 
Forks, 760. 


Bahia, Brazil, seizure of the Florida in the port 
of, 423. 

Bailey, Joseph, rescues Porter’s fleet at Alexan- 
dria, 590. 

Baird, Absalom, supports Negley at Dug Gap, 
539; at Chickamauga, 542, 544; at Missionary 
Ridge, 567 ; commands a division of the Four- 
teenth Corps, 600, 

Baker, Edward D., senator from Oregon, speech 
of, at the Union Square, New York, 97; killed 
at Ball’s Bluff, October 21, 1861, 165; sketch 
of, 167. 

Baker’s Creek (Edwards’s Station), Mississippi, 
battle of, 465, 466. 

Ball’s Blutf, Virginia, battle of, October 21, 1861, 
165. 

Baltimore, adjourned Democratic Convention at, 
June 18, 1860, 15; Bell and Everett Conven- 
tion at, 15; address of citizens of, to Govern- 
or Hicks, 39; riotous opposition in, to the 
progress of the Sixth Massachusetts regiment, 
April 19, 1861, 86; correspondence concern- 
ing the soldiers killed in, April 19, 1861, be- 
tween Governor Andrew, c” Massachusetts, 
and Mayor Brown, 88; Mayor Brown im- 
plores the President that troops may not pass 
through, 88; correspondence concerning the 
passage of troops through, 89; bridges de- 
stroyed by the authorities of, to cut off North- 
ern troops from, 89; seizure of Relay House 
by the citizens of, 90; occupied by General 
Butler, May 14, 1861, 94. 

Banks, Nathaniel P., supersedes General Patter- 
son at Harper’s Ferry, 164; supersedes But- 
ler in command of the Department of the 
Gulf, 288 ; arrives at New Orleans, 281 ; com- 
mands Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, 
330; operates against Jackson in the Shenan- 
doah Valley, 345; pursues Jackson to Harri- 
sonburg, 345; falls back to Strasburg, 345 ; 
retreats from Strasburg to the Potomac, fol- 
lowed by Jackson, 346 ; fights the battle of Ce- 
dar Mountain, 383; assumes command of the 
Gulf Department, 459; demonstrates against 
Port Hudson, 460; operations of, on the Bay- 
ou Teche, 460; crosses the Mississippi at 
Bayou Sara and invests Port Hudson, 463 ; 
captures Port Hudson, 481; dispatches an ex- 
pedition against Sabine Pass, 578; occupies 
the Rio Grande, 579 ; correspondence of, with 
Halleck on the Red River campaign, 579,581, 
582; at Sabine Cross-roads, 586; retreats to 
Pleasant Hill, 587; fights a battle there, 587 ; 
retreats to Grand Ecore, 588; to Alexandria, 
589; defeats the enemy at Cane River, 589 ; 
abandons the Red River campaign, 590 ; is re- 
lieved by Canby, 590. 

Barboursville, Kentucky, skirmish at, September 
11, 1861, 170. 

Barlow, Francis C., at Antietam, 400; at Get- 
tysburg, 507; at Cold Harbor, 635; in the 
attack on the Weldon Railroad, June, 1864, 
694, 

Barnwell, R. W., of South Carolina, commission- 
er to Washington, December, 1860, 27. 

Bate, W. B., at Chickamauga, 542. 

Bates, Edward, of Missouri, Attorney General in 
Lincoln’s cabinet, 50; resigns the attorney 
generalship, 802. 

Batesville, Arkansas, occupied by Curtis, 289 ; 
skirmish at, February, 1864, 590. 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, capture of, 436; battle 
of, August, 1862, 442; evacuation of, by the 
Federal troops, 443. 

Bayard, James A., of Delaware, Chairman of 
Judiciary Committee in the Senate, Thirty- 
Sixth Congress, 185; resigns his seat in the 
Senate, 656. 

Baylor, John R., Confederate Governor of Ari- 
zona, 283. 

Beauregard, P. G. T., in command of the forces 
at Charleston, March, 1861, 49; sketch of, 50; 


is dismissed from his office of superintendent 
over the West Point Military Academy by Act- 
ing Secretary of War Holt, 50; resigns his 
place in the United States Army, 50; corre- 
spondence between, and Major Anderson re- 
garding the surrender of Fort Sumter, 55; 
commands the Confederate Army of the Poto- 
mac, July, 1861, 146; beauty and booty proc- 
lamation of, July 5, 1861, 147; at the battle 
of Bull Run, 151; farewell to the Army of 
Northern Virginia, 330; sent West to confer 
with General A. 8. Johnston, 227; calls for 
church bells to make cannon from, 296; as- 
signed to the Department of the Mississippi, 
March, 1862, 296; advances on Pittsburg 
Landing, 298 ; beaten at Shiloh, 302; retreats 
to Corinth, and is joined by Price and Van 
Dorn, 302; address of, to his army, 302; ad- 
vances to Lee’s support, May, 1864, 632; at- 
tacks Butler, and is repulsed, 632; abandons 
Bermuda Hundred to defend Petersburg, 640 ; 
correspondence of, with Gillmore concerning 
the firing upon Charleston, 743. 

Beall, John Y., executed as a spy, 797. 
Beecher, H. W., speech on the occasion of the 
hoisting the old flag over Fort Sumter, 744. 
Bell, John, of Tennessee, nominated for Presi- 
dent, 1860,15; protests against secession, 103 ; 

vote received by, for President, 201. 

Bellows, Henry W., connection of, with the San- 
itary Commission, 792. 

Belmont, Missouri, battle of, November 7, 1861, 
vy ale 

Benham, Henry W., at the battle of Carrick’s 
Ford, July, 1861, 142. 

Benjamin, Judah P., of Louisiana, valedictory 
speech of, in the Senate, 82; Chairman of 
Committee on Public Lands in the Senate, 
Thirty-Sixth Congress, 185; succeeds Hunter 
as Confederate Secretary of State, 211. 

Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, A.D. 1671, op- 
position to free-schools and printing, 2. 

Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, occupied by But- 
ler, 632. 

Berry, Hiram G., at Seven Pines, 352; at 
Chancellorsville, 493. 

Big Bethel, Virginia, Federal disaster at, June 
10, 1861, 136. 

Big Blue, Missouri, battle of the, 596. 

Birge, H. W., at Monet’s Bluff (Cane River), 
589. 

Birge’s Sharp-shooters at Fort Donelson, 231. 

Birney, David B., at Fair Oaks, 354; at Fred- 
ericksburg, 413; at Chancellorsville, 492, 497; 
at Gettysburg, 509, 512; at Cold Harbor, 635; 
in command of the Second Corps, 694; in the 
attack on the Weldon Railroad, June, 1864, 
694 ; in the attack on Lee’s left, August, 1864, 
701; in the attack on Chapin’s Bluff, Septem- 
ber, 1864, 703; in command of the Twenty- 
fifth Corps, 756. 

Birney, James G., Abolition candidate for Pres- 
ident in 1844, 199. 

Black, Jeremiah §., Attorney General, retains 
his position in Buchanan’s cabinet, 40. 

Blake, Homer C., surrenders the Hatteras tc the 
Alabama, 425. 

Blair, Montgomery, Postmaster General in Lin- 
coln’s cabinet, 51; resigns the postmaster gen- 
eralship, 802. 

Blair, Francis P.,Jr., commanding Home Guards 
near St. Louis in 1861, 107; at Edwards’s Sta- 
tion, 466; in the first assault on Vicksburg, 
468; in the second assault, 468; assigned to 
the Fifteenth Corps, 555; commands Seven- 
teenth Corps, Army of the Tennessee, 601 ; 
at Decatur, 613. 

Blockade, President Lincoln’s proclamation in- 
stituting, April 19, 1861, 100; of Southern 
ports a necessity of the war, 178; the ports 
of North Carolina and Virginia included un- 
der, by Lincoln’s proclamation of April 27, 
1861, 178; rescinded, 803. 

Blue Springs, Tennessee, fight at, October, 1863, 
551. 

Blunt, James G., defeats a Confederate force at 
Cane Hill, Arkansas, 290; at the battle of 
Prairie Grove, 291. 

Booneville, Missouri, battle of, June 17, 1861, 
138. 

Booth, John Wilkes, assassinates President Lin- 
coln, 783; death of, 784; diary found on the 
body of, 784. 

Border States offended by the precipitate action 
of South Carolina, 20; inclined to the Union, 
39, 44; enticements held out to, to secede, 4+; 
were the debatable ground in the first stages 
of the war, 100; President’s message (July, 
1864) concerning the attitude of, 188; no re- 
sponse from the, to the offer of compensated 
emancipation, 643, 

Bouligny, John E., representative from Louisi- 
ana, declares his devotion to the Union, 44. 
Bowen, John 8., commands the Confederates at 

the battle of Port Gibson, 458. 

Bowling Green, Kentucky, Buckner’s force at, 
225; Federal advance on, February, 1862, 2/0. 

Boyle, J. T., commands Western Kentucky, 531. 

Bragg, Braxton, commands Confederate forces 
at Pensacola, 1861, 182; at the battle of 
Shiloh, 299; succeeds Beauregard in com- 
mand of the Army of Tennessee, 306; inya- 
sion of the Northwest by, 309; invades Ken- 
tucky, 309; joins Smith at Frankfort, 309; 
proceeds too leisurely in his invasion, 309 ; 
captures Mumfordsville, Kentucky, 311; proc- 


lamation of, to the people of Kentucky, Sep- 

tember 26, 1862, 312; begins to retreat, 313; 

description of the retreat of, from Kentucky, 

320; position of his army at Murfreesborough, 

322; defeated at Stone River, 324; position 

and strength of the army of, in Tennessee, 

June, 1863, 529; retreats from Shelbyville 

and Tullahoma, 530; occupies Chattanooga, 

530; evacuates Chattanooga, 537 ; opportuni- 

ty of, to destroy Rosecrans’s army, 539; error 

of, in not advancing upon Chattanooga before 

Rosecrans’s concentration, 542; crosses the 

Chickamauga, 542; fights Rosecrans at Chick- 

amauga, 542 et seg.; besieges Chattanooga, 

555; position and strength of, November, 
1863, 560; strengthens his right on Mission- 
ary Ridge, 562; defeated at Missionary Ridge, 
567; superseded by Joe Johnston, 601; cor- 
respondence of, with Johnston in regard to the 
re-enforcement of the Army of the Tennessee, 
601. 

Brannan, J. M., at Chickamauga, 544, 546, 548. 

Brazos Santiago occupied by Banks, 579. 

Breckinridge, John C.,nominated by the Charles- 
ton Democratic Convention, 1860, for Presi- 
dent, 15; as President of the Senate, declares 
the election of Lincoln and Hamlin, 45; res- 
ignation of, demanded by the Kentucky Legis- 
lature, 176; vote received by, for President in 
1860, 201; at Stone River, 322; career of, in 
the Senate, Thirty-seventh Congress, 187; ex- 
pulsion of, 188; attacks Baton Rouge, 442; 
at Chickamauga, 542, 546; defeats Sigel at 
New Market, Virginia, 631; joins Lee, 631; 
defeats Gillem, 682; at the battle of Opequan, 
710; connection of, with the negotiations be; 
tween Sherman and Johnston, April, 1865, 
773. 

Bright, Jesse D., of Indiana, career of, in the 
Senate, Thirty-seventh Congress, 188; ex- 
pelled, 188; letter of, to Davis recommending 
arms, 188. 

Bristoe Station, Virginia, actions at, 385, 519, 
520. 

British recognition of the Confederacy as a bel- 
ligerent, 193; Foreign Enlistment Act of 
1819, 193; action in regard to the Trent af- 
fair, 193. 

Brooklyn, U.S. steam frigate, arrival of, at Nor- 
folk Navy Yard, and ordered to re-enforce 
Fort Sumter, 32; sent to re-enforce Fort 
Pickens, 71. 

Brooks, Preston, assault of, on Sumner, 14. 

Brough, John, elected Governor of Ohio, 654. 

Brown, E. B., defends Springfield against Mar- 
maduke, 590. 

Brown, Harvey, succeeds Slemmer in command 
of Fort Pickens, 182. 

Brown, Isaac U., commander of the ram Arkan- 
sas, 440. 

Brown, John, Harper’s Ferry raid of, 14; the 
Abolitionists attempt to hold a meeting in his 
honor at Boston, December 3, 1860, 21. 

Brown, J. C., on the Confederate side at Chick- 
amauga, 542. 

Brown, Neil S., and others, of Tennessee, protest 
against secession, 103. 

Brownlow, William G., recognized by Johnson 
as legal Governor of Tennessee, 803. 

Brownsville, Texas, occupied by Banks, 579. 

Bruinsburg, Mississippi, landing of Grant’s troops 
at, 458. 

Buchanan, Franklin, commander of the Virginia, 
March, 1862, 254. 

Buchanan, James, his determination to yield to 
slavery, 14; last annual message to Congress, 
21; denies the right of coercion, 22; instructs 
Major Anderson to hold the Charleston forts, 
and defend them to the last, 27; refuses to 
withdraw the garrison from Charleston Har- 
bor, 29; refuses to officially recognize the 
South Carolina commissioners, but replies to 
their address, 30; declines to receive their sec- 
ond letter, 31; reply of, to General Scott's 
charges, 72; vote received by, for President 
in 1856, 200. 

Buckingham, elected Governor of Connecticut in 
1868, 641. 

Buckland, R. P., in the first assault on Vicks- 
burg, 468. 

Buckner, Simon B., commands the Confederate 
forces at Bowling Green, Kentucky, 1861, 172; 
at Fort Donelson, 231, 235, 236; evacuates 
Knoxville before Burnside’s advance, 533; in 
the attack on Dug Gap, 539; at Chickamau- 
ga, 542-549. 

Buell, Don Carlos, in command of the Depart- 
ment of Kentucky at the close of 1861, 172; 
advances on Bowling Green, 238; army of, 
leaves Nashville to join Grant, March 28, 
1862, 298; arrives on the battle-field of Shi- 
loh at the close of the first day’s conflict, 
300; popular dissatisfaction with, 311; reach- 
es Louisville with his army, and heads off 
Bragg, 311; pursues Bragg’s retreating army, 
313; desertions from the army of, 320; is re- 
enforced by recruits, 320; relieved of his com- 
mand, 320; his conduct of the Army of the 
Cumberland (Ohio), 525. 

Buford, John, sueceeds Hatch in command of 
the cavalry of Pope’s Virginia Army, 382; or- 
dered to Gettysburg, 506. 

Bull Run, battle of, July 21, 1861, 146-157; 
preparations for, 146; the advance, 148; Ty- 
ler’s reconnoissance toward Blackburn's Ford, 
July 18, 149; McDowell’s plan, 149; John- 


828 


ston joins Beauregard, July 20, 150; estimate 
and disposition of forces, 150; superiority of 
the Confederates in artillery, cavalry, and dis- 
cipline, 150 ; McDowell too dilatory, 150; po- 
sition of the Confederates, 151; the rout of the 
Federal army, 154, 156; losses on both sides, 
157; note on, 157. : 
Burbridge, S. G., at Chickasaw Bayou, 446; at 
Arkansas Post, 449; in the second assault on 
Vicksburg, 468; defeats General Morgan in 
Kentucky, 606; destroys the salt-works at 
Saltville, Virginia, 682. : 
Burnett, Henry C., expelled from the Thirty-sev- 
enth Congress, 185; elected to Confederate 
Congress, 185. 

Burns, Anthony, the fugitive slave, case of, 13. 
Burnside, Ambrose E., at the battle of Bull Run, 
151; commands the Roanoke Island expedi- 
tion, 244; advance on Newbern, 246; proc- 
lamation of, to the people of North Carolina, 
246; captures Newbern, March, 1862, 249 ; 
corps of, sent to re-enforce Pope, 383; at An- 
tietam, 402; succeeds McClellan in command 
of the Army of the Potomac, 405 ; Fredericks- 
burg campaign of, 406-420; reluctance of, to 
take command, 406; plan of, for the cam- 
paign, 406; neglects the opportunity of beat- 
ing the enemy in detail, 407; waits for pon- 
toons, and is anticipated by Lee in the occu- 
pation of Fredericksburg, 407; constitution 
of the Army of the Potomac under, 407; 
crosses the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg, 
411; insists upon authority to dismiss Hooker, 
Smith, Newton, and other officers, or resign- 
ing his command, 417; is superseded by Hook- 
er, 417; resignation of, not accepted, 417 ; 
withdraws from Fredericksburg, 415 ; abortive 
attempt of, to cross the Rappahannock above 
Fredericksburg, 417; demoralization of the 
army of, after the Fredericksburg disaster, 
416; relieved of command, 417; assigned to 
the Department of the Ohio, 417 ; assumes com- 
mand of the Department of the Ohio, 531; ad- 


vances over the mountains into East Tennessee, | 


533; captures Knoxville, 535; captures Cum- 
berland Gap, 535; why a co-operative moye- 
ment was not made by, against Chattanooga, 
537; the army of,isolated from the Chattanooga 
campaign through Halleck’s management, 551; 
plans suggested by, for movements subsequent 
to the battle of Chickamauga, 551; withdraws 
to Knoxville before Longstreet’s advance, 552; 
relieved by Foster, 554; with the Ninth Corps 
held in reserve, 624; joins the Army of the 
Potomac, 628; in the Wilderness, 626; at 
Spottsylvania, 631; at Cold Harbor, 634, 635 ; 
mine enterprise against Petersburg, 697, 698, 
699; receives leave of absence, 756; elected 
Goyernor of Rhode Island, 822. 

Butler, Benjamin F., placed at the head of the 
first Massachusetts troops sent to Washington, 
92; takes military possession of Annapolis 
against the protest of Governor Hicks, 92; 
correspondence between, and Governor Hicks 
concerning the landing of soldiers ag Annapo- 
lis, 92; correspondence between, and Governor 
Andrew, 93; repairs the Annapolis and Elk 
Ridge Railroad, 93; replies to Governor Hicks’s 
protest against his occupation of the railroad, 
94; offers to assist in putting down an expect- 
ed servile insurrection at Annapolis, 93; as- 
signed to the Department of Annapolis, 100 ; 
takes possession of the Relay House, 101; 
proclamation of, to the citizens of Baltimore, 
101; seizes the Winans gun, 101; enters Bal- 
timore, 101; assigned to the command of Vir- 
ginia and the Carolinas, with headquarters at 
Fortress Monroe, 102; establishes a camp at 
Newport News, Virginia, 136; turns over his 
command at Fortress Monroe to General 
Wool, August, 1861, 180; commands the Hat- 
teras expedition, 180; gives the name of 
‘*eontraband” to negroes, 201; issues Order 
No. 28, 219, 278; undertakes an expedition for 
the capture of New Orleans, 262; enters New 
Orleans, 270; called ‘‘ Picayune,” 270; proc- 
lamation of, to the people of New Orleans, 
273; compels citizens of New Orleans to pay 
their Northern creditors, 275; establishes a 
quarantine, 276; executes Mumford, 276 ; re- 
quires an oath of allegiance from the citizens of 
New Orleans, 276; insists upon the Episcopal 
prayer for the President of the United States, 
278; disarms the population of New Orleans, 
278; calls for free negro volunteers, 278 ; oc- 
cupies the Lafourche district, 279 ; superseded 
by Banks, November 9, 1862, 280; charges 
against, 280; farewell of, to the Army of the 
Gulf and to the citizens of New Orleans, 281; 
post assigned to, in Grant’s Virginia campaign, 
624; movement of, from Yorktown, co-opera- 
tive with Grant, 631 ; forces under, designated 
the Army of the James, 631; occupies City 
Point and Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, 632 ; 
failure of, to take Petersburg, 632; carries the 
outer defenses of Fort Darling, 632; repulses 
Beauregard, 632; ‘‘bottled up” at Bermuda 
Hundred, 633; the larger portion of the army 
of, join Grant north of the James, 634; takes 
up a position at Deep Bottom, 697; Dutch 
Gap Canal of, 706; connection of, with the 
first attack on Fort Fisher, 725; powder-boat 
suggested by, 725; relieved of his command 
of the Army of the James, 731. 


~- INDEX. 


Campbell, John A., connection of, with the 
Hampton Roads Peace Conference, 669. 

Campbell’s Station, ‘Tennessee, battle of, 552. 

Camp Wild Cat, Kentucky, repulse of Zollicoffer 
at, 170. 

Canada, Confederate agents in, 797. 

Canal, the Vicksburg, failure of, 453; Butler’s 
Dutch Gap, 706. 

Canby, E. R. 8.,in command of Federal forces 
in New Mexico, 288; fights the battle of Val- 
verde, 289; drives Sibley out of New Mexico, 
289; assumes command of the Department of 
the Gulf, 745; appointed military command- 
er of North and South Carolina, 824. 

Cane Hill, Arkansas, skirmish at, November, 
1862, 290. 

Cane River, Louisiana, battle of, April, 1864, 
589. 

Cape Girardeau, attack on, by Marmaduke, 477. 

Carlin, W. P., at Lookout Mountain, 562. 

Carnifex Ferry, West Virginia, battle of, Sep- 
tember 10, 1861, 144. 

Carr, E. A., at the battle of Pea Ridge, 284; at 
Port Gibson, 458; in the second assault on 
Vicksburg, 468 ; at Mobile, 747, 748. 

Carrick’s Ford, West Virginia, battle of, July, 
1861, 142. 

Carroll, Charles, member of African Coloniza- 
tion Society, 11. 

Carroll, S.S., in the battles of the Wilderness, 
629, 

Carthage, Missouri, concentration at, of Confed- 
erates under Price, Jackson, and Rains, June, 
1861, 139; battle near, 139. 

Casey, Silas, at the battle of Seven Pines, 351. 

Cass, Lewis, resigns his position as Secretary of 
State, December 15, 1860, 22; vote received 
by, for President in 1848, 199. 

Cavalry, deficiency of, in the Army of the Cum- 
berland, 1863, 526. 

Cedar Creek, Virginia, battle of, 712. 

Cedar Mountain, Virginia, battle of, August 9, 
1862, 383; losses at, 383. 

Centreville, Virginia, in connection with the bat- 
tle of Bull Run, 149. 

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, burned by the Con- 
federates, 705. 

Champion Hills (Edwards’s Station), Mississip- 
pi, battle of, 465. 

Chancellorsville, battle of, authorities for, 483, 
488, 500; forces at the battle of, Federal and 
Confederate, 486; description of, 487; losses 
at the battle of, 500. 

Chantilly (Ox Hill), Virginia, battle at, 390. 

Chaplin’s Hills (Perryville), Kentucky, battle of 
October 8, 1862, 314. 

Charleston, Democratic Conyention at in 1860, 
15; minute-men of, 18; hoists the Palmetto 
flag, 18; guard placed over the United States 
Arsenal at, 22; volunteer troops pouring into, 
27; excitement in, caused by Anderson’s re- 
moval to Fort Sumter, 27; troops ordered out 
in, 29; authorities seize the U. 8. Custom 
House, Post-oftice, and Arsenal, December 28, 
1860, 29; Secessionists strengthen Fort Moul- 
trie, and erect batteries on Morris’s and Sulli- 
yvan’s Island, 36; put under protection of a 
military patrol, 36; all the citizens of, called 
to arms, 36; press of, calls on Florida to seize 
Pensacola and Key West, 36; sub-treasurer 
of, forbidden to cash drafts from Washington, 
36; General Beauregard ordered to command 
the Confederate forces at, 49; floating battery 
at, 53; 7000 troops at, under Beauregard, in 
April, 1861, 53; Confederate evacuation of, 
720; defenses of, and approaches to, 733; 
Hunter’s operations against, in 1862, 733 ; 
blockading fleet off, attacked by Confederate 
rams, 734; Dupont’s bombardment of, 733, 
737 ; fired upon by General Gillmore, 743; oc- 
cupied by the Federal troops, 744. 

Charleston Courier, declares the purpose of the 
South to usurp the national government, 32. 
Chase, Salmon P., Secretary of the Treasury in 
Lincoln’s cabinet, 50; sketch of, 186; opin- 
ion of, concerning the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion, 208; succeeds Taney as Chief Justice, 

666; biographical sketch of, 666. 

Chattanooga, ‘Tennessee, demonstration against 
by General Negley, June, 1862, 308; cam- 
paign for the possession of, in 18638, 525-568 ; 
shelled by Wagner, 537; evacuated by Bragg, 
537; besieged by Bragg, 556 ; battles of, No- 
vember, 1863, 560-568. 

Cheatham, Benjamin F., at the battle of Bel- 
mont, November 7, 1861,171; at Chickamau- 
ga, 542; at Lookout Mountain, 562; at Mis- 
sionary Ridge, 562; commands a corps of 
Hood’s army, 671; at Franklin, 677; at Nash- 
ville, 681; at Spring Hill, 676. 

Chehaw Station, Alabama, skirmish at, 610. 

Cheraw, North Carolina, occupied by Sherman, 
720. 

Chicago, Illinois, Republican Convention at, in 
1860, nominates Lincoln and Hamlin, 15. 

Chickahominy River, Virginia, description of the, 
343; bridged by McClellan, 347; McClellan’s 
position on the, 349; bridges over the, swept 
away, 356. 

Chickamauga Creek, battle of, 542-549; forces 
and losses at, 549, 550. 

Care Bayou, Mississippi, battle of, 446, 

47. 
Chief Justices of the United States, sketches of, 


in Canada, 797; chairman of Committee on 
Commerce in Senate, Thirty-sixth Congress, 
185. 

Clay, Henry, member of African Colonization 
Society, 11. 

Clayton, H. D., at Chickamauga, 542. 

Cleary, W. C., Confederate agent in Canada, 
797. 

Cleburne, Patrick, driven from Liberty and 
Hooyer’s Gaps, 530; in the attack on Dug 
Gap, 539; at Chickamauga, 542, 546; at Mis- 
sionary Ridge, 562, 567; killed at Franklin, 
677. 

Cleveland, Ohio, National Convention at, in 1864, 
664. 

Cobb, Howell, Secretary of the Treasury in 1860, 
supports the Charleston nominees, 16; resigns 
his place in the cabinet, 22; President of 
Montgomery Convention, 41; captured by 
Wilson, 750. 

Cobb, 'T. R. R., killed at Fredericksburg, 414. 

Cochrane, John, nominated for Vice-President in 
1864, 664. 

Cold Harbor, Virginia, battle of, June 27, 1862, 
363; forces engaged at, 366; losses at, 367, 
368; battle of, June, 1864, 633-635 ; losses 
at, 635. 

Colfax, Schuyler, elected speaker of the House, 
Thirty-eighth Congress, 655; re-elected speak- 
er, Thirty-ninth Congress, 806. 

Collamer, Jacob, speech of, in the Senate, on 
National Currency Bill, 648. 

Collierville, Tennessee, skirmish at, 560. 

Collins, Napoleon, seizure of the Florida by, 423. 

Colonial Congress of 1765 at New York, for re- 
dress of grievances, 2. 

Colonies, the American, Northern and Southern, 
civilizations in the, compared, 2; had no sov-- 
ereignty, 3; declared their independence in 
1776, but not their individual sovereignty, 3. 

Colonization of the United States, character of 
the colonists, 1. 

Colonization Society, African, formed at Wash- 
ington in 1816, 11. 

Colonization of slaves, Lincoln in favor of, 205. 

Colorado 'Verritory, bill for the admission of, de- 
feated by the President’s veto, 818. 

Columbia, South Carolina, entered by Sherman, 
718; burning of, explained, 718. 

Columbus, Kentucky, occupied by Confederates 
under Polk, 169 ; Confederate strength at, and 
importance of, 170; demonstrations against, 
January, 1862, 226; evacuated by Polk, after 
the capture of Fort Donelson, 241. 

Commissioners, Confederate, at Washington, 51 ; 
correspondence between, and Secretary Sew- 
ard, 51, 52. 

Confederate Commissioners at Washington, 51 ; 
correspondence between, and Secretary Sew- 
ard, 51, 52; information of their failure reach- 
es Charleston, 53. 

Contederate debt, repudiated by the Southern 
States, 804. 

Confederate States, delegates from, to Congress, 
retain their seats to aid rebellion, 31; appar- 
ent designs of, 82; seize United States forts, 
arsenals, etc., 39; influence of minute-men on 
the yote for secession, 39; supply of arms and 
ammunition from the North and from Europe, 
40; Convention at Montgomery, Alabama, 41, 
123; name themselves ‘‘' The Confederate 
States of America,” adopt a Constitution, and 
form a provisional government, 41; Jefferson 
Dayis elected President, and Alexander H. 
Stephens Vice-President, by the Convention, 
41; inauguration of President Davis at Mont- 
gomery, February 18, 1861, 43; Robert 
‘Toombs appointed Secretary of State, Charles 
G. Memminger Secretary of the Treasury, and 
Pope Walker Secretary of War, 44; Congress 
passes an act declaring the navigation of the 
Mississippi free, 44 ; Congress passes an act 
for the establishment and organization of an 
army, March 9, 1861, 49 ; Constitution ratified 
by the various states, who are called upon for 
their quotas, 49; call for 20,000 men, 49; 
John Forsyth, Martin J. Crawford, and A. B. 
Rodman appointed commissioners to Wash- 
ington, 50; order, April 10, 1861, for Beaure- 
gard to attack Fort Sumter, if not surrendered, 
55; call issued for 32,000 additional troops, 
68; convention with Virginia, April 25, 1861, 
79; Congress meets at Montgomery, April 29, 
1861, 113; letters of marque and reprisal is- 
sued, 99; payment of debts to citizens of the 
loyal states forbidden, 118 ; bill passed by Con- 
gress for the issue of $50,000,000, payable in 
bonds, 118; Congress adjourns from Mont- 
gomery to Richmond, 118; population and 


strength of, 123; joined by Virginia, April 24, | 


1861—by Arkansas, May, 1861—by ‘Tennes- 
see, June 8, 1861—by North Carolina, May 
20, 1861—by Texas, February, 1861, 123 ; 
habits of the Southern people afforded a basis 


for military organization, 124; advantages of | 


the Confederacy in the war, 124; situation of, 
at the beginning of the war, 124; Southern 
railroads, their favorable situation for military 
purposes, 133; disadvantages of the Confeder- 
acy from a financial stand-point, 133 ; Confis- 
cation Act of July, 1861, 192; British and 
French recognition of the Confederacy as a 
belligerent power, 193; commissioners sent to 
Europe in 1861, 193; Congress authorizes the 


Congress, Confederate, meets at Montgomery, 


113; passes an act declaring the navigation 
of the Mississippi free, 44; passes an act for 
the organization of an army, 49; passes a bill 
for the issue of $50,000,000, 118 ; adjourns to 
Richmond, 118; authorizes the raising of 
400,000 troops, 212; tax laws passed by, 212; 
retaliates against the Federal Confiscation Act, 
212; Conscription Act passed by, 218 ; Confis- 
cation Act of, 192. 


Congress, Continental, 2, 3; Congress, United 


States, the Thirty-sixth, December 3, 1860, 

21; Southern senators retain their seats in, 

to aid rebellion, 31; attempts at conciliation 

in, 22-31; passage of the resolution of the 
Committee of Thirty-three in the House 
against Constitutional amendments affecting 
slavery, 31; resolution approving Major An- 
derson’s change of position passed the House, 

40; senators from Alabama, Florida, and Mis- 
sissippi withdraw, 40; farewell speech of Jefter- 
son Davis in the Senate, 40; standing com- 
mittees in Thirty-sixth, 185; special session. 
of the Thirty- seventh, called by the Presi- 
dent, 68,184 ; character of the Thirty-seventh, 

184; Grow elected speaker, 184; Senate of 

the Thirty-seventh, 186; passage of act con- 
firming previous acts of the President, 190 ; 

expulsion of seceding senators, 191; debate 
on the Army Bill, July, 1861, 191; appropri- 
ations, July, 1861, 192; Confiscation Act, 

July, 1861, 192; regular session December 2, 

1861, 197; the Crittenden resolution offered 
for reaffirmation and tabled, 198 ; military 
appropriations in the first session, Thirty- 
seventh, 198 ; tax and legal tender acts, 198 ; 

passage of the resolution offering compensa- 
tion for emancipation, 204 ; act abolishing 
slavery in District of Columbia, April, 1862, 
204; act respecting negro soldiers, 205 ; Con- 
fiscation Act of 1862, 205; second session of 

the Thirty-seyenth opens, 641 ; measures 
adopted relating to compensated emancipa- 
tion, 643 ; discussion on political arrests, 643 ; 

authorization of the suspension of habeas cor- 
pus, 644; Conscription Act passed, 646, 647 ; 

National Currency Bill passed, 648 ; admis- 
sion of West Virginia, 649 ; repudiation of for- 
eign mediation, 649 ; dissolution of Thirty-sey- 
enth, 650; first session of ‘Lhirty-eighth,|654 ; 

list of members, 655 ; President’s message, 

655; repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, 656 ; 

debate on expulsion of Long in the House, 

662, 663; enabling acts to admit Colorado, 

Nevada, and Nebraska, 663; Thirty-eighth, 

meets in second session, 669; passage of res- 
olution for an amendment of the Constitution 
abolishing slavery, 669; Thirty-ninth, assem- 
bles December 4, 1865, 805; list of members, 

805; position of parties in the two houses, 

806; Johnson’s first annual message, 807; 

appointment of Reconstruction Committee, 

809; constitutional amendment on the basis 
of representation debated in the House, 810; 

the amendment defeated in the Senate, 813 ; 

constitutional amendment submitted April 30, - 
1866, 813; this amendment adopted, 813; 
full report of the Reconstruction Committee, 
814; admission of members from Tennessee, 
817; passage of Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, 817 ; 
passage of Civil Rights Bill, 817; bill passed 
extending suffrage to negroes in the District of 
Columbia, 818; close of first session of Thir 

ty-ninth, 818; passage of Military Recon 

struction Bill, 822; passage of supplementary 
Reconstruction Bill by the Fortieth, 822. 


Congress, the, captured by the Virginia in Hamp- 


ton Roads, 254. 


Conkling, Roscoe, argument of, for the change 


of the basis of representation, 810. 


Conscription Act passed by 'Thirty-seventh Con- 


gress, 646, 


Conscription, Confederate, 218, 791. 
Constitution of the Confederate States, 43; rat- 


ified by the Confederate States, 49. 


Constitution of the United States, Convention 


for the formation of, at Philadelphia, 1787, 4 ; 
rights surrendered under, by the states, 5; 
states not mentioned by name in any part of, 
5; text of, 8; amendatory articles of, 9; prin- 
ciple of apportionment of taxes and representa- 
tion in, 10; anti-slavery amendment of, pass- 
ed, 669; ratified, 804, 805. 


Constitution, U. 8. frigate, alias the ‘‘ Old Iron- 


sides,” used by General Butler, April, 1861, 
92. 


Constitutional amendment, anti-slavery, passed, 


669; joint resolution for, of the Reconstruc- 
tion Committee passed, 813; anti-slavery, 
ratified, 804, 805. 


Continental Congress at Philadelphia, 2; had 


no sovereign power, 3. 


Contributions from the loyal states in the spring 


of 1861, 112. 


Convention, Republican, of 1860, at Chicago, 15; 


Democratic, of 1860, at Charleston, 15; Bell 
and Everett, of 1860, at Baltimore, 15; na- 
tional, at Cleveland, Ohio, for’ nomination of 
President, 664 ; nominates Fremont and Coch- 
rane, 664; Republican, of 1864, at Baltimore, 
664; nominates Lincoln and Johnson, 665 ; 
Democratic, at Chicago, in 1864, 667; nomi- 
nates McClellan and Pendleton, 668 ; Nation- 
al Union, at Philadelphia, 820. * 


Butterfield, Daniel, at the battle of Cold Harbor, 
1862, 364; at the battle of Groveton, 389; at 
Fredericksburg, 415 ; commands a division of 
the Twentieth Corps, 600. 

Buzzard’s Roost Pass, Georgia, Sherman’s dem- 
onstration against, 604. 


666. 
Churchill, T. J., commanding Confederate forces 
at Arkansas Post, 449; at Pleasant Hill, 587. 
Cincinnati, Ohio, excitement at, occasioned by 
Bragg’s invasion of 1862, 309. 
Cincinnati, sinking of the, before Vicksburg, 471. 
City of New York, wreck of the, 244, 
City Point, Virginia, occupied by Butler, 632. 
Civil Rights Bill passed over the President’s 


raising of 400,000 troops, 212; tax laws, 212 ; 
Congress retaliates against the Confiscation 
Act of the Federal government, 212; change 
from a provisional to a permanent government, 
213; Conscription Act of April 16, 1862, 218 ; 
schemes for securing the alliance of Indians, 
283; military situation in the spring of 1862, 
296; new levies, 296; discouragement occa- 
sioned by the failure of Bragg’s invasion in 


Cooper, Samuel, Confederate Adjutant General, 
sketch of, 358. 

Copperheads, opposition efforts of, in the sum- 
mer of 1863, 650. 

Corbett, Boston, shoots John Wilkes Booth, 
784. 

Corinth, Mississippi, Halleck’s advance on, 302 ; 
evacuated by the Confederates, May, 1861, 
303; battle of, 316. 


Cairo, Illinois, threatened by the Confederates 
near the close of 1861, 173. 


Calhoun, John C., violent propositions of, 12. veto, 818. 1862, 320; scarcity of supplies in the winter | Corse, J. M., at Missionary Ridge, 562; defense | 
Camden, North Carolina, surrendered April, 1862, | Clarence, capture of the brig, by the Florida, of 1863-4, 569; military situation in spring of of Allatoona by, 671. ; 
249. 423. 1864, 598; situation in spring of 1865, 753. Cotton, connection of, with the Confederate con- : 


Cameron, Simon, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of 
War in Lincoln’s cabinet, 50; resignation of, 
197; appointed minister to Russia, 197, 


duct of the war, 443; seizure of, at Alexan- 
dria, Louisiana, 585. 
Cotton-gins increased the wealth of the South, 10, 


Confederation, articles of, 3. 
Confiscation Act of 1862, 205, 206; modified io 
receive the President’s sanction, 206. 


Clarksburg, Virginia, collision between Letcher’s 
forces and Union men, May 23, 1861, 142. 
Clay, Clement C., of Alabama, Confederate agent 


* 


Couch, Darius N., at Seven Pines, 351; at the 
battle af Malvern Hill, 376; at Fredericks- 
burg, 413; at Chancellorsville, 487, 493, 496, 
498,499; disaffection of, toward Hooker, 505. 

Cox, J. D., commands a division of the Army of 
the Ohio, 600; at Franklin, 677; in the op- 
erations against Wilmington, 733. 

Crawford, Martin J., of Georgia, Confederate 
commissioner to Washington in 1861, 50. 

Crawford, S. W., at Gettysburg, 512; at Five 
Forks, 760. 

Creditors, South Carolina and Georgia, refuse to 
pay debts to Northern, 18; sum due Northern, 
from Southern citizens, 24. 

Crittenden Compromise, the, 22. 

Crittenden, Thomas L., at the battle of Shiloh, 
300; commands Second Corps of Buell’s 
army, October, 1862, 312; at Stone River, 
322; commands the Twenty-first Corps of 
Rosecrans’s army, 526 ; in Rosecrans’s Middle 
Tennessee campaign, 530; enters Chattanoo- 
ga, 537; at Chickamauga, 542-549; report 
of Court of Inquiry upon the conduct of, 550. 

Crook, George, conflict of, with Wheeler north 
of Chattanooga, 551; defeats McCausland in 
West Virginia, 631; is defeated by Early at 
Kernstown, 708; at the battle of Opequan, 
710; at Cedar Creek, 712; at Sailor’s Creek, 
768. 

Cross-keys, Virginia, battle at, June 8, 1862,347. 

Cumberland, U.S. sloop of war, escapes from 
Gosport Navy Yard, April 21, 1861, 85; sunk 
by the Virginia in Hampton Roads, 254. 

Cumberland Gap, description of, 314 ; evacuated 
by G. W. Morgan, September, 1862,314 ; cap- 
tured by Burnside, 535. 

Cumberland River in connection with the move- 
ment on Forts Henry and Donelson, 226. 

Cummings Point Battery in Charleston Harbor 
built by the secessionists, 53. 

Currency, United States, made a legal tender, 
198; National, Bill, debate on in Congress, 
646. 

Curtin, Andrew G., re-elected Governor of Penn- 
sylvania, 654. 

Curtis, Samuel R., commanding in Southwest- 
ern Missouri, January, 1862, 282; occupies 
Springfield, 282; fights the battle of Pea 
Ridge, 284; advances to Batesville, Arkansas, 
and threatens Little Rock, 289; assigned to 

’ the Department of Missouri, September, 1862, 
292; relieved of the command of the Missouri 
Department by Schofield, 590. 

Cushing, W. B., gallant exploit of, in the de- 
struction of the Albemarle, 722. 

Cushing, capture of the, by the Florida, 423. 

Custer, George A., at Cold Harbor, 634; com- 
mands a division of Sheridan’s cavalry, 755 ; 
routs Early at Waynesborough, 755; at Five 
Forks, 760; defeats Lee at Sailor’s Creek, 
768. 


Dahlgren, Ulric, killed in the raid on Richmond, 
523. 

Dalton, Georgia, Thomas’s demonstration against, 
February, 1864, 601. 

Dana, N. J. T., expedition of, for the occupation 
of the Rio Grande, 579. 

Dana, United States coast survey steamer, seized 
by the Florida authorities, 89. 

Danville becomes temporarily the capital of the 
Confederacy, 778 ; Davis’s proclamation from, 
778. 

Davis, Charles H., career of, as commander of 
the Mississippi squadron, 436 ; succeeds Foote 
in command of the Mississippi squadron, May, 
1862, 306; occupies Memphis, 306. 

Davis, H. W., speech of, on expulsion of Long, 
662. 

Davis, Jefferson, farewell speech of, in the Unit- 
ed States Senate, 41; elected President of the 
Confederate States by the Convention at Mont- 
gomery, 41; biographical sketch of, 42; inau- 
gural address of, February 18, 1861, 43; forma- 
tion of his cabinet, 44; orders United States 
troops to be expelled from Texas before the se- 
cession of that state, 45 ; proclamation of, pro- 
posing to issue letters of marque and reprisal, 
April 17, 1861, 99 ; message of, to Confederate 
Congress, April 29, 1861, 113; chairman on 
military affairs in the Senate, Thirty-sixth Con- 
gress, 185; message of, July, 1861, 211; mes- 
sage of, November, 1861, 212; inauguration 
of, February, 1862, 214; message of, Febru- 
ary 25, 1862, 214; proclamation of, December 
23, 1862, respecting Federal negro soldiers 
and their officers, 219; declares General But- 
ler a felon, 219; his offensive-defensive policy 
of conducting the war, 296, at Fair Oaks, 
352; address of, before the Mississippi Legis- 
lature, December, 1862, 463; interview of, 
with Gilmore and Jacques in 1864, 667; 
speech of, at Macon, Georgia, September, 1864, 
670; opposes the arming of slaves, 753; re- 
ceives a telegram from Lee announcing his 
defeat, 777; flight of, from Richmond, 777 ; 
Danville proclamation of, 778; hearing of 
Lee’s surrender, abandons Danville, 778; de- 
serted by all his cabinet officers except Reagan, 
778; reward offered for the capture of, 778 ; 
captured near Irwinsville, Georgia, 778. 

Davis, Jefferson C., at the battle of Pea Ridge, 
284; shoots Nelson at Louisville, September 
29, 1862, 312; at Stone River, 322; in Rose- 
crans’s Middle Tennessee Campaign, 530; in 
the attack on Liberty Gap, 530; at Chatta- 
nooga, 560, 562; commands a division of the 
Fourteenth Corps, 600; captures Rome, Geor- 
gia, 605; succeeds Palmer as commander of 
the Fourteenth Corps, 617; at Jonesborough, 
620. 

Debt, the national, growth of, 666. 

Decatur, Georgia, battle of, 612. 

Declaration of Independence, fac-simile of, 6-7. 

Deer Creek raid against Vicksburg, 455. 

De Kalb, C. L.V., proposition of, to blow up the 
Capitol at Washington, 797. 

De Kay, Union officer, killed by guerrillas, fu- 
neral of, at New Orleans, 276, 


INDEX. 


Delaware, reply of the Legislature of, to the 
commissioner from Mississippi, 39. 

Dennison, William, succeeds Blair as postmaster 
general, 802. 

Department of Kansas, created November, 1861, 
Hunter in command, 175. 

Department of Kentucky, Anderson in command, 
172; Anderson succeeded by Sherman, and 
the latter by Buell, 172. 

Department of Missouri, created November,1861, 
Halleck commanding, 177; Curtis commands, 
succeeding Schofield, 292 ; Rosecrans com- 
manding, 593. 

Department of New Mexico, created November, 
1861, Canby commanding, 177. 

Department of Ohio, created May, 1861, com- 
manded by McClellan, 140 ; limits of, Buell 
commanding, November, 1861, 177. 

Department of Virginia, North and South Caro- 
lina, created May, 1861, commanded by But- 
ler, 

Department of the West, created April, 1861, 
commanded by Harney, 1388; by Fremont, 
139; Halleck assigned to the command of, 
November, 18, 1861, 175. 

Department of West Virginia, under Rosecrans, 
Wick 

De Peyster, Johnson, hoists the Federal flag over 
the Capitol at Richmond, 766. 

Des Arc, Arkansas, captured by the national 
forces, 449. 

Desertions in the Army of the Potomac, spring 
of 1863, 484. 

Deshler, James, killed at Chickamauga, 546. 

Devens, Charles, at Ball’s Bluff, 165. 

Devin, John D., commands a division of Sheri- 
dan’s cavalry, 755 ; at Five Forks, 760; at 
Sailor’s Creek, 768. 

District of Columbia, organization of the militia 
in, by Captain Charles Stone, 32 ; abolition 
of slavery in, April, 1862, 204 ; included in 
the Department of the Rappahannock under 
McDowell, 345; bill passed in Congress giving 
suffrage to the negroes in the, 818. 

Dix, General John A., succeeds Howell Cobb 
as Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan’s 
cabinet, 32; orders revenue cutters Lewis Cass 
and Robert McClelland to New York: ‘‘If any 
one attempts to haul down the American flag, 
shoot him on the spot,” 40. 

Dodge, George M., raid of, through Northern 
Alabama, 529 ; ordered to organize a select 
force of 8000 men from the Sixteenth Corps to 
go to Chattanooga, 566 ; commands Sixteenth 
Corps, Army of the Tennessee, 601; at Deca- 
tur, 613. 

Dostie, A. P., killed in the New Orleans riot, 821. 

Doubleday, Abner, at the battle of Groveton, 
388; at Fredericksburg, 413; at Gettysburg, 
512. 

Douglas, Stephen A., action of, in repealing the 
Missouri Compromise, 13; nominated for Pres- 
ident, 1860, 15; vote received by, for President 
in 1860, 201; letter of, in his last days, 187; 
death of, 187. 

Drainesville, Virginia, engagement at, December 
20, 1861, 167. 

Drayton, Confederate general, commanding at 
Hilton Head, 1861, 181. 

Dred Scott Decision, the, 14. 

Drouyn de |’Huys, correspondence of, with Sec- 
retary Seward on French mediation, 650. 

Dug Gap, Tennessee, Bragg’s attack on, 539, 
541, 

‘‘Dummy” expedition down the Mississippi, 451. 

Dumont commands a division under ‘Thomas, 
526. 

Dunham, H. C., of Georgia, proposition to assas~ 
sinate prominent Northern men, 797. 

Dupont, Samuel F., commands the naval part of 
the Port Royal expedition, 181; bombards the 
Charleston forts, 737; succeeded by Dahlgren 
in command of the South Atlantic Squadron, 
738. 

Durham Station, Virginia, interview between 
Sherman and Johnston at, 773. 

Dutch Gap Canal, Butler’s, 706. 

Duval’s Bluff, Arkansas, captured by the nation- 
al forces, 449. 

Dwight, William, at Port Hudson, 463, 472, 474. 


Early, Jubal, at Bull Run, 151; at the battle of 
Cedar Mountain, 383; at Fredericksburg, 413; 
holds the line at Fredericksburg while Lee 
fights the battle of Chancellorsville, 489; dis- 
patched by Lee against Hunter, 631; crosses 
the Potomac into Maryland, 707; defeats Wal- 
lace on the Monocacy, 707 ; threatens Wash- 
ington, 707; is repulsed at Fort Stevens, 708 ; 
recrosses the Potomac, 708; defeats Crook at 
Kernstown, 708 ; advances into Pennsylvania, 
708 ; re-enforced in the Valley, 709; defeated 
by Sheridan on the Opequan, 710; routed at 
Fisher’s Hill, 711; attacks Sheridan’s army at 
Cedar Creek and is defeated, 712; routed by 
Custer at Waynesborough, 755; dismissed 
from command by Lee, 755. 

East Tennessee, 33,000 out of 48,000 in the pop- 
ular vote of, for the Union, 123; plan for the 
occupation of, postponed, 225; value of the 
possession of, to Bragg, in the summer of 1862, 
308 ; loyalty of, 324; occupied by Burnside, 
535. 

Edenton, North Carolina, occupied by Command- 
er Rowan, 246. 

Edwards’s Station, Mississippi, battle of, 465. 

Elections in the autumn of 1862 against the ad- 
ministration, 641; of 1863, 654; spring, of 
1664, 654; autumn, of 1864, 669; Presiden- 
tial, of 1864, 669; autumn, of 1866, 821, 822; 
autumn, of 1867, 824. 

Elizabeth City, North Carolina, occupied by 
Commander Rowan, 246. 

Elk Horn, Confederate name for the battle of Pea 
Ridge, 284. 

Ellet, Charles, connection of, with the ram fleet 
in the West, 432, 433. 

Ellet, Charles Rivers, communicates with Farra- 
gut’s fleet, 4839; runs the Vicksburg batteries 


10 A 


and attacks the city of Vicksburg, 449: death 
of, 452. 

Ellis, Governor of North Carolina, seizes Fort 
Macon, the forts at Wilmington, and the arse- 
nal at Fayetteville, 89; reply of, to Lincoln’s 
call for 75,000 men, 68. 

Ellis’s Bluffs, attack on fleet from, 437. 

Ellsworth, Colonel Elmer E., killed at Alexan- 
dria, May 24, 1861, 135. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, member of Constitutional Con- 
vention, 4. 

Emancipation, compensated, debate in Congress 


on, 204; proclamation of Lincoln, September, 
1862, 207; compensated, Lincoln’s message 
concerning, December, 1863, 642; compen- 
sated, measures adopted by Congress concern- 
ing, 643. 

Emory, William H., checks the Confederate pur- 
suit after Sabine Cross-roads, 587; at Cedar 
Creek, 712; at the battle of Opequan, 710. 

Ericsson, John, constructs the Monitor, 251. 

Essex, accident to the, at Fort Henry, 229; at- 
tack of, on the ram Arkansas, 441. 

Evans, Confederate colonel, at Bull Run, 151. 

Evansport, Virginia, engagement at, between the 
Confederate batteries and the Potomac fleet, 
163. 

Everett, Edward, nominated for Vice-President, 
1860, 15. 

Ewell, Richard 8., at Bull Run, 151; detached 
for the support of Jackson in the Shenandoah, 
345 ; attacked by Fremont at Cross Keys, 347; 
at the battle of Cold Harbor, 1862, 365; at the 
battle of Malvern Hill, 376; ordered to Gor- 
donsville, 382; at the battle of Cedar Mount- 
ain, 383; worsted at Bristoe Station, 385; 
wounded at Groveton, 385; at Fredericks- 
burg, 413; at Gettysburg, 507, 508, 509, 512, 
513; in the Wilderness, 626, 628 ; at Spottsyl- 
vania, 631; holds Richmond during the siege 
of Petersburg, 701; at Sailor’s Creek, cut off 
from Lee in the retreat, 768. 

Ewing, Hugh, in the first assault on Vicksburg, 
468; in the second assault, 468; commands 
fourth division of Sherman’s Army of the Ten- 
nessee, 560; at Chattanooga, 560; retreat of, 
from Pilot Knob, Missouri, 596. 

Ezra Church, Georgia, battle of, 616. 


Fagan, Confederate general, at Helena, 481. 

Fair Oaks, Virginia, battle of, 352; battle of, 
opened the way to Richmond, 354; losses at, 
B54. 

Farragut, David G., flag-officer of the West Gulf 
squadron, commands the naval portion of the 
New Orleans expedition, 262 ; passes the New 
Orleans forts, 266; runs past the Vicksburg 
batteries, 438; descends the Mississippi to 
New Orleans, 441; passes the Port Hudson 
batteries, 460 ; co-operates with Banks in the 
attack on Port Hudson, 472; attacks the forts 
in Mobile Harbor, 745. 

Fayetteville, North Carolina, occupied by Sher- 
man, 720. 

Fessenden, W. P., of Maine, senator in Thirty- 
seventh Congress, on subjugation, 191; elect- 
ed senator, resigns the treasurership, 801. 

Fillmore, Millard, vote received by, for Presi- 
dent in 1856, 200. 

Finances, Confederate, July, 1861, 212, 215. 

Finances of the United States, report of the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury on the, 1860, 22; re- 
port of the Secretary of the Treasury on the, 
December, 1861, 197; condition of the, July, 
1861, 192; in 1863, 642. 

Finnegan, Confederate general commanding the 
Confederate troops in Florida, 575. 

Fisheries, the New England, afforded the basis 
for a navy, 178. 

Fisher’s Hill, Virginia, battle of, 711. 

Five Forks, Virginia, battle of, 759. 

Flag of truce, the first of the war, 38. 

Flanders, B. F., of Louisiana, elected to Con- 
gress from Louisiana, 280; admitted to the 
House, 649. 

Florida Convention passes secession ordinance 
January 12, 1861, 39, 122; Legislature passes 
an act defining treason, 49; Seymour’s cam- 
paign in, 574, 575, 

Florida, the Confederate privateer, captures by, 
423; seizure of, by Captain Collins, 423. 

Floyd, John B., Secretary of War in 1860, sent 
arms and ammunition to the slave states, 16; 
asserts that Major Anderson had violated the 
pledges of the government, and asks permis- 
sion to withdraw the U.S. forces from Charles- 
ton Harbor, 28; resigns his position in Bu- 
chanan’s cabinet, December 29, 1860, 29 ; in- 
dicted for implication in the Indian Trust 
Fund fraud, 29; ordered to re-enforce Gener- 


al Wise in West Virginia, 142; boasts that he | 


will drive Rosecrans out in a fortnight, 144; 
defeated at Cotton Hill, retreats, 144; at Fort 
Donelson, 231, 236; charges against, for his 
conduct at Fort Donelson, 237, 238. 

Follansbee, A. S., captain in the Sixth Massa~ 
chusetts, leads part of the regiment through 
Baltimore, April 19, 1861, 86. 

Foote, A. H., commander of the Mississippi na- 
val squadron, 226, 432; demonstrates against 
Columbus, 226; reduces Fort Henry, 229; 
bombards Fort Donelson, 233; occupies Co- 
lumbus, 241; bombards Island No. 10, 293 ; 
advances against Fort Pillow, 303; transfers 
his command to Davis, 305; death of, 305. 

Foreign mediation repudiated by Congress, 649. 

Foreign relations, condition of, July, 1861, 193; 
with England disturhed by the Trent affair, 
194. 

Forrest, Napoleon B., at Fort Donelson, 236; 
occupies Murfreesborough, July, 1862, 307; 
threatens Nashville, 327; attack of, on Fort 
Donelson, February, 1863, 527; at Chicka- 
mauga, 542-549; defeats W. S. Smith near 
Okalona, 571; advances into Tennessee and 
Kentucky, 571; defeats Sturgis at Guntown, 
Mississippi, 572; defeated by A. J. Smith at 
Tupelo, Mississippi, 574; raid of, into Mem- 
phis, 574; invades Tennessee, September, 1864, | 


829 


671; demonstrates against Johnsonville, 675} 
at Spring Hill, 676; defeated by Wilson at 
Ebenezer Church, Alabama, 750, 

Forsyth, John, Confederate commissioner to 
Washington in 1861, 50. 

Forsyth, Missouri, Confederate camp at, broken 
up, July, 1861, 139. 

hk Barrancas, Florida, seized by secessionists, 
39. 

Fort Bartow, Roanoke Island, 242. 

Fort Beauregard, St. Philip’s Island, South Car- 
olina, attacked by Sherman and Dupont, No- 
vember 7, 1861, 181. 

Fort Blakely, Alabama, capture of, 748. 

Fort Blanchard, Roanoke Island, 242. 

Fort Bliss, Texas, Confederate General Sibley’s 
headquarters in 1861, 288. 

Fort Breckinridge, New Mexico, abandoned by 
the Federals, 1861, 288. 

Fort Buchanan, New Mexico, abandoned by the 
Federals in 1861, 288. ‘ 

Fort Caswell, North Carolina, seized by seces- 
sionists, 39 ; Confederate evacuation of, 732. 

Fort Clarke, Hatteras Inlet, captured by Butler 
and Stringham, August, 1861, 181. 

Fort Craig, New Mexico, abandoned by the Fed- 
erals in 1861, 288 ; retaken by Canby, 288; 
advance against, by Sibley, 288. 

Fort Darling, Virginia, Butler carries the outer 
defenses of, 632. 

Fort De Russey, Louisiana, evacuated by Gen- 
ap Taylor, 463; captured by A. J. Smith, 
584. 

Fort Donelson, situation of, 230; re-enforce- 
ment of, 231; number of men defending, 231; 
besieged, 231; bombarded, 235; council of 
war at, 234; sally from and ensuing battle, 
234, 235; consultation as to surrender of, 206; 
estimate of losses at the battle of, 236; sur- 
render of, February 16, 1862, 237, 432; dis- 
position of the prisoners captured at, 237; 
Forrest’s attack on, February, 1863, 527. 

Fort Esperanza, Texas, captured by Banks, 579. 

Fort Fillmore, New Mexico, surrendered by Ma- 
jor Lynde, 288. 

Fort Fisher, North Carolina, first attempt on, by 
Butler and Porter, 725 ; second expedition 
against, 731; assault on and capture of, 732. 

Fort Gaines, Alabama, captured, 747. 

Fort Harrison (Chapin’s Bluff), Virginia, cap- 
tured by Ord and Birney, 703. 

Fort Hatteras, captured by Butler and String- 
ham, August, 1861, 181. 

Fort Heiman, Tennessee, 227. 

Fort Henry, importance of, and vulnerability, 
225; bombardment of, 227; captured by Foote 
and Grant, 229, 432. 

Fort Huger, Alabama, evacuated by the Confed- 
erates, 748. 

Fort Huger, Roanoke Island, 242. 

Fort Jackson, New Orleans, 261; bombardment 
of, by Farragut and Porter, 265; passage of, 
266 ; surrender of, 270. 

Fort Johnson, North Carolina, seized by seces- 
sionists, 39. 

Fort Johnson, South Carolina, description of, 53. 

Fort Macon, seized by Governor Ellis, of North 
Carolina, January 2, 1861, 39 ; captured by 
Burnside, 249. 

Fort McAllister, Georgia, captured by Hazen, 
688. 

Fort McRea, dismantled and abandoned, 69. 

Fortress Monroe, General Butler's headquarters 
at, 102; description of, 136. 

Fort Morgan, Mobile Bay, seized by secession- 
ists, 39; surrender of, 747. 

Fort Moultrie, evacuated by Major Anderson, 
27; occupied by an armed force from Charles- 
ton, December 28, 1860, 29; recommendation 
of General Wool to increase the garrison of, 
December 6, 1860, 34; repaired and strength- 
ened by Charleston secessionists, 36 ; descrip- 
tion of, 53. 

Fort Pemberton, Mississippi, repulses Grant’s at- 
tack, 454. 

Fort Pickens, Florida, supplies cut off from, 49 ; 
is re-enforced by President Lincoln’s orders, 
52; re-enforcement of, 68, 72; bombards the 
Confederate forts at Pensacola, November, 
1861, 182. 

Fort Pillow, Tennessee, bombardment of, by 
Foote’s gun-boats, 303; evacuated June 4, 
1862, 306; massacre at, 572. 

Fort Powell, Alabama, blown up and abandoned 
by the Confederates, 745. 

Fort Pulaski, seized by Governor Brown, of 
Georgia, January 2, 1861, 39; capture of, 421. 

Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Longstreet’s assault on, 
554, 

Fort Stanton, Arizona, abandoned by the Fed- 
erals, 283. 

Fort Steadman, Virginia—Grant’s right—cap- 
tured by the Confederates under Gordon, 757 ; 
recaptured, 757. 

Fort Stevens (near Washington), Early repulsed 
at, 708. 

Fort St. Philip, New Orleans, 261; bombardment 
of, by Farragut and Porter, 265; passage of, 
266; surrender of, 270. 

Fort Sumter, South Carolina, occupied by Major 
Anderson on the night of December 26, 1860, 
27; prayer at, December 27th, 28 ; attempt to 
re-enforce by the Star of the West, 36; cut off 
from supplies, 37; South Carolina offers to 
buy, 40; expedition sent to relieve, 52; de- 
scription of, 52, 733; Beauregard’s demand 
for the surrender of, 55; fired upon April 12, 
1861, 56; surrender of, to the Confederates, 
April 13, 1861, 61; excitement caused by the 
attack on, 61; flag saluted and removed, 64 ; 
concentration of the insurgents at, enables the 
government to re-enforce Fort Pickens and 
protect Washington, 69; President’s message 
(July, 1861) concerning the capture of, 188 ; 
bombarded by Admiral Dupont’s Monitor fleet, 
787 ; bombarded from Morris’s Island, 741, 
743; the old flag restored above, 744. 

Fort Tracy, Alabama, evacuated by the Confed- 
erates, 748. 


830 


Fort Wagner, South Carolina, assault on, July 
11, 1863, 738; assault on, July 18, 740 5 siege 
of, 741; Confederate evacuation of, 743. 

Fort Walker, Hilton Head, attacked by Sherman 
and Dupont, November, 1861, 181. ‘ 
Forts in the Confederate States which remained 
in possession of the government, 124; in Tex- 

as surrendered by Twiggs, 288. 

Foster, John G., at Roanoke Island, 244; as- 
sumes the offensive in North Carolina and 
marches against Goldsborough, 427; retreat 
of, 428. 

Foster, L. S., chosen President of the Senate, 
805. 

Fourth of July, how memorable in American his- 
tory, 184. 

France, offer of mediation by, rejected, 650. 

Frankfort, Alabama, Union meeting at, 44. 

Frankfort, Kentucky, Bragg’s invading armies 
at, October, 1862, 309 ; inauguration of Con- 
federate Provisional Governor Hawes at, Oc- 
tober, 1862, 309. 

Franklin, Benjamin, member of Constitutional 
Convention, 4. 

Franklin, William B., at Bull Run, 152; sent to 
re-enforce McClellan, April, 1862, 336; com- 
mands Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac, 
341; crosses the Chickahominy, 357; at the 
battle of Cold Harbor, 1862, 365; at Antie- 
tam, 400; commands the left of Burnside’s 
army, 407; part assigned to, in the battle of 
Fredericksburg, 412; how he failed to perform 
it, 412; commands the Sabine Pass expedi- 
tion, 578 ; commands Banks’s army in the ad- 
vance to Alexandria, 584; at Sabine Cross- 
roads, 585, 586. 

Franklin, Tennessee, battle of, 677. 

Frazier’s Farm, Virginia, battle of, 371; losses 
at, 373; should have been a Confederate de- 
feat, 379. 

Fredericksburg, Virginia, campaign of 1862, 406- 
420; threatened with bombardment, Novem- 
ber, 1862, 408; battle of, 413; losses at, 416. 

Freedman’s Bureau Bill passed over the Presi- 
dent’s veto, 817. 

Freedmen, injurious and partial legislation of 
Southern Legislatures concerning, 804. 

Free Soil Party, origin of, 12. 

Fremont, John C., Republican candidate for 
President in 1856, 14; assigned to the com- 
mand of the Western Department, July, 1861, 
139; sketch of, 172; declares Missouri under 
martial law, 173; fortifies St. Louis, 173; is 
succeeded by Hunter in the command of the 
West, November, 1861, 175; advances toward 
Springfield in the autumn of 1861,175; vote 
received by, for President in 1856, 200; com- 
manding the Mountain Department, Virginia, 
advances against ‘‘ Stonewall” Jackson, 345 ; 
at Franklin at the time of Jackson’s advance, 
May, 1862, 345; ordered to Jackson’s rear, 
346; pursues Jackson, 347; attacks Ewell at 
Cross Keys, 347; relieved of command in Vir- 
ginia by General Sigel, 381; nominated for 
President in 1864, 664; withdraws from the 
Presidential contest, 669. 

French recognition of the Confederacy as a bel- 
ligerent, 194. 

French, William H., at Antietam, 399; at Fred- 
ericksburg, 413; at Chancellorsville, 489, 496, 
498; disconnected from the Army of the Po- 
tomac, 624. : 

Front Royal, Virginia, Federal force at, attacked 
by Jackson, May 23, 1862, 345. 

Fry, S. S., commands a diyision under Thomas, 
526. 

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, 12; repealed, 656. 


Galveston, Texas, capture of, 421; retaken by 
the Confederates, 423. 

Gamble, Hamilton R., Provisional Governor of 
Missouri, July, 1861, 139. 

Gardner, Frank, surrenders Port Hudson, 481. 

Garesché, J. P., death of, at Stone River, 527. 

Garfield, James A., successful campaign of, 
against Humphrey Marshall, January, 1862, 
221; chief of staff to Rosecrans, 527; at 
Chickamauga, 548; speech of, in the House, 
on the expulsion of Long, 662. 


Garnett, Robert S., commanding the Confeder- j 


ate forces in West Virginia, June, 1861, 142; 
retreats from Laurel Hill, 142; is cut off from 
Beverly by McClellan, and killed in the battle 
of Carrick’s Ford, 142. 

Garrard, Kenner, in the action at Camp Wild 
Cat, Kentucky, October, 1861, 170; destroys 
the factories at Rosswell, 609; commands a 
cavalry division in the Army of the Cumber- 
land, 601; destroys the Augusta railroad, 613. 

Gates, Horatio, commanding the Northern Army 
in the Revolution, 2. 

Geary at Wauhatchie, 556, 557; at Lookout 
Mountain, 562; commands a division of the 
Twentieth Corps, 600; at New Hope Church, 
606; assumes command of Savannah, 714. 

Georgia, Confederate privateer, career of the, 
798. 

Georgia, the Governor of, recommends secession, 
18; Legislature, debate in, on secession, 19 ; 
the governor of, seizes vessels at Savannah be- 
longing to New York residents, 40; vote of 
Convention of, for secession, 123. 

Getty, George W., in the Wilderness, 626. 

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, battle of, 506, 513; 
forces engaged at, 508; losses at, 513. 

Gibbon, John, at Fredericksburg, 413; at Chan- 
cellorsyille, 497, 498 ; wounded at Gettysburg, 
512; at Cold Harbor, 635; in the attack on 
the Weldon Railroad, June, 1864, 694; in 
command of the Twenty-fourth Corps, 756; 
in the assault on Petersburg, 762. 

Gilbert, C. C., commands Third Corps of Buell’s 
army, Otober, 1862, 312. 

Gillem, defeated by Breckinridge, 682 ; in Stone- 
man’s North Carolina raid, 750. 

per Confederate engineer at Fort Donelson, 

Gilmor, Harry, destroys Hunter’s supply train, 
631; burns Chambersburg, 708. 


INDEX. 


Gilmore, Joseph A., elected Governor of New 
Hampshire in 1863, 641; re-elected in 1864, 
654, 

Gilmore, J. R., interview of, with Jeff. Davis in 
1864, 667 

Gillmore, Quincy A., takes Pulaski, 421 ; com- 
mands Central Kentucky, 531 ; connection of, 
with the Florida expedition, February, 1864, 
574, 575; commands Eighteenth Corps of 
Butler’s army, 681; succeeds Hunter in com- 
mand of the Department of the South, 738 ; 
operations of, on Morris’s Island, 738-743 ; 
correspondence of, with Beauregard concern- 
ing the firing upon Charleston, 743; in the at- 
tack on Petersburg, May, 1864, 638; army of, 
enters Charleston, 744. 

Gist, W. H., Governor of South Carolina, recom- 
mends secession to the Legislature, 18. 

Goldsborough, Louis M., commands naval part 
of the Roanoke Island expedition, 244. 

Goldsborough, North Carolina, Sherman concen- 
trates his army at, 721. 

Gordon, John B., at the battle of Opequan, 710 ; 
at Cedar Creek, 711; in the attack on Fort 
Steadman, 757. 

Gordonsville, Virginia, threatened by Pope, 382. 

Gosport Navy Yard, destruction of U. S. ships in, 
85; report of the property left at the, by the 
United States forces, 85. 

Grafton, West Virginia, occupied by McClellan 
May, 1861, 142. 

Grand Gulf, Mississippi, burning of, in retalia- 
tion for an attack upon the Federal fleet, 437 ; 
Grant’s attack on, April, 1863, 457; evacu- 
ated by the Confederates after the battle of 
Port Gibson, 459. 

Granger, Gordon, defeats Van Dorn at Frank- 
lin, Tennessee, 528; in Rosecrans Middle 
Tennessee campaign, 530; at Chickamauga, 
542,548; commanding the Fourth Corps, 555 ; 
at Chattanooga, 560; in the attack on Mobile, 
747. 

Granger, R. S., repulses Hood at Decatur, 675, 

Grant, Ulysses S., occupies Paducah, Kentucky, 
169; fights the battle of Belmont, November 
7,1861,171; advances on Fort Henry, Febru- 
ary 1862, 227; advances on Fort Donelson, 
230; receives the unconditional surrender of 
the fort and garrison, 237 ; occupies Pittsburg 
Landing, 295; at the battle of Shiloh, 298 ; 
army of, in Tennessee, depleted by reason of 
Bragg’s invasion, 314; attacks Price at Iuka, 
315; advances south on the Cairo and New 
Orleans Railroad, 318; occupies Holly Springs, 
318; proclaims martial law in West ‘Tennes- 
see, April, 1862, 825; arrangements of, for a 
campaign against Vicksburg in the winter of 
1862-3, 445; experiments against Vicksburg, 
458 et seq.; anecdote concerning his ‘* pocket 
full of plans,” 455; moves on New Carthage, 
455; runs the Vicksburg batteries with his 
transports, 455; attacks Grand Gulf, 458; 
lands at Bruinsburg, and advances on Port 
Gibson, 458; fights the battle of Port Gibson, 
458; abandons his original idea of co-operat- 
ing with Banks, 459; moves against the 
Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad, 459; cuts 
off from Grand Gulf, and moves on Jackson, 
463; defeats Pemberton at Edwards’s Station, 
466; orders an assault on Vicksburg, 468 ; 
repeats the assault, 468; has an interview 
with Pemberton, 477; paroles Pemberton’s 
army, 479; enters Vicksburg, 479; takes com- 
mand of the military Division of the Missis- 
sippi, 551 ; visits New Orleans, 555 ; injured by 
a fall, 555; armies under his command, Octo- 
ber, 1863, 555; at Chattanooga, 556 ; plan of, 
for the campaign against Bragg, 560; moves 
upon the enemy, and carries Orchard Knob, 
560; defeats Bragg’s army before Chattanoo- 
ga, 567; receives his commission as lieutenant 
general, 600; correspondence of, with Sher- 
man concerning his appointment as lieutenant 
general, 600; plan of, for campaign against 
Lee, 624; crosses the Rapidan, 626; is at- 
tacked by Lee, 626; moves on Spottsylvania, 
629; advances to the North Anna, 631; cross- 
es the Pamunkey, 634; repulsed at Cold Har- 
bor, crosses the Chickahominy and the James, 
637 ; losses of, from the Rapidan to the James, 
637; attack of, on Petersburg, June, 1864, 
638; losses of, in the attack on Petersburg, 
640; losses of, May 5—June 20, 1864, 640; 
unsuccessfully attacks the Weldon Railroad, 
June, 1864, 694; attacks Lee’s left north of 
the Jaties, August, 1864, 701; extends his 
left across the Weldon Railroad, 703; assails 
Chapin’s Bluff, 703; moves upon Hatcher’s 
Run, 704; congratulates Sherman on the suc- 
cess of his march, 713; abandons the idea of 
transporting Sherman’s army by sea to Vir- 
ginia, 713; anxiety of, lest Lee should join 
Johnston, 755; dispositions of, for the spring 
campaign of 1865, 755; instructions of, to 
Sheridan, 755 ; joined by Sheridan, 755 ; force 
of, before Petersburg, March, 1865, 756; or- 
ders an advance against Lee’s right, 756 ; car- 
ries Lee’s defenses at Petersburg, 761, 762; 
pursues Lee, 767; demands the surrender of 
Lee’s army, 769; correspondence of, with Lee, 
771; terms of surrender granted by, to Lee, 
771; report of, on the condition of the South- 
ern States, 809; appointed Acting Secretary 
of War by President Johnson, 824. 

Greble, Lieutenant John T., killed at Big Beth- 
el, June 10, 1861, 136. 

Greeley, Horace, connection of, with the peace 
negotiations of 1864, 666. 

Green, George S., at Antietam, 400. 

Green, Martin, Confederate officer, drives Col- 
onel Williams from Shelbina, Missouri, Sep- 
tember, 1861, 173; afterward defeated by 
Pope, 173. 

Green, Nathaniel, commanding the Southern 
Army in the Revolution, 12. 

Gregg, Marcy, at Fredericksburg, 413; at Ray- 
mond, May, 1863, 463. 

Grierson, B. H., raid of, through Mississippi, 455, 
456; at Okolona, 571; at Guntown, 572. 


Griffin, Charles, at the battle of Cold Harbor, | 
1862, 364; at Chancellorsville, 733; at Five 
Forks, 760; succeeds Warren in command of 
the Fifth Corps, 760; in the pursuit of Lee, 
reaches Jettersville, on the Danville Road, 
767. 

Griffin, S. G., succeeds Potter as division com- 
mander, 761. : 

Grover, Cuvier, charge of, at the battle of Grove- 
ton, 387; at Port Hudson, 463, 472, 474; in 
the Red River campaign, 585, 

Groveton, Virginia, battles at, 385, 386, 387, 388, 
389 ; losses at, 389. 

Grow, Galusha, elected speaker in Thirty-sey- 
enth Congress, with sketch of, 184. 

Gulf Squadron, under Flag-officer Mervine, 179 ; 
history of, 433. 

Gun-boats, importance of, in the war, 434. 

Guntown, Mississippi, Forrest defeats Sturgis at, 
572, 


Habeas Corpus, writ of, disregarded by orders 
of President Lincoln, 111; letter of Major 
Morris, commanding Fort McHenry, to Judge 
Giles, regarding, 111; the right of the Presi- 
dent to suspend, denied by Chief Justice Ta- 
ney, 112; President’s message (July, 1861) 
concerning the suspension of, 188 ; suspen- 
sion of, authorized by Congress, 644 ; protest 
against suspension of, 644; suspension of, an- 
nulled in most of the Southern States, 803, 

Hackleman, Brigadier General, killed at Corinth, 
316. 

Hahn, Michael, elected to Congress from Louisi- 
ana, 280; admission of, to the House, 649, 
Hale, John P., vote received by, for President in 

1852, 199. 

Hall, A. S., defeats Morgan at Milton, Tennes- 
see, 528. 

Halleck, Henry W., becomes commander of the 
Department of the West, November 18, 1861, 
175; drives Price into Arkansas, January, 
1862,176; takes command of the Department 
of Missouri, November, 1861, 177 ; adminis- 
tration of, in Missouri, 291; correspondence 
of, with Price concerning spies, etc., 292 ; 
starts for Pittsburg Landing to reorganize 
Grant’s and Buell’s armies, 302; advances on 
Corinth, 802; removed to Washington, 309 ; 
visits McClellan, July, 1862, and opposes the 
attack on Petersburg, 380; orders McClellan 
to withdraw from the Peninsula, 380; made 
general-in-chief at Pope’s suggestion, 382 ; 
supposed ill feeling of, toward Hooker, 505 ; 
peremptorily orders Rosecrans to advance, 
585; urges upon Banks the Red River cam- 
paign, 581, 582; general criticism of, 598 ; 
relieved of his position as general-in-chief, 
and made chief of staff of General Grant, 600; 
injustice of, toward Sherman, 776. 

Hamilton, Alexander, member of Constitutional 
Convention, 4. 


Hamilton, Andrew J., appointed by Johnson 
Provisional Governor of Texas, 803. 

Hamlin, Hannibal, nominated by the Chicago 
Republican Convention of 1860 for Vice-Pres- 
ident, 15. 

Hampton Roads, United States naval force in, 
March, 1862, 253. 

Hampton, Virginia, burned by Magruder’s com- 
mand, 180. 

Hampton, Wade, surprises Kilpatrick, but is re- 
pulsed, 720. 

Hancock, W.8., at the battle of Williamsburg, 
339; at Antietam, 401 ; at Fredericksburg, 
413; at Chancellersville, 489, 496 ; placed in 
command of the Second Corps under Meade, 
505; at Gettysburg, 508, 512; assigned to the 
Second Corps, 623; in the Wilderness, 626, 
628; at Spottsylvania, 630, 631; crosses the 
North Anna, 631; at Cold Harbor, 634, 635; 
in the attack on Petersburg, June, 1864, 638 ; 
at Hatcher’s Run, 704; gives up command of 
the Second Corps, and is succeeded by Hum- 
phreys, 756 ; appointed military commander 
of Louisiana and Texas, 824. 

Hanover Court-house, Virginia, battle of, May, 
1862, 348. 

Hanson, Roger W., Confederate general, killed 
at Stone River, 324. 


Hardee, William J., on the St. Francis, at Green- 
ville, 1861, 173; at the battle of Shiloh, 299 ; 
at Missionary Ridge, commanding Bragg’s 
right, 512; commands a corps of Johnston’s 
army, 605; skirmishes with Howard’s column 
at Calhoun, Georgia, 605 ; at the battle of 
Jonesborough, 617; evacuates Savannah, 690; 
evacuates Charleston, 744. 

Harding, A. C., defends Fort Donelson against 
Forrest’s attack, 527. 

Hard Times, Louisiana, extension of Grant’s 
lines to, 455. 

Harker, Charles G., killed at Kenesaw, 608. 

Harnden, Henry, on the track of Davis, 778. 

Harney, General William S., assigned to the de- 
partment of the West, 107; pronounces the 
Military Bill of the Missouri Legislature an in- 
direct secession ordinance, 107 ; agreement of, 
with General Price, 108; is superseded by 


General Lyon, 108, 

Harold, David C., executed as a fellow-conspira- 
tor with Booth, 787. 

Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, attack upon and cap- 
ture of, by the Confederates, April 18, 1861. 
79, 81; Jackson’s demonstration against, May 
29, 1862, 347. = 

Harper’s Ferry held against Lee, contrary to 
McClellan’s advice, 394; captured by Jack- 
son, 397. 

Harriet Lane, capture of the, 421. 

Harris, Isham G., Governor of Tennessee, reply 
of, to Lincoln’s call for 75,000 men, 68; rec- 
ommends the passage by the State Assembly 
of an ordinance of secession, 104; in the at- 
tack on Lexington, Missouri, September, 1861, 
173; removes the capital from Nashville, 240 ; 
efforts of, to raise Tennessee regiments for the 
Confederacy, 296; league of, with Confeder- 
acy, 324, 


Harrison, William H., vote received by, for Pres- 
ident, 1840, 199. 

Harrison’s Landing, Virginia, McClellan retreats 
to, 377; shelled by Confederates from across 
the James, 380. 

Hart, Peter, of New York Police, gallantry of, at 
Fort Sumter, 58. 

Hartford, the, Farragut’s flag-ship, 264. 
Hartranft, Federal general, at Fort Steadman, 
757; in the final assault on Petersburg, 761. 
Hartsuff, George L., assigned to the Twenty- 

third Corps, 531. 

Hartsville, Missouri, skirmish at, January, 1864, 
between Marmaduke and Merrill, 590. 

Hascall, M. S., commands a division of the Army 
of the Ohio, 600; at Kulp House, 608. 

Hatch, John P., commanding cavalry in Pope’s 
Virginia army, is superseded by Buford, 382. 

Hatcher’s Run, Virginia, Grant’s movement on, 
October 27,1864, 704; second attack on, 706. 

Hatteras, capture of the, by the Alabama, 425. 

Hatteras Inlet, expedition against, August, 1861, 
180; at the beginning of 1862, 242. 

Hawes, Richard, inaugurated at Frankfort, Con- 
federate Provisional Governor of Kentucky, 
313. 

Hawkins’s Zouaves at Roanoke Island, 246. 

Hawley, J. R., at Olustee, 575; elected Govern- 
or of Connecticut, 822. 

Hays, Alexander, in the assault on Petersburg, 
762. 

Hazen, William B., at Stone River, 322; at 
Chickamauga, 544; movement of, on Brown’s 
Ferry, 556; captures Fort McAllister, 688. 

Heidseck, Charles, arrest of, by Butler, at New 
Orleans, 273. 

Heiman, Confederate officer, at Fort Donelson, 
231. 

Heintzelman, General Samuel P., commands 
third division of McDowell’s army, July, 1861, 
146; at Bull Run, 150; commands Third 
Corps, Army of Potomac, 330; commands 
forces south of the Chickahominy, 343; at 
Seven Pines, 351; at Groveton, 386. 

Helena, Arkansas, battle of July 4, 1863, 481, 

Helm, B. H., at Chickamauga, 546. 

Henderson’s Hill, Louisiana, surprise of the Con- 
federates at, 585. 

Henry, Patrick, opposition of, to the adoption of 
the Constitution—his argument for state soy- 
ereignty, 5, ° 

Herron, Francis J., drives the Confederates south 
of Boston Mountains, in Arkansas, 290; at 
Prairie Grove, 291; in the siege of Vicksburg, 
471; expedition of, up the Yazoo, 481 ; trans- 
ferred to the Department of the Gulf, 555; 
commands a division of the Fifteenth Corps, 
601, 

Heth, Confederate general, at Gettysburg, 507, 
512, 

Hicks, Thomas H., Governor of Maryland, re- 
fuses to receive the Mississippi commissioners, 
24; declaration of, to the commissioner from 
Alabama, 39; proclamation of, to the people 
of Maryland, April 18, 1861, 89 ; objects to the 
passage of Northern troops through Baltimore 
or Maryland, 89; proposes to the President a 
truce to the insurgents, Lord Lyons to act as 
mediator, 89; protests against General But- 
ler’s progress through Maryland, his seizure 
of railroads, etc., 92, 93, 94; calls for four 
regiments, May 14, 1861, to fill the quota of 
the state, 102. 

Hicks, 8. G., defends Paducah against Forrest, 
572, 

‘Higher Law,” origin of the phrase, 186. 

Hill, A. P., at Antietam, 403; opens the battle 
of Mechanicsville, 362; at Cold Harbor, 1862, 
364; at Frazier’s Farm, 372; at Malvern 
Hill, 376; sent to re-enforce Jackson against 
Pope, 383; at Cedar Mountain, 383; at 
Groveton, 387; at Fredericksburg, 413; at 
Chancellorsville, 489, 492, 4938, 497; at Get- 
tysburg, 506, 512; in the Wilderness, 626 ; 
killed at Petersburg, 762. 

Hill, Captain of Fort Brown, Texas, refuses to 
surrender his post to the Confederates, 44. 
Hill, D. H., at the battle of Mechanicsville, 362; 
at Cold Harbor, 1862, 365 ; at Malvern Hill, 
377; leaves Richmond to join Lee’s army in 
the movement against Pope, 384; at South 
Mountain, 398; at Antietam, 399; at Fred- 

ericksburg, 413. 

Hilliard, Henry W., Confederate commissioner 
to the Tennessee Legislature in 1861, 324. 
Hilton Head, South Carolina, captured by Sher- 

man and Dupont, November 7, 1861, 181. 

Hindman, T. C., commands the Confederates at 
Prairie Grove, 290; in the Dug Gap affair, 
539; at Chickamauga, 542, 546, 

History, design of this, and materials for, 122. 

Hobson, Federal general, in the pursuit of Mor- 
gan, 532. 

Holden, William W., appointed by Johnson Pro- 
visional Governor of North Carolina, 803. 

Hollins, Confederate naval commander, attacks 
the Federal fleet at Southwest Pass, October, 
1861, 183. 

Holly Springs, Mississippi, captured by Van 
Dorn, 318, 445. 

Holmes, Confederate general, at Helena, 481. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, son of, killed at Ball’s 
Bluff, 165. 

Holmes, T. H., commands the Confederate Army 
of the Acquia, 167. 

Holt, Joseph, of Kentucky, Postmaster General, 
and Acting Secretary of War after Floyd's 
resignation, in Buchanan’s cabinet, 32. 

Hood, John B., at the battle of Cold Harbor, 
1862, 366; at Groveton, 388; at Antietam, 
399; at Fredericksburg, 413; at Gettysburg, 
509, 512, 518; at Chickamauga, 542-549; 
wounded at Chickamauga, 546; commands a 
corps of Johnston’s army, 605; at Resaca, 
605; at New Hope Church, 606; at Kulp 
House, 608; succeeds Johnston in command 
of the Army of Tennessee, 611; attacks Sher- 
man’s left near Decatur, July 22, 1864, 613; 
evacuates Atlanta, 620; shifts his army to 


Sherman’s rear, 670; crosses the Chattahoo- 
chee, 671; attacks Allatoona, 671; repulsed 
at Decatur, Tennessee, 675; crosses the ‘Ten- 
nessee, 676 ; moves on Columbia, 676 ; reach- 
es the front of Nashville, 677 ; demonstrates 
against Murfreesborough, 677; defeated by 
Thomas, 681; resigns his command, and is 
succeeded by Dick Taylor, 652. 

Hooker, Joseph, pursues the Confederates to- 
ward Williamsburg, 338; at the battle of Wil- 
liamsburg, 339; at Fair Oaks, 354; at Fra- 
zier’s Farm, 372; opposed to withdrawal from 
the Peninsula, 380; defeats Ewell at Bristoe 
Station, 385; at the battle of Groveton, 386 ; 
at Antietam, 399; relieves McDowell, 393 ; 
commands the centre of Burnside’s army, 407; 
at Fredericksburg, 414; takes command of 
the Army of the Potomac, 483; reorganiza- 
tion by, of the army, 484; plan of, for spring 
campaign of 1863, 484; strength of the army 
under, 486; succeeds in turning Lee’s posi- 
tion, 488; confident of victory, 488; error of, 
in not advancing beyond the Wilderness, 489 ; 
puts himself on the defensive, 489 ; injured by 
a shell at Chancellorsville, 497 ; retreats from 
Chancellorsyille, 499 ; review of the Chancel- 
lorsville campaign of, 500; withdraws from 
Fredericksburg on account of Lee’s invasion, 
502; resigns his command, 504; arrested in 
Washington by Halleck, 505; transferred to 
the West, 551; carries Lookout Mountain, 
562; in the attack on Missionary Ridge, 567; 
in command of the Twentieth Corps, Army of 
the Cumberland, 600; at Resaca, 605; at 
New Hope Church, 606 ; at Peach-tree Creek, 
612; resigns his command of the Twentieth 
Corps, 615. 

Hoover's Gap, Tennessee, carried by Wilder and 
Reynolds, 530. 

Houston, Sam, of Texas, opposes secession, 288 ; 
death of, 288. 

Hovey, Alyin P., expedition of, from Helena to 
co-operate with Grant, November, 1862, 318 ; 
wounded at Arkansas Post, 449; at Port Gib- 
son, 458; at Edwards’s Station, 466; in the 
second assault on Vicksburg, 471. 

Howard, O. O., at Antietam, 400; at Freder- 
icksburg, 414; at Chancellorsville, 487, 491, 
492; at Gettysburg, 507; at Wauhatchie, 557; 
at Chattanooga, 560, 562; in command of the 

» Fourth Corps, Army of the Cumberland, 600 ; 
assigned to the Army of the Tennessee, 615. 

Huger, Benjamin, at the battle of Malvern Hill, 
376; removed from command, 384. 

Humphreys, A. A., at Fredericksburg, 415; at 
Chancellorsville, 489 ; at Gettysburg, 509, 512; 
takes command of the Second Corps, sueceed- 
ing Hancock, 756; in the assault on Peters- 
burg, 761; joins Sheridan at Jettersville, 768. 

Humphreys, B. G., at Chickamauga, 546. 

Hunt, Henry J., at Gettysburg, 512. 

Hunter, David, commands the second division of 
McDowell’s army, July, 1861, 146; wounded 
at Bull Run, 151; in the advance on Spring- 
field, October, 1861, 175; succeeding Fremont, 
November, 1861, commands the Department 
of Kansas, 175; proclamation of, abolishing 
slayery in the Department of the South, 208 ; 
operations of, against Charleston, 733; suc- 
ceeded by Q. A. Gillmore in the Department 
of the South, 738; supersedes Sigel in West 
Virginia, 631; defeats W. I. Jones at Pied- 
mont, 631; retreats before Early, 631; ad- 
yances upon Lynchburg, 707; retreats through 
West Virginia, 707; relieved of command, 
708. 

Hunter, R. M. T., of Virginia, Chairman of Fi- 
nance Committee in Senate, Thirty-sixth Con- 
gress, 185; succeeds Toombs as Confederate 
Secretary of State, 211; succeeded by Benja- 
min, 211; connection of, with the Hampton 
Roads Peace Conference, 669. 

Hurlbut, Stephen A., at Shiloh, 299; pursues 
Van Dorn and Price after their defeat at Cor- 
inth, 316; commands Sixteenth Corps under 
Grant, 449; left by Sherman in command at 
Memphis, 560; in the Meridian raid, 596. 


Imboden, Confederate general, captures 400 pris- 
oners at Charlestown, Virginia, 521. 

Imperial, arrival of the, at New Orleans, 482. 

Inaugural address, first, of President Lincoln, 
47; second, of President Lincoln, 782. 

Indiana, admitted as a free state in 1816, 10. 

Indianola, the, runs the Vicksburg batteries, res- 
cues the Era, and is captured by the Confed- 
erates, 450, 451. 

Indians, attitude of, in regard to the war, 283 ; 
number and territory of, 283; volunteer in the 
Confederate cause, 284. 

Tron-clad vessels, necessity of, in the war, 250, 
251; impetus given to the construction of, by 
the victory of the Monitor in Hampton Roads, 
258. 

‘*Trrepressible Conflict,” origin of the phrase, 
186. 

Island No. 10, capture of, 295, 432. 

tuka, Mississippi, battle of, September 14, 1862, 
315. 


Jackson, Governor of Missouri, reply of, to Lin- 
coln’s call for 75,000 men, 68; calls for 50,000 
men to repel ‘‘ invasion,” 138; retreats from 
the capital of Missouri, June 13, 1861, 138; at 
the battle of Booneville, Missouri, June 17, 
1861, 138. 

Jackson, hotel keeper at Alexandria, kills Col- 
onel Ellsworth, 135. 

Jackson, Thomas J., at Bull Run, 151; named 
** Stonewall,” 152; commands Confederate 
Army of the Valley, 167; operating in the 
Valley of the Shenandoah, 344; attacks Mil- 
roy at McDowell, May 8, and the force at 
Front Royal, May 23, 1862, 345; favorable 
position of, in the Shenandoah, May, 1862, 
345; concentrates at New Market, 345; at- 
tacks Front Royal, 345; advances toward Win- 
chester, 345; defeats Banks, driving him from 


Winchester to the Potomac, 345; congratula- | 


~~ oe 


INDEX. 


tory address of, to his soldiers, 346 ; begins to 
retreat, and demonstrates against Harper’s 
Ferry, 346; joins Lee north of the Chicka- 
hominy, 360; at the battle of Cold Harbor, 
1862, 366; at Malvern Hill, 377; slight part 
of, in the battles around Richmond, 379; or- 
dered to Gordonsville, 382; attacks Banks at 
Cedar Mountain, 383; retreats to the Rapi- 
dan, 383; crosses the Rappahannock, August 
25, 1862, to gain Pope’s rear, 384; in peril, 
shifts westward to avoid being cut off, 385; 
fights Pope near Groyeton, 386; having cap- 
tured Harper’s Ferry, joins Lee near Sharps- 
burg, 398; at Fredericksburg, 418, 415; at 
Chancellorsville, 488, 489, 491, 492; death of, 
493; sketch of, 495. 

Jackson, Mississippi, battle of, May, 1863, 463 ; 
occupied the third time by Sherman’s troops, 
569. 

Jacksonville, Florida, Gillmore lands 10,000 men 
at, February, 1864, 574. 

Jacques, Colonel, interview of, with Jeff. Davis, 
in 1864, 667. 

James River, as a base of operations against 
Richmond, letter of Franklin and Smith to the 
President concerning, 416. 

James River Canal destroyed by Sheridan’s cay- 
alry, 755. 

Jeff. Davis, the privateer, 179. 

Jefferson, Thomas, opinion of slavery, 9; propo- 
sition for its abolition in 1802, 10. 

Johnson, Andrew, senator from Tennessee in 
Thirty-seventh Congress, 186; military gov- 
ernor of Tennessee, 325 ; arrives at Nashville, 
March 12, 1862, 326; displaces the municipal 
authorities of Nashville, 327; issues proclama- 
tion ordering an election in Tennessee, Janua- 
ry, 1864, 327; nominated for Vice-President, 
665; succeeds Lincoln as President, 800 ; _bi- 
ographical sketch of, 800 ; motives influencing 
the nomination of, in 1864, for Vice-President, 
800; repudiated by the opposition party, 801; 
circumstances attending his inauguration as 
Vice-President, 801; his remarks when inau- 
gurated President, 801; retains Lincoln’s cab- 
inet, 801; ought to have called a special ses- 
sion of the Thirty-ninth Congress, 802, 808 ; 
issues his Amnesty Proclamation of May 29, 
1865, 802; re-establishes the authority of the 
United States government in the Southern 
States, 803; appoints provisional governors, 
803; rescinds the blockade, 803 ; suspends 
martial law in Kentucky, 803; annuls the 
suspension of habeas corpus in Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, ‘Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, 
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Ar- 
kansas, and Texas, 803; disappointed by the 
action of Southern Legislatures, 805; issues 
pardons to rebels excepted from the amnesty, 
807; change of tone in the Democratic press 
regarding, 807; interview of, with George L. 
Stearns, 807; views of, on negro suffrage, 807; 
theory of, as to the basis of restoration, 807 ; 
first message of, to Congress, 807; vetoes the 
Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bill, 816, 
817; vetoes the bill for negro suffrage in the 
District of Columbia, 818 ; impolitic speech of, 
February 22, 1866, 819; speeches by, on the 
tour to the tomb of Douglas, 821; vetoes the 

* Military Reconstruction Bill, 822 ; vetoes the 
Tenure of Office Bill, 823; suspends Stanton, 
and appoints Grant acting Secretary of War, 
824; message of, to Congress, 1867, 825. 

Johnson, Bushrod R., at Fort Donelson, 231; at 
Chickamauga, 542-549; at Missionary Ridge, 
567. _ 

Johnson, B. T., at Five Forks, 766. 

Johnson, Edward, captured with his brigade at 
Spottsylvania, 630. 

Johnson, Herschel V., nominated for Vice-Pres- 
ident by the Baltimore Democratic Conven- 
tion, 1860, 15 ; votes against secession, 39. 

Johnson, James, appointed by Johnson Proyis- 
ional Governor of Georgia, 803. 

Johnson, J. P., of Arkansas, chairman of Com- 
mittee on Public Lands in Senate, Thirty-sixth 
Congress, 185. 

Johnson, Reverdy, appointed to investigate the 
charges against Butler, 280; argument of, for 
the Anti-slavery amendment, 656. 

Johnson, R. W., in Rosecrans’s Middle Tennes- 
see Campaign, 530; at Liberty Gap, 580; com- 
mands a division of the Fourteenth Corps, 600; 
at Peach Tree Creek, 612. 

Johnston, A. Sidney, commands the Confederate 
forces in the West, 225; evacuates Bowling 
Green, 240; army of, at Murfreesborough, 
March, 1862, 295 ; army of, at Corinth, April 
1, 1862, 296 ; death of, at Shiloh, 299. 

Johnston, George M., Provisional Governor of 
Kentucky, wounded at Shiloh, 300. 

Johnston, Joseph E., Confederate general, com- 
mands the Army of the Shenandoah, July, 
1861, 146 ; arrives at Harper’s Ferry, May 
23, 1861, 148; retires to Winchester in June, 
149; at Bull Run, 150; commands the entire 
Confederate army in Virginia, 167 ; assigned 
to the Army of Northern Virginia, 330; ad- 
dress of, to the Army of Northern Virginia on 
assuming command, 331; attacks McClellan’s 
left wing south of the Chickahominy, 351; at 
Fair Oaks, 352; wounded at Fair Oaks, and 
succeeded by G. W. Smith, 352 ; estimate made 
by, of the forces under his command in Vir- 
ginia, 360; assigned to the command of the 
West,.464; before the Mississippi Legislature, 
464; plans of, in the Vicksburg campaign 
foiled by Pemberton, 464; correspondence of, 
with Pemberton, 477; driven from Jackson by 
Sherman, 480; assumes command of the Con- 
federate Army of Tennessee, 601; is denied 
re-enforcements for a defensive campaign, 601; 
Dayis’s hostility toward, 601; retreats from 
Dalton, 604; abandons Resaca and crosses the 
Oostenaula, 605; retreats from Cassville, 606; 
occupies Kenesaw Mountain, 60; abandons 
Kenesaw and crosses the Chattahoochee, 609 ; 
relieved of his command of the Arn:y of Ten- 
nessee, 611; gathers together an armay to op- 


Ww 


pose Sherman in North Carolina, 721; army 
of, near Raleigh, April, 1865,773 ; hearing of 
Lee’s surrender, retreats from Raleigh west- 
ward, 773; anxiety of, as to the disposition of 
his army, 773; interview of, with Sherman in 
regard to surrender, 773; surrender of, 774. 

Jones, Confederate colonel, at Bull Run, 151. 

Jones, D. R., at Antietam, 399. 

Jones, Edward F., colonel of Sixth Massachu- 
setts regiment, 86. 

Jones, Roger, commander at Harper's Ferry, re- 
treat of, 81. 

Jones, Samuel, advances against Burnside’s left 
in Tennessee, 551. 

Jones, W. E., defeated by Hunter at Piedmont, 
631. 

Jonesborough, Georgia, battle of, 617. 

Joseph, capture of the, by the Savannah, 179. 

Judah, Henry M., in the pursuit of Morgan, 532. 


Kane, George P., U. S. Marshal at Baltimore, 
endeayors to quell the riot of April 19,1861, 
88. 

Kansas and Nebraska Bill, 13. 

Kansas, Department of, created November, 1861, 
Hunter commanding, 177. 

Kansas, the troubles in, before the war, 13. 

Kautz, August V., commands cavalry of Butler's 
army,631; raid of, on the Weldon Railroad, 
632; in the attack on Petersburg, May, 1864, 
638; raid of, on the Weldon, Southern, and 
Danville Railroads, June, 1864, 695. 

Kearney, Philip, at the battle of Williamsburg, 
339; at Seven Pines, 351; at Frazier’s Farm, 
372; at the battle of Groveton, 386 ; killed at 
Ox Hill, 390. 

Kearsarge, the, sinks the Alabama, 426. 

Keitt, Lawrence M., of South Carolina, declares 
that ‘‘South Carolina would shatter the ac- 
cursed Union,” 18. 

Kenesaw, Georgia, description of, 606; Sher- 
man’s assault on, 608. 

Kenly, J. R., defeated at Front Royal, Virginia, 
by Jackson, 345. 

Kennedy, John A., Chief of Police in New York 
City, interferes with the transmission of arms 
Sonth, 40. 

Kentucky admitted as a slave state in 1792, 10; 
extra session of, State Legislature called by 
Governor Magoffin, December 27, 1860, 29; 
holds fast to the Union, 104; address to the 
people of, by the Convention of May 27, 1861, 
104; Union delegates from, elected to Con- 
gress, June 30, 1861, 104; desire of, for neu- 
trality, 169; Legislature demands the with- 
drawal of Confederate troops from the state, 
169; Legislature disarms the State Guard, 
passes a series of Union resolutions, calls out 
40,000 volunteers, demands the resignation of 
Breckinridge and Powell, and issues an ad- 
dress to the people of the state, 170; Federal 
army in, 70,000 strong, December 1, 1861, 
172; military situation in, at the beginning 
of 1862, 225; Legislature adjourns from Frank- 
fort to Louisville on account of Bragg’s inva- 
sion, 309; political and military situation in, 
1863, 531; martial law suspended in, 803. 

Keokuk, U.S. Monitor, sinking of, in Charleston 
Harbor, 737. 

Kershaw, J. B., at Fredericksburg, 414; at 
Chickamauga, 546; at Cedar Creek, 712; 
captured at Sailor’s Creek, 768. 

Keyes, Erasmus D., at the battle of Bull Run, 
150; commands Fourth Corps, Army of the 
Potomac, 330; at Seven Pines, 351. 

Kilpatrick, Judson C., in Stoneman’s raid on 
Lee’s communications, 500; at Gettysburg, 
513; raid of, against Richmond, 523; com- 
mands a cavalry division in the Army of the 
Cumberland, 601; demonstration of, against 
Jonesborough, 617; commands Sherman’s 
cavalry in the great march, 686; fight of, 
with Wade Hampton, 720. 

Kimball, N., in the siege of Vicksburg, 471. 

King, Rufus, member of the Constitutional Con- 
vention, 4. 

Kingston, North Carolina, battle at, December, 
1862, 427, 

Knoxville evacuated by the Confederates, 533 ; 
occupied by Burnside, 535; Longstreet’s ad- 
vance against, 552; siege of, 552-554. 

Kulp House, near Marietta, Georgia, battle at, 
608. 


Ladd, Luther C., of Lowell, Massachusetts, killed 
in the Baltimore riot, April 19, 1861, 88. 

Lafourche District, Louisiana, occupied by But- 
ler, 280. 

Laird, John, of England, builds the Alabama, 
423, 

Lake Providence experiment against Vicksburg, 
453. 

Lancaster, the, runs the Vicksburg batteries and 
is sunk, 452. 

Lander, Frederick W., moves on Philippi, West 
Virginia, June 2, 1861, 142. 

Landrum, J. J., at Chickasaw Bayou, 446; in 


the second assault on Vicksburg, 468; at Sa-_ 


bine Cross-roads, 586. 

Lane, Joseph, nominated for Vice-President by 
the Charleston Democratic Conyention, 1860, 
15. 

Lauman, Jacob G., at Fort Donelson, 232; in 
the siege of Vicksburg, 471; at Jackson, July, 
1863, 480. 

Lavergne, Tennessee, battle at, between Palmer 
and Forrest, 327. 

Lawler, M. K., in the second assault on Vicks- 
burg, 468. 

Lawrence, Kansas, ‘‘ Quantrell’s” raid on, 590. 

Lebanon, Kentucky, surrender of, to Morgan, 
532. 

Lee, A. L., in the Red River campaign, com- 
mands the cavalry advance, 585; at Sabine 
Cross-roads, 585, 586. 

Lee, Custis, captured at Sailor’s Creek, 768. 

Lee, Robert E., placed in command of the Vir- 
ginia militia, 118; takes command of Floyd’s 


and Wise’s forces in West Virginia, 144; or- | 


831 


dered to report at Richmond, 144; appointed 
commander of the army in Virginia, 219; as- 
signed to the command of the Army of North- 
ern Virginia, 357; fortifies Richmond, 358 ; 
threatens Washington, to cover his plan of an 
offensive campaign against McClellan, 360 ; 
assumes the offensive, June 26, 1862, 361 ; 
General Order of, 361; crosses the Chickahom- 
iny to Mechanicsville, 362, recrosses the Chick- 
ahominy and pursues McClellan, 371 ; move- 
ments of, against McClellan, June, 1862, criti- 
cised, 378; sends Jackson and Ewell to de- 
fend Gordonsville against Pope, 382; advances 
against Pope with nearly his whole army, Au- 
gust, 1862, 383; forces of, engaged against 
Pope, 383; through Stuart’s raid, obtains 
Pope’s dispatch-book, 384; invades Mary- 
land, 393; advances to Frederick City, 393 ; 
address of, to the people of Maryland, 393; 
deceived as to the sentiment of Marylanders, 
393; escapes after the battle of Antietam, 
404; sends Longstreet to defend Fredericks- 
burg against Burnside, 407; concentrates at 
Fredericksburg, 408 ; constitution of the army 
of, December, 1862, 408; position and strength 
of the army of, south of the Rappahannock, 
May, 1863, 486; surprised by Hooker, 488 ; 
at Chancellorsville, consults with Jackson, 491; 
divides his army, 491; plan of, for attack at 
Chancellorsville, 491; prepares for his North- 
ern invasion, 502; army of, brought up to 
100,000 men, 502; moves upon Winchester, 
504; crosses the Potomac, 504; invades Penn- 
sylvania, 505; concentrates at Gettysburg, 
505; determines to attack Meade, 509; re- 
treats toward the Potomac, 513; falls back 
before Meade’s advance to Culpepper, 518 ; 
again advances North, 519 ; position of, on the 
Rapidan, May, 1864, 624; attacks Grant in 
the Wilderness, 626; defense of Spottsylvania 
by, 631; at North Anna, 631; turned at North 
Anna, retreats and covers Richmond, 634 ; 
falls back into Richmond, 637 ; losses of, from 
the Rapidan to Richmond, 637 ; losses of, May 
5—June 20, 1864, 640; situation and strength 
of, in March, 1865, 752, 753; urges the arm- 
ing of slaves, 753; difficulty of, in obtaining 
supplies, 753; threatened on his own right, at- 
tacks Fort Steadman, 756 ; hears of his disas- 
ter at Five Forks, 760; defeat of, at Peters- 
burg, 762; retreats from Petersburg, 763; 
reaches Amelia Court-house, and is halted by 
the necessities of hunger, 767; driven from 
Amelia Court- house, 768; headed off from 
Burkesville by Ord, 768 ; aims to reach Lynch- 
burg, 768 ; defeated by Custer at Appomattox 
Station, 768; is surrounded near Appomattox 
Court-house, and asks for a suspension of hos- 
tilities, 769; correspondence of, with Grant, 
771 ; surrenders his army, 771; farewell order 
of, to the Army of Northern Virginia, 771. 

Lee, S. D., commands a corps under Hood, 616; 
at Ezra Church, 616; sent to defend Jones- 
borough, 617; commands a corps of Hood’s 
army, 671; at Nashville, 681. 

Lee, S. P., demands the surrender of Vicksburg, 
437. 

Leesburg, Virginia, held by Confederates, Octo- 
ber, 1861, 165. 

Leggett, M. D., commands a division of the 
Seventeenth Corps, 601. 

Letcher, Governor of Virginia, reply of, to Lin- 
coln’s call for 75,000 men, 68; proclamation 
of, calling for troops to resist coercion, 79 ; 
orders the mayor of Wheeling to seize the 
custom-house, ete., at that place, 140; procla- 
mation of, to the people of West Virginia, 
June 14, 1861, 141. 

Lewinsville, Virginia, reconnoissance toward, 
September 25, 1861, 162. 

Lewisburg, Virginia, Heth defeated at, by Col- 
onel Crook, of Fremont’s army, May, 1862, 
346. 

Lexington, Missouri, attacked by Price, Septem- 
ber, 1861, 173. 

Liberty, Missouri, seizure of the arsenal at, by 
the State Guards, 105. 

Liberty Gap, Tennessee, carried by Thomas, 530. 

Lieutenant general, grade of, revived and con- 
ferred upon Grant, 600. 

Lincoln, Abraham, nominated by the Republican 
party at Chicago, 1860, for President, 15; pop- 
ular anxiety about the inauguration of, 45; 
tour of, from Springfield, Ilinois, to Washing- 
ton, 46; enters Washington in disguise to 
avoid the Baltimore roughs, 46; inauguration 
and inaugural address of, 47; cabinet of, 50; 
proclamation of, calling for 75,000 volunteers, 
65; call of, upon the various governors for their 
quotas, 65; reply of, to the Virginia commis- 
sioners, 79; assures the authorities of Balti- 
more that Northern troops would march 
around Baltimore, not through it, 89; insists 
on the passage of troops through Maryland, 
and rejects Governor Hicks’s suggestion of a 
truce with rebels and of British mediation, 90; 
proclamation of, calling for 42,000 volunteers, 
May 3, 1861, 112; questions addressed to, by 
Douglas, with his replies, 119 ; asks Congress 
for 400,000 men, July, 1861, 145 ; message of, 
July 4, 1861, 188; annual message of, Decem- 
ber, 1861, 197 ; vote received by, for President 
in 1860, 200; modifies Fremont’s, and repudi- 
ates Hunter's proclamation concerning slaves, 
203 ; recommends Congress to offer compen- 
sation for voluntary emancipation, 204; con- 
fers with members of Congress from the Bor- 
der States on compensated emancipation, 206; 
Emancipation Proclamation of, September, 
1862, 208; orders an advance of all the na- 
tional armies, January, 1862, 221; orders 
McClellan to advance, 330; finally assents to 
the Peninsular campaign, 336; correspondence 
of, with McClellan, April, 1862, 336; thinks 
McClellan must ‘‘ attack Richmond or give 
up the job,” 346 ; orders McClellan to move 
against Lee, September 6, 1862, 404; removes 
McClellan, appointing Burnside as his suc- 
cessor, 405 ; letter of, to Grant after the cap- 


832 


ture of Vicksburg, 482; calls for 100,000 mi- 
litia to meet Lee’s invasion, 505; presents to 
Grant his commission as lieutenant general, 
600; in his Emancipation Proclamation was 
in advance of the people, 641; message of, 
December, 1863, 641; renominated in 1864, 
665; re-elected President, 669; meets Ste- 
pheas, Hunter, and Campbell in Hampton 
Roads, 669; letter of, to Sherman on the con- 
clusion of the march,713; character and mis- 
sion of, 782, charitably disposed toward the 
South, 782; second inaugural of, 782; enters 
Richmond, 783; last days in the life of, 783 ; 
assassinated at Ford’s theatre, 783; scenes at 
the death-bed of, 783; obsequies of, 788 ; ideas 
of, on reconstruction, 802. 

Little Rock, Arkansas, United States Arsenal 
seized at, by secessionists, 44; captured by 
Steele, 592. 

Livingston, William, member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention, 4. 

Logan, John A., at Fort Donelson, 235; at Ray- 
mond, 463; at Edwards’s Station, 466 ; com- 
mands Fifteenth Corps, Army of the Tennes- 
see, 601; at Ezra Church, 616. 

London Times assumes the disrupture of the 
Union as completed, 64. 

Long, Alexander, of Ohio, proposition for the ex- 
pulsion of, from the House, 662. 

Longstreet, General James S., at Bull Run, 151; 
at Williamsburg, 339; at Cold Harbor, 1862, 
365; at Frazier’s Farm, 372; at Malvern 
Hill, 377 ; marches North with 50,000 men to 
join Jackson against Pope, 384; joins Jack- 
son near Groveton, 386; at the battle of 
Groveton, 389; at South Mountain, 398; at 
Fredericksburg, 413; at Gettysburg, 508, 509, 
512; with his corps, sent West, 518; at 
Chickamauga, 544-549; advance of against 
Knoxville, 552; assaults of, on Knoxville, 
553; at Wauhatchie, 556; wounded in the 
Wilderness, 628 ; at Cold Harbor, 634; corps 
of, sent to re-enforce Petersburg, 640; in the 
final battle of Petersburg, 763. 

Lookout Mountain, abandoned by Rosecrans and 
occupied by Bragg, 5513 battle of, 562. 

Loring, William W., succeeds to the command 
of Polk’s Corps, 607; at Edwards’s Station, 
466. 

Loudon Heights, skirmish at, October, 1861, 164. 

Louisiana, admitted as a Slave State, 1812, 10; 
militia of, seize United States Marine Hospital 
below New Orleans, 39; vote of Convention 
for secession, 123. 

Louisville, Kentucky, headquarters of Depart- 
ment of Kentucky, 172; panic in, caused by 
Bragg’s invasion, 311; entered by Buell’s army 
September 25, 1862, 311. 

Lovell, Mansfield, abandons New Orleans, April, 
1862, 268. 

Lovejoy, Owen, views of, on reconstruction, 648 ; 
death of, 669. 

Low, F. F., elected Governor of California, 654. 

Lyon, Nathaniel, commands the St. Louis Arse- 
nal, 105 ; demands the surrender of General 
D. M. Frost and his State Guard, 107; suc- 
ceeds Harney as commander of the Depart- 
ment of the West, 108; interview of, with 
Price and Jackson, at St. Louis, June 11,1861, 
138 ; he refuses to remove United States troops 
from Missouri, 138; institutes a provisional goy- 
ernment for Missouri, 138 ; moves on Boone- 
ville, Missouri, June 17, 1861, 1388; joins Gen- 
eral Sturgis on the Osage, 139; killed at the 
battle of Wilson’s Creek, August 10, 1861, 140. 

Lynde, Isaac, surrender of Fort Fillmore by, 288. 

Lyons, Lord, British minister to Washington, 
proposed by Governor Hicks as mediator be- 
tween the government and the insurgents, 89; 
connection of, with the Trent correspondence, 
LOB; 


Madison, James, opinion of, that the Constitution 
could not be adopted with a reserved right to 
secede, 5 ; member of African Colonization 
Society, 11. 

Magoffin, Governor Beriah, of Kentucky, calls an 
extra session of the State Legislature, Decem- 
ber 27,1860, 29; reply of, to Lincoln’s call for 
75,000 men, 68 ; vetoes Union resolutions of 
the Kentucky Legislature, 170. 

Magrath, Judge, of South Carolina, resigns his 
office upon the election of Lincoln, 18. 

Magruder, J. B., commands the Confederates at 
Big Bethel, June, 1861, 136 ; commanding at 
Yorktown, 333 ; relieved of command at York- 
town, 335; attacks Sumner at Savage’s Sta- 
tion, Virginia, 371; at the battle of Malvern 
Hill, 376; sent to Texas, 384; recaptures Gal- 
veston, 423. 

Mallory, Stephen R., of Florida, Chairman of 
Military Affairs Committee in Senate, Thirty- 
sixth Congress, 185} capture of, 780. 

Malvern Hill, on the James, battle of, 373; losses 
at, 377, 

Manassas Junction, Virginia, description of, 147; 
battle of, 147-157; evacuated by the Confed- 
erates, March, 1862, 330; action at, August, 
1862, 385. See Bull Run. 

Manassas, the Confederate ram, attacks the Fed- 
eral fleet at Southwest Pass, 183; destroyed by 
the Mississippi, 266. 

Mann, Dudley, Confederate commissioner to Eu- 
rope, 193. 

Mansfield, Joseph K., occupies Alexandria, May 
24,1861, 135; killed at Antietam, 399. 

Manson, M. D., fights Kirby Smith at Richmond, 
Kentucky, 309. 

Marmaduke, Confederate general, at the battle 
of Booneville, Missouri, June 17, 1861, 138; 
at the battle of Prairie Grove, 291; advance 
of, on Springfield, 1863, 291; attacks Cape 
Girardeau, 477; at Helena, 481; attacks 
Springfield, Missouri, 590. 

Marshall, Humphrey, commands a Confederate 
force in Big Sandy Valley, Kentucky, Janua- 
ry, 1862, 221; defeated at Middle Creek and 
Petersburg, 222. 

Martial aw, Lincoln’s proclamation of Septem- 


INDEX. 


ber 24, 1862, 644; suspended in Kentucky, 
803. 

Martindale, John H., at the battle of Cold Har- 
bor, 1862, 364, 

Marvin, William, appointed by Johnson Provi- 
sional Governor of Florida, 803. 

Maryland, position of, at the outbreak of seces- 
sion, 39; Legislature meets in 1861 at Fred- 
erick City instead of Annapolis, and repudi- 
ates secession, 100; invaded by Lee, 393; Con- 
stitutional Convention of, abolishes slavery, 
669. 

Mason, George, of Virginia, opposition to the 
adoption of the Constitution, 5. 

Mason, James M., of Virginia, Chairman of Com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations in the Senate, 
Thirty-sixth Congress, 185; Confederate Com- 
missioner to Great Britain, seized on the 
Trent, 194; sketch of, 194. 

Massachusetts Legislature denounces secession, 
40; military ardor of her citizens at the out- 
break of the war, 86; Sixth Regiment, march 
of, to Washington, April, 1861, 86; soldiers 
killed in the Baltimore riot, April 19, 1861, 
88. 

Matthias Point, on the Potomac, occupation of, 
by Federal navy, June 27, 1861, 163. 

Maury, D. H., military commander at Mobile, 
747. 

McArthur, John, at the battle of Shiloh, 299 ; 
at Corinth, 316; in the siege of Vicksburg, 
471. 

McAuley, Commodore, commanding the naval 
station at Portsmouth, destroys his fleet, 85. 
McBride, Confederate general, in the attack on 
Lexington, Missouri, September, 1861, 173. 
McCall, George A., of McDowell’s command, 
joins McClellan, 357 ; at Mechanicsville, 362 ; 

at Frazier’s Farm, 372. 

McCausland, Confederate general, orders the 
burning of Chambersburg, 708. 

McClellan, George B., is placed in command of 
the Department of the Ohio, May, 1861, 140; 
issues proclamations to his soldiers and to the 
people of West Virginia, 142; occupies Graf- 
ton, West Virginia, 142; moves on Philippi, 
West Virginia, June 2, 1861, 142; at the 
head of 20,000 men in West Virginia, June, 
1861, 142; defeats General Garnett at Car- 
rick’s Ford, July, 1861, 142; address of, to his 
soldiers, July 19, 1861, 144; organizes the 
Army of the Potomac, 159 ; memorandum ad- 
dressed by, to the President, August, 1861, 
161; second statement of, to the President, 
October, {861, asking 240,000 men, 161; vac- 
illation of, in regard to dislodging the enemy 
from Acquia Creek, 163; made commander-in- 
chief, under the President, of the United States 
Armies, November, 1861,176 ; instructions of, 
to department commanders, 177; plan of) for 
winter campaign of 1861-2, 177; forces under, 
in the Potomac army, 328; estimate of, as to 
the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, 
328; objection of, to the immediate organiza- 
tion of army corps, 328 ; differs from the Pres- 
ident as to plan of campaign, 328; January 
31, 1862, is ordered to advance by the direct 
route to Richmond, 328 ; argument of, Febru- 
ary 3, in favor of the Peninsular route, 330; 
army of, February, 1862, 330; receives the in- 
dorsement of two thirds of his generals in fa- 
vor of his plan, and it is sanctioned by the 
President, 330; marches to Manassas and 
back again, 332; confined to Army of Poto- 
mac, 332; lands his army at Fortress Monroe, 
333; attempts to cut off Yorktown, 334; in- 
vests Yorktown, 334; correspondence of, with 
Lincoln, April, 1862, 336; asks for re-enforce- 
ments, 336; at the battle of Williamsburg, 
339; lands troops at West Point, 339; estab- 
lishes his headquarters at White House, on the 
Pamunkey, 339; again calls for re-enforce- 
ments, 341; repairs the York River Railroad, 
343; calls for McDowell’s Corps, 344; dis- 
patch of, to the President, May 21, 1862, 344; 
is promised McDowell’s support, 344; fails to 
receive it, 344; bridges the Chickahominy, 
347; divides his army, 348; exultation of, 
over Porter’s success at Hanover Court-house, 
349; confined to his bed during the battles of 
Fair Oaks and Seven Pines, 352; jealous of Mc- 
Dowell, 356; receives McCall’s division of Me- 
Dowell’s command, 357; removes headquar- 
ters to the south of the Chickahominy, 357; 
attacked by Lee on the north side of the Chick- 
ahominy, prepares to transfer his army to the 
James, 363; but first fights the battle of Cold 
Harbor, 363; after Cold Harbor, withdraws to 
the south side of the Chickahominy, 367; or- 
ders the retreat to the James, 368; might have 
taken Richmond after the battle of Cold Har- 
bor, 368 ; retreats after the victory at Malvern 
Hill, 377; asks for more men, 377; not per- 
sonally on the field of battle during the Penin- 
sular campaign, except at Malvern Hill, 378 ; 
criticism of the Peninsular campaign of, 378 ; 
at Harrison’s Landing, 380; calls for re-en- 
forcements, 380; consultation of, with Halleck, 
380 ; ordered to withdraw from the Peninsula, 
August 4, 1862, 380; remonstrates against the 
order, 380; urges his friends to support Pope, 
390; assigned to the command of the defenses 
of Washington, 390; again in the field, 394; 
reorganizes the Federal army at Washington, 
393 ; advances to meet Lee in Maryland, 394; 
captures Lee’s order, and determines to “‘ cut 
the enemy in two,” 397; fights the battles of 
South Mountain and Antietam, 398-404; be- 
gins to complain again, and refuses to advance, 
404; advances against Lee, October, 1862, 
405 ; is removed from command, 405; oppo- 
sition of, to radical views on slavery, 484; 
nominated for President in 1864, 668. 

McClernand, John A., at Belmont, November 7, 
1861, 171; member of Thirty-seventh Con- 
gress, 191; commands a force demonstrating 
against Columbus, 226; at Fort Henry, 227; 
at Fort Donelson, 230; at the battle of Shiloh, 
299; connection of, with the Chickasaw Bay- 


ou expedition, December, 1862, 447; com- 
mands Thirteenth Corps, under Grant, 449 ; 
captures Arkansas Post, 449; transfers his 
army to Young’s Point, 449; occupies New 
Carthage, 455; at Port Gibson, 458; in the 
second assault on Vicksburg, 468 ; superseded 
by Ord, 472. 

McCook, A. D., commands First Corps of Buell’s 
army, October, 1862, 312; fights the battle of 
Perryville against orders, 314; at Stone Riy- 
er, 8322; commands the Twentieth Corps in 
Rosecrans’s army, 526; in the Middle Tennes- 
see campaign, 530; at Chickamauga, 542-549; 
report of court of inquiry upon the conduct 
of, 550. 

McCook, Daniel, at Chickamauga, 542; killed 
in the assault on Kenesaw, 608. 

McCook, E. M., commands the cavalry of the 
Army of the Ohio, 601; commands cavalry 
brigade, Army of the Tennessee, 601 ; raid of, 
on the Macon Railroad, 613. 

McCook, Robert, at the battle of Mill Spring, 
224; murder of, 224. 

McCulloch, Benjamin, invades Missouri, June, 
1861, 138; at Wilson’s Creek, 140; at Pea 
Ridge, 284. 

McCulloch, Hugh, appointed by Lincoln Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, 802. 

McDowell, Irvin, biographical sketch of, 146; 
placed in command of the Army of the Poto- 
mac, May 27, 1861, 146; forces under com- 
mand of, 146; defeated at Bull Run, 154; 
commands First Corps, Army of the Potomac, 
March, 1862, 330; command of, retained for 
the defense of Washington, 344; assigned to 
the Department of the Rappahannock, May, 
1862, 345 ; order received by, to join McClel- 
lan, and why countermanded, 345; near Fred- 
ericksburg at the time of Jackson’s advance, 
May, 1862, 345; is ordered to send 20,000 
men to operate against Jackson in the Shenan- 
doah, 346; again ordered to join McClellan, 
June, 1862, 356; supports Pope at Groveton, 
387 ; relieved by Hooker, 393. 

McDowell, Virginia, Milroy- driven from, by 
Jackson, 345. 

McKinstry, J., in the advance on Springfield, 
Missouri, October, 1861, 175. 

McLaws, L., at the battle of Malvern Hill, 376; 
at Antietam, 399; at Chancellorsville, 489, 
492,498; at Gettysburg, 512,513; at Chick- 
amauga, 546, 548; in the siege of Knoxville, 
554, 

McMinnville, Tennessee, captured by Reynolds, 
528. 

McPherson, Edward, action of, concerning the 
call-roll of Thirty-ninth Congress, 805. 

McPherson, J. B., commands Seventeenth Corps, 
under Grant, 449; in the Yazoo Pass expedi- 
tion, 453; at Port Gibson, 459; at Raymond, 
463; at Jackson, May, 1863, 463; at Ed- 
ward’s Station, 466; in the second assault on 
Vicksburg, 468 ; left by Sherman in command 
at Vicksburg, 560; in the Meridian raid, 569; 
assigned to the Army of the Tennessee, 600 ; 
constitution of the army of, 601; movement 
of, through Snake Gap on Johnston’s rear, 
604; error of, in not attacking Resaca, 604 ; 
at Resaca, 605; killed near Decatur, Georgia, 
612. 

McRae, the privateer, 179. 

Meade, George G., at Drainesville, December 
20,1861, 167; at the battle of Cold Harbor, 
1862, 364; at Frazier’s Farm, 373; at Fred- 
ericksburg, 413; at Chancellorsville, 487, 489, 
499 ; succeeds Hooker in command of the 
Army of the Potomac, 504; at Gettysburg, 
506-513; error of, in not pursuing Lee, 516 ; 
advances into Virginia, 517; crosses the Rap- 
pahannock against Lee, 521; advance of, 
against Mine Run, 523; in Grant’s Virginia 
campaign, 621-640. 

Meagher, Thomas Francis, at the battle of Cold 
Harbor, 1862, 367; at Malvern Hill, 377; at 
Antietam, 400. 

Mechanicsville, Virginia, battle of, June 26, 
1862, 362. 

Memminger, Charles G., Secretary of the Treas- 
ury in Davis’s cabinet, 44. 

Memphis, Tennessee, naval engagement off, May 
10, 1862, 305; surrendered, 306 ; connection 
of Ellet’s ram fleet with the naval engagement 
off, 436; Forrest’s raid upon, 574. 

Meridian, Mississippi, Sherman’s expedition to, 
569. 

Merrimac, United States Steam Frigate, sunk at 
Norfolk by the Federal commander, and aft- 
erward raised by the Confederates, 85. 

Merritt, Wesley, at the battle of the Opequan, 
710; chief of cavalry under Sheridan, 755; at 
Five Forks, 759. 

Mervine, W., Flag-officer, commanding Gulf 
squadron, 1861, 179. 

Messila becomes Confederate capital of Arizona, 
288. 

Mexico, connection of the French occupation of, 
with the Red River campaign, 576; attitude 
of Congress toward the French in, 663. 

Miles, Colonel D. S., commands Fifth Division 
of McDowell’s army, July, 1861, 146; at Bull 
Run, 150; killed at Harper’s Ferry, 397. 

Miles, Nelson A., sent to the support of Sher- 
idan after the battle of Five Forks, 761; in 
the assault on Petersburg, 761; defeats the 
Confederates at Southerland’s Station, 762 ; 
attacks Lee near Farmyille, and is repulsed, 
768. 

Military Arrests in April, 1861, 111. 

Military Reconstruction Bill, passage of, 822 ; 
supplementary bill to, passed, 822; act ex- 
planatory of, 824. 

Milledgeville, Georgia, occupied by Sherman, 
686. 

Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, attack on, by Kirby 
Smith, 477. | 

Mill Spring, Kentucky, battle of, January, 1862, 
224, 

Milroy, Rovert H., commanding advance of 
Fremon;s army in Virginia, is attacked at 


McDowell, Virginia, 345; at the battle of 
Groveton, 386 ; defeated at Winchester, June, 
1863, 504. 

Mine explosion, enterprise against Petersburg, 
697. 

Minnesota, fight of the, with the Virginia, 255. 

Minnesota, Sioux massacre in, 283. 

Missionary Ridge, Tennessee, battle of, 562, 567; 
forces and losses at, 567. 

Mississippi, burning of the, 460. 

Mississippi, commissioners from, to Maryland, 
24; Convention passes secession ordinance, 
January 9, 1861, 39, 123. 

Mississippi naval squadron, February, 1862, 226 ; 
history of the, 432. 

Mississippi River, navigation of, declared free by 
the Confederate Congress, 44; free navigation 
of, proclaimed by the Confederate Congress to 
secure the alliance of the Northwest, 312; and 
its tributaries, floods of, commercial develop- 
ment of the valley of, military importance of, 
430,432; guerrilla attacks upon the fleet from 
the banks of, 437; opening of the, by the cap- 
ture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, 482. 

Missouri Compromise, 11; repeal of, in the Kan- 
sas and Nebraska Bill, 13. 

Missouri debarred from slavery by the ordinance 
of 1787, 11; question of her admission into the 
Union, 11; admitted as a slave state, 11; com- 
promise, 11 ; movement in the Senate of, for a 
secession Convention, 39; Convention shows a 
Union majority, 105; organization by the goy- 
ernor of, of a state guard, 105; organization of 
the Home Guard, 107; neutral position of, in 
the summer of 1861,138; request of Governor 
Jackson that United States troops should not 
be quartered in, or pass through, 138; situa- 
tion in, at the end of July, 1861, 189; Conven- 
tion of July 22, 1861, appoints Hamilton R. 
Gamble provisional governor, 139; admitted 
to the Confederacy without her request, 212 ; 
military situation in, at the beginning of 1862, 
225, 282; Halleck’s administration in, 291; ~ 
military operations in, during 1863, 590; po- 
litical situation in, during 1864, 593; Price’s 
raid in, 595, 596. 

Missouri, department of, created November, 1861, 
Halleck commanding, 177. 

Mitchel, O. McKnight, of Ohio, speech of, at 
Union Square, New York, April 20, 1861, 98 ; 
commands the advance on Bowling Green, 
238; advances into Northern Alabama, 303. 

Mitchell, R. B., commands a division under 
Thomas, 526. 

Mobile, Alabama, United States Arsenal at, seized 
by secessionists, 39; situation and defense of, 
in 1864, 744; operations against, in the spring 
of 1865, 747, 748 ; capture of, 748. 

Monet’s Bluff, Louisiana, battle of, 589. 

Monitor, history of the, 251; arrives at Hamp- 
ton Roads, March 8, 1862, 255; conflict of, 
with the Virginia, 255; tries to pass Drewry’s 
Bluff and up to Richmond, 257 ; lost at sea, 
December, 1862, 258. 

Monitor System, note on the, 260. 

Monroe, John T., refuses to surrender New Or- 
leans, 296; action of, in connection with the 
New Orleans riot, 821. 

Montgomery, Alabama, Confederate Convention 
at, 41, 123; surrendered, 750. 

Montgomery, John B., commanding the Pacific 
squadron, 179. 

Moore, O. H., defends Tebbs’s Bend against Mor- 
gan, 532. 

Morgan, Edwin D., Governor of New York, re- 
leases the arms seized by John A. Kennedy 
and lets them pass on to Georgia, 40. 

Morgan, G. W., abandons Cumberland Gap, Sep- 
tember, 1862, 314; at Chickasaw Bayon, 446. 

Morgan, John, of Kentucky, sketch of, 307; his 
Tennessee and Kentucky raid, 307; operates 
on northern communications of Nashville, 327 ; 
defeated at Milton, Tennessee, 528; invasion 
by, of Kentucky, 531, 532; is repulsed at 
Tebbs’s Bend, loses his brother, captures Leb- 
anon, and crosses the Ohio into Indiana, 532 ; 
threatens Cincinnati, 532; hemmed in and 
captured, 532, 533; defeated by Burbridge in 
Kentucky, 607. 

Morganzia, Louisiana, Confederate attack on, 
September, 1863, 579. 

Morris, Gouverneur, member of Constitutional 
Convention, 4. 

Morris, Robert, member of Constitutional Con- 
vention, 4. 

Morris Island, Gillmore’s operations on, 738-43. 

Mosby, John S., gives information to Lee of 
Burnside’s destination, 384; disbands his guer- 
rillas, 772. 

Mott, Gershom, in the attack on the Weldon 
Railroad, June, 1864, 694. 

Mound City, aceident on the, 290. 

Mouton, Confederate General, at Sabine Cross- 
roads, 586; killed in the pursuit after Sabine 
Cross-roads, 587. 

Mower, Joseph A., re-enforces Rosecrans in Mis- 
souri, 596. 

Mulligan, James A., defends Lexington, Mis- 
souri, September, 1861, 173. 

Mumford, Williain B., execution of, by Butler, 
July 7, 1862, 276. 

Mumfordsville, Kentucky, captured by Bragg, 
September, 1862, 311. 

Munson’s Hill, Virginia, abandoned by the Con- 
federates, September 27, 1861, 162. 

Murfreesborough, Tennessee, taken by Forrest, 
July, 1862, 307; (Stone River), battle of, 1862- 
3, 322; fortified by Rosecrans after the battle 
of Stone River, 527. 

Murphy, Isaac, recognized by Johnson as legal 
Governor of Arkansas, 803. 

Murphy, R. C., disgraceful surrender of Holly 
Springs by, 445. 


Naglee, James, in the Peninsular campaign, re- 
connoissance of, toward Richmond, May, 1862, 
343; charge of, at Seven Pines, 351. 

Nashville, Tennessee, Convention of delegates 
from the Slave States at, in 1850, advocating 


secession, 12; capture of, after the capture of 
Fort Donelson, 240; Buell’s headquarters in 
the spring of 1862, 296; arrival of Governor 
Andrew Johnson at, March, 1862, 327; mu- 
nicipal authorities of, removed, 327; Union 
meeting at, May 12, 1862, 327; threatened by 
Forrest and Anderson, 327; battles before, 
December 15 and 16, 1864, 679. 

Nashville, the privateer, 179; destroyed at Fort 
McAllister, 179. 

Natchez, Mississippi, occupation of, by Federal 
forces, 436. 

Natchitoches, Louisiana, advance to, of Banks 
and Porter, 1864, 585. 

National Currency Bill passed by Congress, 648 : 
bureau of, established, 663. 

Navy, United States, resignation of offices in, by 
midshipmen on account of secession, 49; weak 
in ships at the beginning of the war, but strong 
in trained seamen, 178; connection between, 
and the New England fisheries, 78 ; increase 
of, in 1861, 179; condition of, as reported by 
Secretary Welles, July, 1861, 189; of the West, 
creation of, 432. 

Needham, Sumner H., of Lawrence, Massachu- 
setts, killed in the Baltimore riot, April 19, 
1861, 88. 

Negley, James S., makes a demonstration against 
Chattanooga, June, 1862, 308; at Stone River, 
322; in command at Nashville, 327; com- 
mands a division under Thomas, 526; attacked 
by Bragg at Dug Gap, 534, 541; at Chicka- 
mauga, 542-549; report of the Committee of 
Inquiry on the conduct of, 548. 

Negroes called ‘‘contraband” by General Butler, 
201; employed in the Confederate military 
service, 219; act of Confederate Congress for 
employment of, as soldiers, 753; action of 
Thirty-eighth Congress concerning, 658. 

Negro soldiers, act of Congress providing for, 
and emancipating, 205. 

Nelson, William, established ‘‘ Camp Dick Rob- 
inson,” Kentucky, 169 ; occupies Prestonburg, 
Kentucky, and advances on Pikeville, Novem- 
ber, 1861,172; at the battle of Shiloh, 300; 
commands troops for the defense of Louisville 
against Bragg, 311; shot at Louisville by 
Jetf. C. Davis, 312. 

Newbern, North Carolina, captured by Burnside, 
March, 1862, 249. 

New Hope Church, Georgia, battle of, 606. 

New Madrid, Missouri, capture of, 293. 

New Market, Virginia, battle of, 631. 

New Mexico made a military department, with 
Canby in command, November, 1861, 177; 
the war in, 285; proclaimed Confederate ter- 
ritory by Baylor, 288. 

New Orleans, Louisiana, importance of, to the 
Confederacy, 267; McClellan thinks 50,000 
men necessary to capture, 261; defenses of, 
261, 264; panic in, on the approach of the 
Federal fleet, 268 ; capture of, April 25, 1862, 
268, 434; raising of the Union flag at, 269; 
condition of, when Butler assumed control, 
272; the poor of, fed by Butler, 273; civil 
authorities of, deposed, 274; George F. Shep- 
ley made military governor of, 274; Confed- 
erate currency repudiated at, 274; Butler in- 
stitutes a quarantine at, 276; Butler requires 
an oath of allegiance from the citizens of, 276; 
citizens of, disarmed, 278; confiscation of 
property at, 278; election at, by order of Goy- 
ernor Shepley, 280; conduct of foreign con- 
suls at, 280; riot at, in 1866, 821. 

Newport News, Virginia, Butler establishes a 
camp at, 136. 

Newton, John, succeeds Reynolds in command 
of the First Corps, 508; disconnected with 
the Army of the Potomac, 624; commands a 
division of the Fourth Corps, 600; at Peach- 
tree Creek, 612. 

New York City, First Division of the militia of, 
offered to the government by Major General 
Sanford, 40; great mass meeting in Union 
Square at, April 20, 1861, 95; sentiment in, 
at the outbreak of the war,95; prominent cit- 
izens of, compelled to hoist national colors, 99. 

New York Legislature denounces secession, 40. 

New York Seventh Regiment proceeds to Wash- 
ington for the defense of the capital, 90; reach- 
es Washington April 25, 1861, 94. 

Niagara, peace negotiations at, in 1864, 666. 

Ninth Corps transferred to the Department of 
the Ohio, 531; returned to the Army of the 
Potomac in the spring of 1864, 600. 

Norfolk, Virginia, meeting at, denouncing ‘‘ co- 
ercion,” 39; destruction of U.S. ships in the 
navy yard off, 85; abandoned by the Confed- 
erates, May, 1862, 257 ; surrendered, 339. 

North Carolina, Senate of, passes a bill for arm- 
ing the state, 22; is delivered over to the Con- 
federacy, 104; joins the Confederacy May 20, 
1861,123; Legislature declares that if recon- 
ciliation fails she will go with the other Slave 
States, 44. 

Northern States, indifference and inactivity of, 
during the development of secession, 40. 


Oglesby, Richard F., at Fort Donelson, 231 ; 
wounded at Corinth, 316. 

Ohio admitted as a. free state in 1802, 10. 

Ohio, Department of, commanded by McClellan, 
140; Buell in command of, 177. 

Okalona, Mississippi, W. 8. Smith defeated at, 
571. 

Olin, Abram, views of, on reconstruction, 648. 

Olustee, Florida, battle of, 575. 

Opequan, battle of the, 710. 

Ord, E. O. C., succeeds McClernand in command 
of the Thirteenth Corps, 472; transferred to 
the Department of the Gulf, 555; in the at- 
tack on Chapin’s Bluff, September, 1864, 703 ; 
succeeds Butler in command of the Army of 
the James, 756; reaches Burkesville in ad- 
vance of Lee, 768; appointed Military Com- | 
mander of Mississippi and Arkansas, 822. 

Order of American Knights in Missouri, 593. 

Orr, James L., commissioner to Washington, 
December, 1860, 27. 

10 B 


INDEX. 


Osterhaus, P. J., at the battle of Pea Ridge, 
284; at Port Gibson, 458; at Edward's Sta- 
tion, 466; in the second assault on Vicksburg, 
471; commands First Division of Sherman’s 
Army of the Tennessee, 560; at Chattanooga, 
560; at Lookout Mountain, 562 ; at Mission- 
ary Ridge, 567; commands a division of the 
Fifteenth Corps, 601. 

Ox Hill, Virginia, action at, September 2, 1862, 
390. 


Paducah, Kentucky, occupied by General Grant, 
September, 1861, 169 ; Forrest attacks, 572. 
Palmer, John M., at Stone River, 322; defeats 
Forrest and Anderson at Lavergne, Tennessee, 
327; commands a division under Thomas, 526; 
at Chickamauga, 542, 544, 546; assigned to 
the Fourteenth Corps, 555; at Chattanooga, 
560; at Missionary Ridge, 567; in command 
of the Fourteenth Corps, Army of the Cumber- 
land, 600; occupies Ringgold, Georgia, Feb- 
ruary, 22,1864, 601; resigns his command of 

the Fourteenth Corps, 617. 

Parke, John G., at Roanoke Island, 245; trans- 
ferred to the West, 531; in the siege of Vicks- 
burg, 471; Burnside’s chief of staff, command- 
ing at Knoxville, 552; at Peebles’s Farm, 704; 
at Hatcher’s Run, 704; in Burnside’s absence, 
commands the Ninth Corps before Petersburg, 
756 ; recaptures Fort Steadman, 757. 

Parker, Joel, elected Governor of New Jersey in 
1862, 641. 

Parkersburg, West Virginia, McClellan moves on, 
May, 1861, 143. 

Parramore, proposition of, to dispose of leading 
characters at the North, 797. 

Parsons, Confederate general, in the attack on 
Lexington, Missouri, September, 1861, 173. 
Parsons, Lewis E., appointed by Johnson Pro- 

visional Governor of Alabama, 803. 

Pass Cavallo, Texas, occupied by Banks, 579. 

Passaic, the, iron-clad, escapes shipwreck off 
Hatteras, December, 1862, 258. 

Patterson, Robert, in command of a Federal force 
at Harper’s Ferry, June, 1861,146; is outgen- 
eraled by Joe Johnston, 148. 

Paulding, Captain, sent to supersede Commodore 
McAuley, in command of the Portsmouth na- 
val station, April 20, 1861, 85, 

Payne (Powell), Lewis, capture of, 783. 

Peace Congress, of 1861, plan of adjustment 
adopted by, 47; negotiations in 1864, 666 ; 
negotiations, February, 1865, 669. 

Peach-tree Creek, Georgia, battle of, 612. 

Pea Ridge, Arkansas, battle of, 284 ; forces en- 
gaged at, 284. 

Peck, John J., at the battle of Williamsburg, 339. 

Peebles Farm, Virginia (on Lee’s right), fight 
at, September 30, 1864, 704. 

Pegram, John, Confederate colonel, at the battle 
of Rich Mountain, 142; surrenders to McClel- 
lan, 142; routed by Gillmore and Boyle at 
Somerset, Kentucky, 531. 

Pemberton, John C., succeeds Van Dorn in com- 
mand at Vicksburg, 444; surprised by Grant’s 
movement in his rear, 458; crosses the Big 
Black, 465; fights the battle of Edwards’s 
Station, 465 ; submits to a siege, 467; corre- 
spondence of, with Johnston, 477 ; interview 
of, with Grant, 477; surrenders, 479. 

Pendergrast, A., ordered to carry out the proc- 
lamation of blockade with the home squadron, 
179. 

Pendleton, George H., speech of, on the expul- 
sion of Long, 663; nominated for Vice-Presi- 
dent in 1864, 668. 

Peninsular Campaign, authorities for, 328; dis- 
cussion of, 330; modified so that the troops 
land at Fortress Monroe, 332; estimate of 
forces engaged, 360, 361 ; criticised, 377-379 ; 
losses, Federal and Confederate, June 25 
July 1, 1862, 379. 

Pennsylvania, United States four-decker, burned 
at Norfolk, April, 1861, 85. 

Pennsylvania, volunteers on their way to Wash- 
ington, April, 1861, obliged to return from Bal- 
timore to Philadelphia, 88; invaded by Lee, 
505. 

Pensacola, Florida, yielded to secessionists, 39 ; 
navy yard at, formally surrendered to the State 
of Florida, 68. 

Perry, Benjamin F., appointed by Johnson Pro- 
visional Governor of South Carolina, 803. 

Perry, capture of the, by the Savannah, 179. 

Perryville, Kentucky, battle of, Oct. 8, 1862, 314. 

Personal Liberty Laws, 14. 

Petersburg, Virginia, Butler’s demonstration 
against, 632; the investment of, 737-740 ; 
attack on, by Gillmore and Kautz, May, 1864, 
638; Grant’s attack on, June, 1864, 638; mine 
explosion before, 698; assault and capture of 
the Confederate works before, 761, 762 ; oc- 
cupation of, 763. 

Pettigrew, Confederate general, at Gettysburg, 
512. 

Pettigru, John S., of South Carolina, loyalty of, 
44, 

Peyton, Baillie, of Tennessee, protests against 
secession, 103. 

Phelps, J. W., occupies Ship Island, 261. 

Phelps, S. L., commanding the Conestoga, move- 
ment of, up the Tennessee to Florence, Alaba- 
ma, 230. 

Philippi, West Virginia, Confederate retreat to, 
from Grafton, 142; battle at, June 3, 1861, 
142, 

Phillips, Mrs. Philip, of New Orleans, sent by 
Butler to Ship Island, 276. 

Phillips, Wendell, of Massachusetts, expresses joy 
at secession and denounces compromise, 40. 
Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, demands 
payment of his salary as U.S. minister to Rus- 
sia, and is referred to the sub-treasurer at 
Charleston, 36; assumes the responsibility of 
firing on the Star of the West, 38; grants Ma- 
jor Anderson permission to send a messenger 
to Washington for orders, 38; is notilied that 
Fort Sumter would be provisioned peaceably 

if possible, by force if necessary, 52,40; 


Pickett, Confederate general, at Gettysburg, 512; 
at Five Forks, 760. 

Piedmont, Virginia, Hunter defeats W. E. Jones | 
at, 631. 

Pierce, Franklin, vote received by, for President 
in 1852, 199; speech of, at Concord, N. H., 
July 4, 1863, 650. 

Pierpont, Frank H., appointed Governor by the 
Union Convention at Wheeling, West Virgin- 
ia, June, 1861, 142; recognized by President 
Johnson as legal Governor of Virginia, 803. 

Pike, Albert, Indian Commissioner of the Con- 
federacy, 283; made a Confederate brigadier 
general, 284. 

Pillow, Gideon J., has an army at New Madrid, 
Missouri, July, 1861,139; commands the Con- 
federates at the battle of Belmont, November 
7, 1861,171; at Fort Donelson, 231. 


Pilot Knob, Missouri, attacked by Price, 596; | 


Ewing retreats from, 596. 

Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, member of Con- 
stitutional Convention, 4; plan of, for Consti- 
tution, 4. 

Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Marmaduke repulsed at, 
592. 

Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, Confederate forti- 
fications at, prevented by gun-boats, 295; oc- 
cupied by Grant, March, 1862, 295; battle of, 
299. 

Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, battle at, April, 1864, 
587. 

Pleasonton, A. H., at Antietam, 401; at Chan- 
cellorsville, 488, 493 ; succeeds Stoneman in 
command of Hooker's cavalry, 499; at Gettys- 
burg, 506; at the battle of the Big Blue, Mis- 
souri, 596. 

Plymouth, North Carolina, October 31, 1864, 
722. 

Plymouth, U. 8. ship-of-war, sunk by the Feder- 
al commander at Norfolk, and afterward raised 
by the Confederates, 85. 

Pocotaligo Station, South Carolina, seized by 
General Howard, 715. 

Polignac, Confederate general, at Pleasant Hill, 
587. 

Polk, James K., vote received by, for President, 
in 1844, 199. 

Polk, Mrs. James K., residing in Nashville when 
it was occupied by the Federals in 1862, 241. 

Polk, Leonidas K., Confederate general, orders 
McCulloch to advance on Springfield, July, 
1861, 140; occupies Hickman and Columbus, 
Kentucky, September, 1861, 169; at the bat- 
tle of Shiloh, 299 ; at Stone River, 322; in the 
attack on Dug Gap, 539; at Chickamauga, 
544; in command of the Mississippi Depart- 
ment, retreats before Sherman’s advance on 
Meridian, 570; re-enforces Johnston, 605; 
commands a corps of Johnston’s army, 605 ; 
at Resaca, 605; killed on Pine Mountain, 607. 

Pope, John, assumes command of Northern Mis- 
souri, July 19, 1861, 139; in the advance on 
Springfield, Missouri, October, 1861, 175; ad- 
vances from Sedalia, Missouri, December, 
1861, and cuts off Price’s recruits, 176; bom- 
bards and reduces the Confederate works at 
New Madrid, 293; captures Island No. 10, 
295; with 20,000 men, joins the armies at 
Pittsburg Landing, 302 ; removed to the East, 
309 ; takes command of the Army of Virginia, 
380; Virginia campaign of, 381-392; situa- 
tion of, July, 1862, 381; ordered to cover 
Washington, 382; address of, to his army, 
382; general orders of, for the conduct of the 
campaign, 382; intended that his army should 
subsist upon the country, 382; orders of, not 
so stringent as the Confederate policy in Ten- 
nessee, 382; outlawed by Davis, 382; concen- 
trates the forces under Sigel, Banks, and Mc 
Dowell, 382; threatens Gordonsville, 382; ad- 
vances from the Rappahannock, August, 1862, 
383; falls back again, 383; headquarters of, 
captured at Catlett’s Station by Stuart, 384; 
to save his rear, abandons the Rappahannock 
and moves toward Manassas Junction, 385 ; 
fails to recover Manassas Junction, 385; con- 
centrates near Manassas, 385; situation of, 
August 28, 1862, 385 ; misconception of, as to 
Lee’s plans, 385; orders Porter to support 
him, 386; defeated at Groveton, withdraws to 
Centreville, 389 ; situation of, after the battle 
of Groyeton, 390; withdraws to Washington, 
390; at his own request, relieved of his com- 
mand in Virginia, 390; criticism of the Vir- 
ginia campaign of, 391; appointed military 
commander of Georgia, Alabama, and Flor- 
ida, 822. 

Population of free and slave states, 123 ; increase 
of, 1790-1860, 642. 

Port Gibson, Mississippi, battle of, 458. 

Port Hudson, Louisiana, fortified by the Confed- 
erates, 460; Banks’s demonstration against, 
March, 1863, 460; invested by Banks, 463, 
472; assault on, May 27, 1863, 472; second 
assault on, 474; surrendered, 481. 


Port Republic, Virginia, Jackson attacks Shields | 


at, June 8, 1862, 347. 

Port Royal expedition, 181. 

Porter, B. H., killed at Fort Fisher, 732. 

Porter, D. D., commands the mortar fleet in the 
New Orleans expedition, 262; mortar fleet of, 
on the Mississippi, 433 ; co-operates with Far- 
ragut in running the Vicksburg batteries, 438 ; 
co-operation of, with Sherman in the battle of 
Chickasaw Bayou, 447; sends the ‘* Dummy” 
down the Mississippi, 451; opens communica- 
tions for Grant’s army by the Yazoo, 467 ; co- 
operates in the attack on Vicksburg, 471 ; ad- 
vance of, to Alexandria, March, 1864, 584 ; 
retreats down the Red River, 589; is attack- 
ed by a Confederate force on the bank, 589 ; 
fleet of, rescued and brought over the Alexan- 


dria Falls by Bailey’s dams, 590; bombards | 


725, 


Fort Fisher, 728, 731, 732. 

Porter, Fitz Jobn, at the battle of Bull Run, 
151; assigned to a corps in the Army of the 
Potomac, 341; defeats the Confederates at | 
Hanover Court-house, May, 1862, 348; at the 


battle of Cold Harbor, 364; at the battle of | 


833 


Malvern Hill, 376; ordered to join Hooker at 
Bristoe Station, 385 ; comes up too late, 386 ; 
ordered to join Pope, 386; disobeys the or- 
der, 387; again ordered to Groveton, obeys, 
388; in reserve at Antietam, 403. 

Porter, W. D., commander of the Essex, 229 ; 
attacks the ram Arkansas off Vicksburg, 441. 

Porterfield, Confederate colonel, at Philippi, 
West Virginia, desponds of raising troops for 
the Confederacy, 142. 

Portsmouth, Virginia, description of, 81; de- 
struction of U.S. ships in the Gosport Navy 
Yard at, 85. 

Potomac River, the Lower, navigation of, inter- 
rupted by Confederate batteries, 1861, 162 ; 
completely closed, 164. 

Potter, Robert B., relieves Sturgis, and is trans- 
ferred to the West with a division of the 
Ninth Corps, 531; wounded in the assault on 
Petersburg, 761. 

Powell, Lazarus, resignation of, demanded by 
the Kentucky Legislature, 170. 

Prairie Grove, Arkansas, battle of, 290. 

Prentiss, B. M., at the battle of Shiloh, 299; at 
Helena, 481. 

Presidential candidates, and yotes for, 1840- 
1860, 199, 200, 201. 

Presidential election of 1860,16; estimate of the 
popular vote in, 17; of 1864, 669. 

Preston, S. W., killed at Fort Fisher, 732. 

Preston, William, at Chickamauga, 542, 544. 

Price, Sterling, with a Confederate force at Neo- 
sho, Missouri, June, 1861, 139; at the battle 
of Wilson’s Creek, 140; joins General Harris, 
and moves on Lexington, Missouri, September, 
1861, 173; issues a proclamation to the peo- 
ple of Missouri, calling for 50,000 men, 175 ; 
advances North from Springfield with 20,000 
men, November, 1861, 175 ; compelled by Hal- 
leck to retreat, 176; abandons Springfield Jan- 
uary, 1862, 176; at the battle of Pea Ridge, 
284; operates on Buell’s rear, 315; at the 
battle of Corinth, 316; at Helena, 481; ad- 
vances northward into Missouri, September, 
1864, 595. 

Pritchard, B. D., captures Davis, 778. 

Prisoners, treatment of, on both sides, and regu- 
lations for the exchange of, 792, 794, 795. 

Privateering, sentiment in regard to, at the be- 
ginning of the war, 100; letters of marque and 
reprisal proposed April 17, 1861, 99; Davis’s 
proclamation concerning, 179 ; refusal of neu- 
tral powers to allow Confederate privateers to 
bring prizes into their ports,179; those en- 
gaged in, treated as prisoners of war, 250; 
foreign negotiations concerning, in 1861, 193. 

Privateers, Confederate, career of, 798. 

Proclamation, President Lincoln’s, calling for 
75,000 men, 65; response to the same, 68; 
Lincoln’s, calling for 42,000 volunteers, May 
3, 18/1, 112; McClellan’s, to his troops, and 
to the people of West Virginia, 142; of Goy- 
ernor Letcher to the people of West Virginia, 
June 14, 1861, 142; of Fremont declaring 
Missouri under martial law, etc., 173; coun- 
ter proclamation of Jeff. Thompson, 173; of 
Lincoln emancipating slaves, 207. 

Provisional governments established by Johnson 
in the Southern States, 803. 

Pryor, Roger A., account of the visit of, to Fort 
Sumter, 51; at Antietam, 400. 


‘¢*Quantrell,” raid of, on Lawrence, Kansas, 590. 

Queen of the West, conflict of, with the ram Ar- 
kansas, 441; conflict of, with the City of 
Vicksburg, 449 ; loss of the, 450. 


Railroads, Southern, their situation favorable to 
the Confederacy, 133. 

Rains, James E., in the attack on Lexington, 
Missouri, September, 1861, 173; killed at 
Stone River, 324. 

Raleigh, North Carolina, Joe Johnston’s army 
near, April, 1865, 773. 

Ramseur, Confederate general, at Cedar Creek, 
712. 

Randolph, Edmund, member of Constitutional 
Convention, 4; plan of, for Constitution, 4. 
Randolph, John, member of African Coloniza- 

tion Society, 11. 

Ransom, T. E. G., in the second assault on 
Vicksburg, 468 ; occupies Aransas Pass, Tex- 
as, 579; at Sabine Cross-roads, 585, 586 ; com- 
mands a division of the Sixteenth Corps, 601. 

Rappahannock, Department of the, created, in- 
cluding the District of Columbia, 345. 

Raymond, Mississippi, battle of, May, 1863, 463. 

Read, C. W., career of, in the Clarence, 423. 

Reagan, connection of, with the Sherman-John- 
ston negotiations, April, 1865, 773; released 
on parole, 803. 

Reams’s Station, Virginia, Hancock defeated at, 
703. 

Rebellion, causes of the, 118. 

Reconstruction, debate on, in the Thirty-seventh 
Congress, 648; debate on, in Thirty-eighth 
Congress, December 15, 1863, 658; debate 
on, January 22, 1864, 659; Wade and Davis 
Bill, 660; history of, 1865-1867, 800-825. 

Rector, Governor of Arkansas, reply of, to Lin- 
coln’s call for 75,000 men, 68. 

Red River campaign, 576-593; ought not to 
have been undertaken, 583; Grant’s idea of, 
583. 

Reno, Jesse L., at Roanoke Island, 245; joins 
Pope on the Rapidan, 383; at the battle of 
Groveton, 386; killed at South Mountain, 398. 

Renshaw, Commodore, captures Galveston, 421. 

Republican party, formation of, 13. 

Resaca, Georgia, McPherson’s movement on via 
Snake Creek Gap, 604; battles of, 605; loss- 
es at, 605. 

Revenue cutters Lewis Cass and Robert McClel- 
Jand, correspondence concerning, between W. 
H. Jones, agent of the Treasury Department, 
and J.G. Breshwood, commanding the Robert 
McClelland, 41. 

Review after the war at Washington, 789-793, 

Revolutionary War, 2, 3. 


834 


Reynolds, John F., at Drainesville, December 20, 
1861, 167; at the battle of Mechanicsville, 362 ; 
at Groveton, 388; at Fredericksburg, 413; at 
Chancellorsville, 487, 488, 496, 499 ; occupies 
Gettysburg in advance of Lee, 506 ; killed at 
Gettysburg, 507. La, 

Reynolds, J. J., commands a division under 
Thomas, 526; in the attack on Hoover’s Gap, 
530; at Chickamanga, 544, 546,548. 

Rhode Island, adoption by, of the Constitution, 
May, 1790, 5. 

Richardson, J. B., at the battle of Bull Run, 150; 
at Fair Oaks, 352; at Antietam, 399. 

Richmond, Kentucky, battle at, August, 1862, 
309. 

Richmond, Virginia, seizure of the Custom-house, 
etc., at, by the secessionists, 79 ; becomes the 
Confederate capital, 118; favorable situation 
of, for the Confederate capital and seat of war, 
133; impatience in the North for an advance 
on, 146; panic in, April, 1862, 218; panic in, 
on McClellan’s approach, 341; meeting in, 
for defense of, 341; fortified by Lee, 358; de- 
fense of, in the winter of 1863-64, 523; Kil- 
patrick’s and Dahlgren’s raid against, 523 ; 
defenses of, in 1864, 637; the Southern rail- 
road feeders of, 693; surprised by Lee’s de- 
feat, 763 ; scenes in, during its evacuation, 
765; conflagration in, caused by the execution 
of Ewell’s order, 765 ; entered by Weitzel’s 
troops, 766. 

Rich Mountain, West Virginia, battle of, July, 
1861, 142 

Ringgold, Georgia, occupied by Thomas, Febru- 
ary, 1864, 601. 

Rio Grande, occupation of the, by Banks’s forces, 
579. 

Riots in Baltimore, April, 1861, 86; indignation 
in the North on account of the latter, 88; in 
St. Louis, May 10, 1861, 107; in New York 
City, July, 1863, 650, 651, 652; in New Or- 
leans, 821. 

Roanoke Island, situation of, February, 1862 ; 
Burnside’s expedition against, 244; battle of 
February 8, 1862, 245; capture of, 246; Con- 
federate vessels destroyed or captured at and 
after the battle of, 246. 

Rodes, R. E., at Chancellorsyille, 489, 492, 493 ; 
at Gettysburg, 508. 

Rodgers, John, expedition of, up the James Riy- 
er, May, 1862, 257; organizes the Mississippi 
flotilla, 432. 

Rodman, A. B., of Louisiana, Confederate com- 
missioner to Washington in 1861, 50. 

Rome, Georgia, captured by Sherman, 605. 

Rosecrens, William S., at the battle of Rich 
Mountain, July, 1861, 142; moves against 
Floyd at Gauley River, 144; fights the battle 
of Carnifex Ferry, September 10, 1861, 144 ; 
succeeds Pope in the West, 314; at Iuka, 
315; at Corinth, 316; congratulatory address 
of, to his troops after the battle of Corinth, 
317; supersedes Buell, 320; advances upon 
Murfreesborough, 321 ; victory of, at Stone 
River, 322 ; general estimate of, 525 ; fortifies 
Murfreesborough after the battle of Stone 
River, 527 ; waits the development of Grant’s 
Vicksburg campaign, 529; strength of the 
army of, June, 1863, 529; advances against 
Bragg, 529; drives Bragg from Middle Ten- 
nessee, 531; advances against Chattanooga, 
535; plan for campaign, 535; error of, in as- 
suming that Bragg was retreating to Rome, 
537; could have concentrated his army at 
Chattanooga, 538 ; exposes his army to be cut 
up in detail, 539; concentrates his army on 
Chickamauga Creek, 541; conduct of the bat- 
tle of Chickamauga by, 542-549 ; withdraws 
his army to Chattanooga, 549; abandons Look- 
out Mountain, and thus loses his best line of 
communication, 551; relieved by Thomas, 155; 
assigned to command the Department of Mis- 
souri, 593; assumes the offensive against Price 
and drives him out of Missouri, 596. 

Ross, John, chief of the Cherokees, alliance of, 
with the Confederates, 283. 

Rosswell, Georgia, destruction of the factories at, 
609. 

Rost, P. A., Confederate commissioner to Eu- 
rope, 193. 

Rousseau, Lovell H., camp of, at Joe Holt, 1861, 
525; commands a division under Thomas, 
526; at the battle of Perryville, 314; at Stone 
River, 322; in command at Nashville, 327; 
raid of, against the West Point Railroad, 610, 
611. 

Rowan, S. C., expedition of, up the Chowan, 246. 

Rowland, Thomas F., connection of, with the 
construction of the Monitor, 251. 

Ruffin, Edmund, of South Carolina, fires the first 
gun upon Fort Sumter, 56; suicide of, 772, 
798. 

Runyon, General Theodore, commands Fourth 
Division of McDowell’s army, July, 1861, 146 ; 
at Bull Run, 150. 

Russell, Karl, British foreign minister, corre- 
spondence of, with Lord Lyons on the Trent 
affair, 295; correspondence of, with Adams, 
on the Alabama claims, 798. 

Russell, John, LL. D., correspondent of the Lon- 
don Times, first impressions of, concerning the 
struggle, 65. 

Rutledge, John, member of Constitutional Con- 
vention, 4, 


Sabine Cross-roads, Louisiana, battle of, April, 
1864, 585; causes of the Federal defeat at, 586. 

Sabine Pass, expedition against, 578. 

Sailor’s Creek, Virginia, action at, during Lee’s 
retreat, 768. 

ary ae Virginia, destruction of the works at, 
682. 

Benders, George M., Confederate agent in Cana- 

a, 797. 

Sanders, W. P., death of, in siege of Knoxville, 
553. 

Sanitary Commissions, 792. 

San Jacinto, the, connection with the Trent af- 
fair, 194 


INDEX. 


Santa Fé, New Mexico, Canby’s headquarters in 
1861, 288. 

Santa Rosa Island, Florida, Confederate attack 
on, October, 1861, 182. 

Saunders, H. S., expedition of, into East Ten- 
nessee, 531. 

Sassacus, conflict of, with the Albemarle, 723. 

Savage’s Station, Virginia, battle of, June 29, 
1862, 371. 

Savannah, Georgia, captured by Sherman, 690, 

Savannah, the privateer, 179 ; captured, 179. 

Schenck, Robert C., at the battle of Bull Run, 
150; with Milroy in the action at McDowell, 
May 8, 1862, 345. 

Schoepf, Alvin, repulses Zollicoffer at Camp 
Wild Cat, Kentucky, October, 1861, 170; re- 
treats from Somerset, 172. 

Schofield, John M., commanding the ‘‘Army of 
the Frontier,” September, 1862, assigned to 
the Department of Missouri, June, 1862, 292, 
590; in command of the Army of the Ohio, 
600; at Resaca, 605; abandons Pulaski, 676 ; 
retreat of, from Columbia to Franklin, 676 ; 
fights the battle of Franklin, 677; at Nash- 
ville, 679; leaves for the East with 21,000 
men, and assigned to the Department of North 
Carolina, 732; joins Sherman at Goldsbor- 
ough, 721; appointed military commander of 
Virginia, 822. 

Schurz, Carl, at the battle of Groveton, 386; at 
Gettysburg, 507; report of, on condition of 
Southern States, 809. 

Scott, Winfield, Brevet Lieutenant General, vote 
received by, for President in 1852, 199; called 
into consultation with Buchanan’s cabinet, 32; 
suggestions of, for preparations against war, to 
the President and Secretary of War, October 
29, 1260, 34; efforts of, to re-enforce Fort 
Pickens, 71; letter of, in Washington Intelli- 
gencer, October 21,1862, 71; consents reluct- 
antly to an advance on Richmond, 146; re- 
tirement of, October 31, 1861, 176. 

Secession, ordinance of, passed by South Caroli- 
na, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, 
Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, Arkansas, Ten- 
nessee, and North Carolina, with the respect- 
ive dates, 133; ordinance of, repealed at the 
close of the war, 804; the right of, not admit- 
ted by the framers of the Constitution, 120; 
President's message (July, 1861) concerning 
the right of, 189. 

Senate, United States, the arena of conflict be- 
tween the two sections, 185. 

Secessionville, South Carolina, Federal repulse 
at, in 1862, 733. 

Sedgwick, John, at Antietam, 399; at Chancel- 
lorsville, 487, 488, 496, 498; at Gettysburg, 
508 ; carries the works at Rappahannock Sta- 
tion, November, 1863, 521; in the Wilderness, 
626, 628, 629; killed at Spottsylvania, 630. 

Selma, Alabama, captured by Wilson, 750. 

Semmes, Raphael, career of, in the Alabama, 
424, 425. 

“Seven Pines,” Virginia, battle of, 351. 

Seward, William H., fails of Presidential nomi- 
nation in 1860,15; sketch of, as senator, 186 ; 
vote given for him as Presidential nominee in 
the Chicago Conyention, 186; Secretary of 
State in Lincoln’s cabinet, 50; letter of, on 
the Trent affair, 195; letter of, respecting the 
Emancipation Proclamation, 208; correspond- 
ence of, with the French government on medi- 
ation, 650; the attempt to assassinate, 783. 

Seymour, Attorney General under William and 
Mary, his reply to Virginia planters, ‘‘ Souls! 
Damn your souls! Plant tobacco!” 2. 

Seymour, Horatio, elected Governor of New 
York in 1862, 641; speech of, at the Acade- 
my of Music, New York City, July 4, 1868, 
650; addresses the New York rioters, 652. 

Seymour, Truman, at the battle of Mechanics- 
ville, 362; operations of, in Florida, February, 
1864, 575; in the Wilderness, 629. 

Shackleford, John M., in the pursuit of Morgan, 
532. 

Sharkey, William L., appointed by Johnson Pro- 
visional Governor of Mississippi, 803. 

Shaw, Robert G., killed at Fort Wagner, 714. 

Shelbyville, Tennessee, occupied by Granger and 
Stanley, 5380. 

Shenandoah, Confederate privateer, career of 
the, 798. 

Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, military operations 
in, 1862, 344, 345, 346, 347; secured to the 
Confederates in the autumn of 1862 by Lee’s 
campaign, 393; operations in, 1864, 707-712. 

Shepley, George F., appointed Military Govern- 
or of New Orleans, 274; placed in command 
of Richmond after its capture, 766. 

Sheridan, Philip, at Stone River, 322; occupies 
Stevenson, 537; at Chickamauga, 544; at 
Chattanooga, 566 ; appointed chief of cavalry 
of the Army of the Potomac, 624; at Cold 
Harbor, 634; joins the Army of the Potomac 
south of the James, 637; assumes command 
of the Army of the Shenandoah, 708 ; instruc- 
tions received by, 709; moves to Winchester, 
709; falls back to Harper’s Ferry, 709; de- 
feats Early on the Opequan, near Winchester, 
710; routs Early at Fisher’s Hill, 711; deso- 
lates the Valley, 711; ride of, from Winches- 
ter to Cedar Creek, where he defeats Early, 
712; instructions received by, from Grant, 
755; moves upon Lynchburg, and destroys 
the James River Canal, 755; joins Grant 
south of the James, March 25, 1865, 755 ; 
strength of, in the moyement on Five Forks, 
758; removes Warren from command, 760; 
in the pursuit of Lee, reaches the Danville 
Road first, 767; is joined by Wright and 
Humphreys, 768 ; comes upon Lee’s left flank, 
and defeats him at Sailor’s Creek, 768; ap- 
pointed military commander of Louisiana and 
Texas, 822; succeeded by Hancock, 824. 

Sherman, John, senator from Ohio, speech of, 
on the National Currency Bill, 649; speech 
of, in defense of President Johnson, 816. 

Sherman, Roger, member of Constitutional Con- 
vention, 4. 


Sherman, T. W., commands the Port Royal ex- 
pedition, 181; at Wagner, 740; in the siege 
of Port Hudson, 472. 

Sherman, William T., at the battle of Bull Run, 
150, 151; in command of the Department of 
Kentucky near the close of 1861, 172; at the 
battle of Shiloh, 299; military commander at 
Memphis, 443; meets Grant at Columbus, 
Kentucky, 444; ordered to attack the north- 
ern defenses of Vicksburg, 445; Chickasaw 
Bayou expedition of, 445, 446, 447; relieved 
by McClernand, 447; commands Fifteenth 
Corps under Grant, 449; makes a feint at- 
tack on the Yazoo, 459; joins Grant in the 
rear of Vicksburg, 459; at Jackson, May, 
1868, 463; assaults of, on Vicksburg, 468 ; 
drives Johnston from Jackson, 480; letter of, 
to Porter after the capture of Vicksburg, 480; 
movement of, for the relief of Knoxville, 554 ; 
in command of the Army of the Tennessee, 
555; marches to Chattanooga, 560; reaches 
Chattanooga, 560; attacks Bragg’s left at 
Missionary Ridge, 562; Meridian raid of, 569, 
570; sends A. J. Smith to Banks with 10,000 
men, 584; consults with Lieutenant General 
Grant as to the campaign of 1864, 600; or- 
ganization of his four armies, May, 1864, 600; 
preparations of, for the Atlanta campaign, 601; 
cuts off the supply of rations for the people of 
Tennessee, 601; strength of the army under, 
May, 1864, 601; attacks Johnston at Resaca, 
605; crosses the Etowah, and advances to- 
ward Dallas, 606; takes a position at Ack- 
worth, on the Railroad, 606; receives re-en- 
forcements, 606; advances to Big Shanty 
Station, 607; assaults Kenesaw, 608; threat- 
ens Johnston’s rear at the crossing of the 
Chattahoochee, 609; enters Marietta, 609 ; 
losses of, before crossing the Chattahoochee, 
610; crosses the Chattahoochee, 611; trans- 
fers his army to the west side of Atlanta, 614 ; 
moves his whole army against Jonesborough, 
617; occupies Atlanta, 620; correspondence 
of, with the Mayor of Atlanta, 620; follows 
Hood northward, 672; correspondence of, 
touching the March to the Sea, 671 et seq. ; 
prepares for the great march, 674; estimate 
of the generalship of, 683; march of, to the 
sea, 685-692 ; invests and captures Savannah, 
690; prepares for the march through the Car- 
olinas, 714; civil administration by, at Savan- 
nah, 714; trade regulations of, in Georgia, 
714; orders the Sea Islands, and rice-fields 
on the rivers thirty miles back from the sea, 
to be devoted to the freedmen, 714; makes 
cotton a prize of war, 715; feigns on Charles- 
ton, 717; crosses the Salkehatchie, 717; de- 
stroys the Charleston and Augusta Railroad, 
717; crosses the South Edisto, 717; declines 
Wheeler’s cotton compromise, 718 ; unites the 
two wings of his army south of the Congaree, 
718; enters Columbia, 718; occupies Winns- 
borough, 719; crosses the Catawba, 719; re- 
taliates for the murder of his foragers, 719 ; 
occupies Cheraw, 720; reaches Fayetteville, 
720; communicates with Terry and Schofield, 
721; crosses the Cape Fear, 721; encounters 
Johnston at Averysborough and Bentonville, 
721; joined by Terry and Schofield, concen- 
trates his army at Goldsborough, 721; pre- 
pares to move against Raleigh, 773; hears of 
Lee’s defeat, 773 ; enters Raleigh, 773 ; inter- 
view of, with Johnston in regard to surrender, 
773; memorandum sent by, to Washington, 
773. 

Shields, James, conflict of, with Jackson at Win- 
chester, March, 1861, 344; in the pursuit of 
Jackson, 347. 

Shiloh, Tennessee, battle of, April 6 and 7, 1862, 
299; losses at, 302. 

Ship Island made the rendezvous for the Gulf ex- 
pedition, 261. 

Shreveport, Louisiana, operations of General 
Banks against, April, 1864, 584-590. 

Sibley, H. H., quells the Sioux insurrection, 283. 

Sibley, W. U., invasion of New Mexico by, 288 ; 
advances against Fort Craig, 288; attacks 
Canby at Valverde, 289; captures Santa Fé 
and Albuquerque, 289 ; driven back to Texas, 
289. 

Sickles, Daniel E., at the battle of Malvern Hill, 
377; at Chancellorsville, 487, 488, 489, 492, 
493, 496, 497, 498, 499; at Gettysburg, 508, 
509; wounded at Gettysburg, 512; appointed 
military commander of North and South Car- 
olina, 822; removed, and succeeded by Can- 
by, 824. 

Sigel, Franz, commanding Home Guards near 
St. Louis in 1861,107; moves on Springfield, 
Missouri, June, 1861, 139: attacks the Con- 
federates near Carthage, Missouri, July 6, 
1861, 139; at the battle of Wilson’s Creek, 
August 10, 1861, 140; in the advance on 
Springfield, Missouri, October, 1861, 175; at 
the battle of Pea Ridge, 284; takes Fremont’s 
command in Virginia, 381; at Groveton, 386 ; 
post assigned to, in Grant’s Virginia campaign, 
624, 631; defeated by Breckinridge at New 
Market, Virginia, 631; superseded by Hunter, 
631; driven from Martinsburg, 707. 

Signal Corps, importance of, at Allatoona, 671. 

Sill, J. W., killed at Stone River, 324. 

Sioux massacre, in Minnesota, 283. 

Slavery in the colonies and in Great Britain, 2 ; 
sentiment of the states respecting, at the time 
the Constitution was adopted — Jefferson’s 
opinion—constitutional provisions concerning, 
93; states which had abolished, before the 
adoption of the Constitution, 10; in 1787, 
prohibited northwest of the Ohio River, 10 ; 
comparative power of, began to diminish after 
1820, 10; a school of politicians for the pro- 
tection of, in South Carolina and Georgia, 10; 
abolished in the British empire in 1833, 11 ; 
in the territories, question of, discussed, 13 ; 
domination of, in the United States Senate, 
195 ; change in the views of Congress con- 
cerning, before the close of 1861, 198; be- 
comes a party question in 1840, 199; in the 


por 


territories, declaration of Whig Convention — 


of 1848 concerning, 199 ; opposition to the 
extension of, becomes the basis of the Repub- 
lican party, 200; issue in the presidential cam- 
paigns of 1856 and 1860, 201; Lincoln’s first 
Inaugural message concerning, 201; McClel- 
lan’s address to Western Virginia protecting, 
201; provisions of the Confiscation Act (1861) 
concerning, 201 ; Fremont’s proclamation 
bearing upon, 203 ; General Hunter's procla- 
mation abolishing, 203 ; instructions of Secre- 
tary of War concerning, 203 ; Lincoln’s letter 
to Greeley concerning, 208 ; influence of the 
Border States on the policy of the government 
respecting, 204 ; statistics of, 204; Lincoln 
recommends Congress to compensate states 
abolishing, 204 ; acts of Congress concerning, 
204; abolition of, in the District of Columbia, 
204; abolished in the Territories by Congress, 
July, 1862, 205; Lincoln’s proclamation abol- 
ishing, in the rebel states, 208. 

Slaves of the South, were they an element of 
strength or of weakness to the Confederacy ? 
123; Confederate proposition to arm the, 753; 
their relation to the war considered, 791. 

Slave-trade, opposition of the Constitutional del- 
egates from South Carolina and Georgia to the 
abolition of, 9; act of Congress, 1794 against 
fitting out vessels for, 10; act (1800) forbid- 
ding citizens from holding property in foreign 
slave-ships, 10 ; act (1808) prescribing heavy 
penalties for engaging in, 10; carried on mean- 
while in British ships, 10; forbidden by act of 
Parliament, 1807, 11; British importation of 
slaves into South Carolina, 1804-8, 11; act of 
Congress (1820) declaring the slave-trade pira- 
Cyslile 

Slemmer, Lieutenant A. J., gathers the forces at 
Pensacola into Fort Pickens, 69. 

Slidell, John, of Louisiana, Confederate commis- 
sioner to France, seized on the Trent, 194. 

Slocum, H. W., at the battle of Cold Harbor, 
1862, 365; at Antietam, 400; at Chancellors- 
ville, 487, 489, 496, 498; at Gettysburg, 508 ; 
succeeds Hooker in command of the Twentieth 
Corps, 615. 

Smith, A. J., at Chickasaw Bayou, 446; at Ar- 
kansas Post, 449 ; at Port Gibson, 458; at 
Edwards’s Station, 466; in the second assault 
on Vicksburg, 468; defeats Forrest at Tupelo, 
Mississippi, 574; sent to Banks, 584; captures 
Fort De Russey, 584; at Pleasant Hill, 587; 
returns up the Mississippi to his own depart- 
ment, 590; re-enforces Rosecrans in Missouri, 
595 ; at Nashville, 679; at Mobile, 747. 

Smith, Caleb B., of Indiana, Secretary of the In- 
terior in Lincoln’s cabinet, 50 ; succeeded as 
Secretary of the Interior by Usher, 802. 

Smith, Charles F., at Fort Donelson, 230. 

Smith, Giles A., in the first assault on Vicksburg, 
468 ; in the second assault, 468 ; at Chatta- 
nooga, 562. 

Smith, Gustavus W., Confederate general, at 
Fair Oaks, 352; succeeds Joe Johnston in 
command of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
352; re-enforces Joe Johnston with a division 
of Georgia militia, 607; captured by Wilson, 
(o0se 

Smith, J. E., at Port Gibson, 459; at Chatta- 
nooga, 560, 562; commands a division of the 
Fifteenth ‘Corps, 601. 

Smith, James T., elected Governor of Rhode Isl- 
and in 1863, 641. 

Smith, Kirby, commanding in East Tennessee, 
advance of, into Kentucky, 309; fights the 
battle of Richmond, 309; proclamation of, to 
Kentuckians, 309; attack of, on Milliken’s 
Bend, 477 ; Confederate forces under, in Tex- 
as, 584; surrender of, 777. 

Smith, Martin L., in command of the Confeder- 
ate forces at Vicksburg, 437. 

Smith, Morgan L., at Fort Donelson, 235; at 
Chickasaw Bayou, 446; commands the Second 
Division of Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee, 
560; at Chattanooga, 560, 562; commands a 
division of the Fifteenth Corps, 601. 


Smith, T. K., in the first assault on Vicksburg, _ 


468; in the second assault, 468; in the Red 
River campaign, 585, 589. 

Smith, W. F. (‘‘ Baldy”), in siege of Yorktown, 
335; at Antietam, 400; succeeded in com- 
mand of the Ninth Corps by Parke, 531; 
movement of, on Brown’s Ferry, 556; at Chat- 
tanooga, 562 ; commands Tenth Corps of But- 
ler’s army, 631; at Cold Harbor, 634, 635; in 
the attack on Petersburg, June, 1864, 638. 

Smith, W. S., in the siege of Vicksburg, 471; 
co-operative movement of, with the Meridian 
raid defeated, 570, 571. 

Snake Creek Gap, Georgia, McPherson’s moye- 
ment through to Johnston’s rear, 604. 

Soulé, Pierre, visits General Butler with Mayor 
Monroe, 273. 

South Carolina, nullification in, 11; U.S. sena- 
tors from, resign their seats after Lincoln’s 
election, 18; Legislature meets, November 26, 
1860; Convention assembles at Columbia, De- 
cember 17, 1860, 22; Convention passes an 
ordinance of secession, December 20, 1860, 23, 
122; delegates withdraw from Congress, Le- 
cember 24, 1860, 23; declaration of causes for 
secession, 23; sends three commissioners to 
Washington to receive the surrender of the 
forts in Charleston Harbor, 27; commission- 
ers address President Buchanan, but are not 
officially recognized, 29; text of the address 
and of Buchanan’s reply, 30; their second let- 
ter, 30; excitement in, on their return to 
Charleston, 86; Convention defines treason 
against the state, with penalty of death ‘‘with- 
out benefit of clergy,” 36. 

South Mountain, Maryland, battle of, 398 ; losses 
at, 398. 

Southwest Pass, Louisiana, naval engagement at, 
October, 1861, 183. 

Spanish Fort, Alabama, invested, 747; captured, 
748. ; 

Speed, James, succeeds Bates as attorney geu- 
eral, 802. 


Spottsylvania, Virginia, battle of, 629-631 ; loss- | 
es at, 631. | 

Springfield, Massachusetts, the armory at, 145, 

Springfield, Missouri, Fremont’s advance against, 
in the autumn of 1861, 175. 

Spring Hill, Schofield’s narrow escape at, 676. 

St. Albans, Vermont, raid, 797. 

St. Charles, Arkansas, batteries at, reduced by 
Federal gun-boats, June, 1862, 290; captured, 
436. 

St. Louis, arms in the arsenal at, removed by 
Captain Stokes, 105; riot in, 107; fortified 
by Fremont in 1861, 173; defense of, against 
Price, 595. 

Stanley, David S., at the battle of Iuka, 315; at 
the battle of Corinth, 316; commands Rose- 
crans’s cavalry, 526; commands a division of 
the Fourth Corps, 600; at Spring Hill, 676 ; 
at Franklin, 677. : 

Stansberry, Henry, attorney general in Johnson’s 
cabinet, construction of the Reconstruction 
bills by, 823. 

Stanton, Edwin M., succeeds Cameron as Secre- 
tary of War, 197; injustice of, toward Sher- 
man, 776; able administration of the War De- 
partment by, 791; suspended from office by 
President Johnson, 824. 

Star of the West, steam-ship, sails from New 
York to re-enforce Fort Sumter, January 5, 
1861, arrives off Charleston Bar on the 9th, 
the next day is fired upon, and returns, 36; 
report of the captain of, 36. 

Steedman, James B., at Nashville, 681. 

Steele, Frederick, at Chickasaw Bayou, 447; in 
second assault on Vicksburg, 468; sent to He- 
lena to re-enforce Schofield, 555; captures Lit- 
tle Rock, 592; movement of, to co-operate 
with Banks’s Red River campaign, 592; trans- 
ferred to Canby’s department, 601 ; co-opera- 
tive movement of, in Mobile campaign, 748. 

Stephens, Alexander H., speech against seces- 
sion in the Georgia Legislature, November 14, 
1860, 19; votes against secession, 39; elected 
Vice-President of the Confederate States by 
the Montgomery Conyention, 41; biographical 
sketch of, 42; sent as commissioner to Wash- 
ington, 513; interview of, with Lincoln in 
Hampton Roads, 669 ; captured, 780; released 
on parole, 803. 

Stephens, Judge Linton, of Georgia, votes against 
secession, 39. 

Stevens battery, history of the, 251. 

Stevens, Isaac L., at Secessionville, 733; killed 
in the action at Ox Hill, Virginia, September, 
1862, 390. 

Stevens, ‘Thaddeus, of Pennsylvania, member of 
Thirty-seventh Congress, 187 ; views of, on re- 
construction, 648, 659. 

Stevenson, C. L., at Edwards’s Station, 466; at 
Lookout Mountain, 562; at Missionary Ridge, 
562. 

Stewart, A. P., at Chickamauga, 542, 548; at 
Resaca, 605; at New Hope Church, 606; at 
Peach-tree Creek, 612; commands a corps of 
Hood’s army, 671; at Franklin, 677; at Nash- 
ville, 681. 

Stokes, Captain, removes the arms in the arse- 
nal at St. Louis, 107. 

Stone, Charles P., organizes the District of Co- 
lumbia militia, 32; commanding at Pooles- 
ville, October, 1861, 164. 

Stoneman, George, pursues the Confederates at 
Yorktown, 338 ; sent to cut Lee’s communica- 
tions with Richmond, 486; raid of, on Lee’s 
communications, 499; succeeded by Pleason- 
ton, 499; raid of, against the Macon Road, 
613; captured at Macon, 614; drives Breck- 
inridge into North Carolina, 682 ; raid of, into 
North Carolina and Virginia, 750. 

Stone River, battle of, 322, 527. 

Stonewall, Confederate privateer, career of the, 
778. 

Stono River, South Carolina, Federal gun-boats 
enter, in 1862, 733. 

Stovall, M. A., at Chickamauga, 546. 

Streight, A. D., raid of, into Northern Georgia, 
528; capture and escape of, 529, 

Stringham, S. H., commander of Atlantic squad- 
ron,179; commands the naval part of the 
Hatteras expedition, 181. 

Strong, George C., at Fort Wagner, 738, 740. 

Stuart, David, at Chickasaw Bayou, 446. 

Stuart, J. E. B., at Drainesyille, 168; raid of, 
against McClellan’s communications, June, 
1862, 360; captures Pope’s headquarters and 
papers at Catlett's Station, 384; captures the 
Federal dépot at Manassas Junction, 385; at 
Chancellorsville, 492, 497, 498 ; hemmed in at 
Catlett’s Station, 520. 

Sturgis, S. D., at the battle of Wilson’s Creek, 


Missouri, 140; at Fredericksburg, 414; com- 
manding a division of the Ninth Corps, is re- 
lieved by R. B. Potter, 531; failure of the ex- 
pedition of, against Forrest, 572. 

Sumner, Charles, assault upon, in the Senate, 13. 

Sumner, Edwin V., commands Second Corps, 
Army of the Potomac, March, 1862, 380; at 
the battle of Williamsburg, 338 ; at Fair Oaks, 
352; attacked at Savage’s Station, 371; at 
Frazier’s Farm, 372; at Antietam, 399 ; com- 
mands the right of Burnside’s army, 407; de-- 
layed by the lack of pontoons in the Freder- 
icksburg campaign, 407 ; attacks Marye’s Hill, 
Fredericksburg, 413; relieved of command in 
the Potomac Army, and assigned to the De- 
partment of Missouri, 417; dies on his way 
to the West, 417. 

Sumter, the privateer, 179; sold, 179, 

Supplies, difficulty of the Confederates in obtain- 
ing, 693, 792. 

Surratt, John H., a fellow-conspirator with 
Booth, flight and capture of, 787 ; trial of, 787. 

Surratt, Mrs. M. E., connection of, with Lin- 
coln’s assassination, 783, 784; execution of, 
787. 

“*Swamp Angel” battery, fires upon Charleston, 
743, 

Sweeny, Andrew, mayor of Wheeling, refuses to 
support Governor Letcher, 140, 


INDEX. 


Sweeny, Thomas W., at the battle of Wilson’s 
Creek, 140 ; commands a division of the Six- 
teenth Corps, 601. 

Switzerland, running of the Vicksburg batteries 
by, 452. 

Sykes, George, at the battle of Cold Harbor, 1862, 
864; at Groveton, 388; at Chancellorsville, 
489; succeeds Meade in command of the Fifth 
Corps, 505 ; at Gettysburg, 508 ; at Bristoe 
Station, 520; disconnected from the Army of 
the Potomac, 624. 


Tacony, capture of the, by the Florida, 423. 

Taliaferro, W. B., takes command at Norfolk, 
Virginia, April, 1861, 85. 

Taney, Roger B., chief justice, prescribes the 
oath to President Lincoln, March 4, 1861, 47; 
death of, 666; succeeded by Chase, 666. 

Tatnall, Josiah, in command of the Virginia, 257. 

Taylor, Richard, conflict of, with Banks on the 
Bayou Teche, 460; retreats to Shreveport, 
463; reoccupies Alexandria and Brashear 
City, 474 ; at Sabine Cross-roads, 586; suc- 
ceeds Hood, 682; surrenders his army, 777. 

Taylor, Zachary, vote received by for President, 
1848, 199, 

Tebbs’s Bend, Kentucky, Morgan repulsed at, by 
O. H. Moore, 532. 

Telegraphic dispatches seized, April 20, 1861, 
EEE 


Tennessee admitted as a slave state in 1799, 10; 
Legislature and people of, against secession, 
103 ; Convention elected February 9, 1861, 
shows a Union majority, 103 ; Assembly, spe- 
cial session of, in April, 103; address to the 
people of, by Neil S. Brown and others, 103 ; 
June 8 appointed for a vote of the people of, 
on secession, 104 ; enters into a league with 
the Confederacy,104; Assembly authorizes the 
governor to raise 55,000 men, 104; becomes a 
Confederate state by coercion, 104; joins the 
Confederacy, June 8, 1861, 123; election or- 
dered in, by Andrew Johnson, January, 1864, 
327; ratifies the reconstruction amendment, 
and is admitted to representation, 817. 

Tennessee, capture of the, in Mobile Harbor, 747. 

Tennessee, River, in connection with the move- 
ment on Forts Henry and Donelson, 225, 

Tenure of Office Bill, passage of, 823. 

Terrell, Federal general, killed at Perryville, Oc- 
tober 8, 1862, 314. 

Terry, Alfred H., co-operates with Gillmore’s 
movement against Morris Island, 738 ; com- 
mands second expedition against Fort Fisher, 
731; captures the fort, 732; joins Sherman at 
Goldsborough, 721. 

Texas, connection of the Convention of, with the 
slavery agitation, 12 ; Convention passes the 
ordinance of secession, February 1, 1861, 41 ; 
United States military property in, surrender- 
ed to the Confederacy by David EB. Twiggs, 
44; joins the Confederacy, February, 1861, 
123; history of secession in, 288 ; military 
operations in, 1861, 288. 

Thomas, George H., defeats Zollicoffer at Mill 
Spring, Kentucky, 224 ; in the advance on 
Corinth, 1862, 302; second in command to 
Buell, 311; commands a corps in Rosecrans’s 
army, 320; at Stone River, 322 ; in command 
at Nashville, 327; commands centre of Rose- 
crans’s army, 526; commands the Fourteenth 
Corps, 526; in Rosecrans’s Middle Tennessee 
campaign, 530; crosses the Tennessee, and 
seizes Stevens’s and Cooper’s Gaps, 537; at 
Chickamauga, 542-549 ; succeeds Rosecrans 
in command of the Army of the Cumberland, 
551; attack of, on Missionary Ridge, 567 ; 
organization of the Army of the Cumberland 
under, May, 1864, 600; demonstration of, 
against Dalton, February, 1864, 601; in the 
battles of Resaca, 605 ; at Peach-tree Creek, 
612; given the command of the forces in Ten- 
nessee, 671; prepares to meet Hood’s advance 
upon Nashville, 676; defeats Hood, 682. 

Thompson, Jacob, Secretary of the Interior in 
Buchanan’s cabinet, resigns because Fort Sum- 
ter was to be re-enforced, 40; Confederate 
agent in Canada, 797. 

Thompson, Jefferson, proclamation of, to the 
people of Missouri, 170; at Fredericktown, 
Missouri, with 3500 men, 170; defeated near 
Fredericktown, October 21,1861, 171. 

Tilghman, Lloyd, commanding Confederate force 
at Fort Henry, 227. 

Timby, Theodore R., invents the revolving tur- 
ret, 253. 

Todd, Alexander A., brother-in-law of President 
Lincoln, killed in an ambuscade in the march 
on Baton Rouge, 442. 

Toombs, Robert, of Georgia, Secretary of State 
in Dayis’s cabinet, 44; resigns his position in 
Davis’s cabinet, 211; attack’s McClellan’s 
forces south of the Chickahominy, June 27, 
1862, 368; at Malvern Hill, 376; at Antie- 
tam, 403. 

Torbert, A. T., at Cold Harbor, 634 ; at the bat- 
tle of the Opequan, 710. 

Toucey, Isaac, Secretary of the Navy in 1860, 
supported the secessionists, 16. 

Trent affair, the, 194; the legal argument con- 
cerning, 196. 

Trevillian Station, Virginia, fight at, June, 1864, 
637. 

Tribune, the New York, admits the right of se- 
cession, 24; calls for an advance on Rich- 
mond, June 26, 1861, 146. 

Tucker, Beverly, Confederate agent in Canada, 
797. 

Tucson, Arizona, occupied by Confederate parti- 
sans, 289. 

Tupelo, Mississippi, fight between Smith and 
Forrest at, 574. 

Turner’s Gap, South Mountain, Maryland, battle 
at, 398. 

Turrets, revolving, invented by T. R. Timby, 
253; description of, 259. 

Tuscarora, the, compels Semmes to sell the Sum- 
ter, 179. 

Tuttle, J. M., in the first assault on Vicksburg, 


468; in the second assault, 468; commands 
Third Division of Sherman’s Army of the 'Ten- 
nessee, 560. 

Twiggs, David E., surrenders United States mil- 
itary property in Texas to the Confederates, 
44; ignominiously expelled from the United 
States army, 44; forts surrendered by, in ‘Tex- 
as, 288. 

Tyler, General Robert O., commands the First 
Division of McDowell’s army, July, 1861, 146 ; 
at Bull Run, 150. 


Union meeting at Frankfort, Alabama, 44; on 
Union Square, New York, April 20, 1861, res- 
olutions adopted at, 96. 

Usher, John P., succeeds Smith as Secretary of 
the Interior, 802. 


Vallandigham, Clement L., trial of, for violation 
of Burnside’s Order No. 38, 644; sentenced, 
and his punishment commuted by President 
Lincoln, 645; correspondence between Presi- 
dent Lincoln and Democrats concerning the 
arrest of, 644, 645; defeated in the elections 
of 1863, 654. 

Valverde, New Mexico, battle of, 289. 

Van Buren, Martin, vote received by, for Presi- 
dent, 1840 and 1844, 199. 

Vancleve, Horatio P., at Stone River, 322; 
Chickamauga, 542, 544, 546. 

Van Dorn, Earl, commands the Confederate 
Trans-Mississippi Department, 284; attacks 
Curtis at Pea Ridge, 284; is defeated, 284; 
contemplates the recapture of Corinth, 315; is 
defeated, 316; recaptures Holly Springs, and 
defeats Grant’s plan for the winter campaign 
of 1862, 318; takes command at Vicksburg, 
439; death of, 439; attacks Grant’s rear at 
Holly Springs, and defeats the campaign against 
Vicksburg, 445; captures one of Rosecrans’s 
brigades at Spring Hill, 528; defeated by Gor- 
don Granger at Franklin, Tennessee, 528, 

Van Pelt, Lieutenant, killed at Chickamauga, 544. 

Vermont admitted as a Free State in 1792, 10. 

Vicksburg, Mississippi, artillery planted by the 
governor at, in order to stop and examine 
steamers, 39; refuses to surrender to S. P. 
Ice 4387; situation of, in 1862, 488; Farra- 
gut runs the batteries at, 488; bombardment 
of, June 28, 1862, 439; Williams’s Canal 
opposite, 453; Lake Providence experiment 
against, 453; Yazoo Pass experiment against, 
435; Deer Creek raid against, 455 ; batteries 
of, passed by Grant’s transports, 455; Grant’s 
movements in the rear of, 458-478; invest- 
ment of, 467; first assault on, 468; mining 
operations against, 475; garrison of, reduced 
to mule beef, 475 ; surrendered, 478. 

Vienna, Virginia, affairs at, June 17, 1861, 147. 

Virginia, disposition of, to remain in the Union 
after Lincoln’s election, 18; feeling in West, 
18; proposes to South Carolina a Convention 
of the Slave States and is refused, 20; General 
Assembly of, invites all the states to a Peace 
Congress, 22 ; State Senate passes a resolution 
favoring secession, if reconciliation should fail, 
76 ; Convention meets at Richmond, February 
13, 1861, 79; Convention, effect on, of the 
fight at Fort Sumter, 79 ; ordinance of seces- 
sion passes the Convention secretly, April 17, 
1861, and is submitted to the votes of the peo- 
ple, 79; Constitution of the Confederate States 
adopted by, 79; commissioners to President 
Lincoln, 79 ; proclamation of the governor of, 
calling for troops, 79; Convention between, 
and the Confederate States, 79; Federal forces 
in, June, 1861,146; Senators from, admitted 
to Thirty-seventh Congress, 191; losses of the 
two armies in, from June 26, 1862, to July 3, 
1863, 517; authority of the United States 
government restored in, 803. 

Virginia, the, constructed on the ruins of the old 
Merrimac and iron clad, 250; surprises the 
Federal fleet in Hampton Roads, 254; sinks 
the Cumberland and enptures the Congress, 
254; driven off by the Monitor, 256; destroy- 
ed by Tatnall May 11, 1862, 257; note on the, 
340. 

Vogdes, Israel, in the fight on Santa Rosa Island, 
October, 1861, 182. 

Volunteers, U.S., rapidly raised in 1861, 86; 
80,000 respend to the President’s call for 
75,000, 145 ; 260,000 in service July 4, 1861, 
145; report of the Secretary of War, July, 

1861, concerning the number of, in service, 

189; number of, and from what states, De- 

cember, 1861, 187; number of, and from what 

states at the close of 1862, 320; governors of 
states called on for, to defend Washington, 

May, 1862, 346 ; muster out of, at the close of 

the war, 791. 


at 


Wachusett, affair of the, with the Florida, 423. 

Wade and Davis Bill, 660; not signed by Pres- 
ident Lincoln, 660. 

Wade and Davis protest, the, 660. 

Wadsworth, James S., military governor of the 
District of Columbia, 330; at Gettysburg, 507, 
508; killed in the Wilderness, 628. 

Wagner, G. D., shells Chattanooga, 537; at 
Spring Hill, 676; at Franklin, 677; at Nash- 
ville, 679. 

Walker, Pope, Secretary of War in Davis’s cab- 
inet, 44; threat of, that the Confederate flag 
should wave over the Capitol at Washington 
before May 1, 1861, 64. 

Walker, Robert J., speech of, at Union Square, 
New York, April 20, 1861, 96. 

Walker, W. H. T., at Raymond, May, 1863, 463 ; 
at Jackson, 463 ; at Helena, 481; at Chicka- 
mauga, 542-549. 

Wallace, Lewis, at Fort Donelson, 235; at Shi- 
loh, 300; assigned to the defense of Cincin- 


nati against Bragg, 309 ; defeated on the Mon- | 
| Wilson, James H., in the Wilderness, 626; at 


ocacy by Early, 707. 

Wallace, W. H. L., at Fort Donelson, 231; at 
Shiloh, 299. 

Ward, commander of Potomac naval flotilla, 
killed at Matthias Point, 163. 


835 


Warren, Gouverneur K., at Chancellorsville, 489, 
490; at Bristoe Station, 519, 520; assigned 
to the Fifth Corps, 623; in the Wilderness, 
626, 628; at Spottsylvania, 680, 631; cross- 
es the North Anna, 631; at Cold Harbor, 635 ; 
moves against the Weldon Railroad, August, 
1864, 702; at Hatcher’s Run, 704; sent with 
the Fifth Corps to co-operate with Sheridan 
against Lee’s right, 758 ; removed from com- 
mand by Sheridan, 760. 

Washburn, C. C., commands cavalry of Curtis's 
army in Arkansas, November, 1862, 218 ; con- 
nection of, with Grant’s campaign against 
Vicksburg, December, 1862, 445; in the siege 
of Vicksburg, 471; attacks and carries Fort 
Esperanza and Pass Cavallo, Texas, 579. 

Washington, George, member of Constitutional 
Convention, 4. 

Washington, Judge Bushrod, member of African 
Colonization Society, 11. 

Washington, District of Columbia, anxiety for 
the safety of, 76; situation of, favorable to 
the Confederates, 108 ; purpose of the Confed- 
erates to attack, 109; spies in the government 
departments of, 111; purpose of the Confeder- 
ates to capture, 135; fortifications erected 
about, 160; panic in, occasioned by Jackson’s 
advance, May, 1862, 346; threatened by Early, 
708; Nineteenth and Sixtth Corps arrive for 
the defense of, 708. 

Washington, North Carolina, surrender of, 249. 

Wauhatchie, Georgia, battle of, 556. 

Weitzel, Godfrey, connection of, with the New 
Orleans expedition, 262 ; on the Bayou Teche, 
460; at Port Hudson, 463, 472, 474; connec- 
tion of, with the first expedition against Fort 
Fisher, 725; enters Richmond, 766. 

Weldon Railroad, Virginia, Grant’s unsuccessful 
attack on, June, 1864, 694; Warren’s moye- 
ment against, August, 1864, 702, 703. 

Welles, Gideon, of Connecticut, Secretary of the 
Navy in Lincoln’s cabinet, 50; commends 
Captain Wilkes for the seizure of Mason and 
Slidell, 195. 

Wells, J. Madison, recognized by Johnson as 
Governor of Louisiana, 803. 

West, military operations in, different in charac- 
ter from those in Virginia, 168; extent of the 
field of military operations in the, 282, 

Westfield, destruction of the, 423. 

West Point, Virginia, McClellan lands troops at, 
339. 

West Virginia opposed to secession, 140; old 
disputes between, and the Eastern part of the 
state, 140; department of, under Rosecrans, 
November, 1861, 177; admission of, as a sep- 
arate state, 649. 

Wharton, Confederate general, at Stone River, 
322; in the attack on Fort Donelson, Febru- 
ary, 1863, 527. 

Wheeler, Confederate general, in the attack on 
Fort Donelson, February, 1863, 527; covers 
Bragg’s retreat from Middle Tennessee, 536 ; 
raid of, in Rosecrans’s rear after the battle of 
Chickamauga, 551; in Longstreet’s movement 
on Knoxville, 552; at Decatur, 613; dis- 
patched against Sherman’s rear, 617. 

Wheeling, West Virginia, public property at, 
seized by the mayor in the name of the United 
States, 140 ; regiments organized at, for the 
defense of loyal citizens, 142; Union Conven- 
tion at, June 11, 1861, 142. 

Whig Convention of 1848, on slavery in the Ter- 
ritories, 199. 

Whig party disappears from national polities 
after 1852, 199. 

White, Julius, commands eastern division of 
Kentucky, 531. 

White House, on the Pamunkey, McClellan's 
headquarters, 339 ; Stuart’s circuit around, 
360. 

White River, expedition up the, June, 1862, 289. 

Whiting, W. H. C., commander at Fort Fisher, 
727 ; mortally wounded in the second attack 
on the fort, 732. 

Whitney, Addison O., of Lowell, Massachusetts, 
killed in the Baltimore riot, April 19, 1861, 88. 

Wigfall, senator, speech of, in the Senate, 22; 
ludicrous visit of, to Fort Sumter, 60. 

Wilcox, Cadmus, charge of, at the battle of Fra- 
zier’s Farm, 372; at Chancellorsville, 498 ; at 
Gettysburg, 512; at Fredericksburg, 413. 

Wilderness, west of Chancellorsville, Virginia, 
description of, 488, 626; battles of, 625-629 ; 
losses at, 629. 

Wilkes, Captain Charles, seizure of the Trent by, 
194, 

Willcox, O. B., at Bull Run, 152; commanding 
a division of the Ninth Corps, transferred to 
the West, 531; in the assault on the Peters- 
burg lines, 761. 

William Aiken, revenue cutter in Charleston 
Harbor, surrendered to the secessionists, De- 
cember 27, 1860, 29. 

Williams, A. S., at Antietam, 399; commands a 
division of the Twentieth Corps, 600; at Kulp 
House, 608. 

Williams, Thomas, occupies the Peninsula oppo- 
site Vicksburg, 488; descends the river, 441 ; 
canal of, a failure, 441, 453; death of, at the 
battle of Baton Rouge, 422. 

Williamsburg, Virginia, battle of, May 5, 1862, 
338. 

Wilmington, preparations made for the capture 
of, in 1864, 725 ; captured by Schofield and 
Terry, 733. 

Wilmot Proviso, the, 12. 

Wilson, Henry, of Massachusetts, Chairman of 
Military Affairs in the Senate, Thirty-seventh 
Congress, 186; speech of, on the Conscription 
Bill, 647. 

Wilson, C. C., at Chickamauga, 542. 

Wilson, James, member of Constitutional Con- 
vention, 4. 


the battle of the Opequan, 710; raid of, on the 
Weldon and Southside and Danville Rail- 
roads, June, 1864, 695; at Nashville, 679; 
raid of, into Alabama, 749; captures Moné~ 


836.4 


gomery and Selma, 750; preparations made 
by, for the capture of Davis, 778. 

Wilson, William, in camp on Santa Rosa Island, 
1861, 182. 

Wilson’s Creek, Missouri, battle of August 10, 
1861, 140. 

Winans’s steam gun, seizure of, by Butler, 101. 

Winchester, Virginia, Jackson repulsed at, by 
Shields, 344; Milroy’s defeat at, 504; Sheri- 
dan defeats Early at, 710. 

Winnsborough, South Carolina, occupied by Sher- 
man, 719. 

Winslow, John A., destroys the Alabama, 425. 

Winthrop, Major Theodore, of Massachusetts, 
killed at Big Bethel, June 10, 1861, 136. 

Wise, Henry A., ordered to clear West Virginia 
of Federal troops, 142; gathers an army of 
4000 and marches down the Kanawha Valley, 
142; retreats to Gauley Bridge, 142; ordered 


INDEX. 


to report at Richmond, 144; in command at 
Roanoke Island, 242; son of, killed at Roan- 
oke Island, 246. 

Wirz, Henry, the Andersonville jailer, executed, 
795. 

Wood, Fernando, Mayor of New York, helps the 
transmission of arms, etc., South, 40; corre- 
spondence between, and Robert Toombs on 
the subject, 40; speech of, at Union Square, 
New York, April 20, 1861, 98. 

Wood, Thomas J., at Chickamauga, 542, 546, 
548; at Missionary Ridge, 567; commands a 
division of the Fourth Corps, 600; at Nash- 
ville, 679. 

Woods, C. K., at Lookout Mountain, 562; com- 
mands a division of the Seventeenth Corps, 
601, 

Wool, General John E., letter of, to Secretary 
Cass, December 6, 1860, 34; letter of, Decem- 


ber 31,1860, 34; succeeds Butler at Fortress 
Monroe, August, 1861, 180. 

Worden, John L., commander of the Monitor, 
255. 

Wright, Horatio G., at Secessionville, 733 ; suc- 
ceeds Sedgwick in command of the Sixth 
Corps, 630; at Spottsylvania, 631; at Cold 
Harbor, 634; at the battle of Opequan, 710; 
at Cedar Creek, 712; in the attack on the Wel- 
don Railroad, June, 1864, 694; in the assault 
on Petersburg, 761 ; joins Sheridan at Jetters- 
ville, 768. 


Yancey, W. L., Confederate commissioner to Eu- 
rope, 193. 

Yazoo City, Mississippi, capture of, 467. 

Yazoo Pass experiment against Vicksburg, 453. 

Yazoo River, expedition up the, 440. 

Yorktown, Virginia, a strong Confederate posi- 


THE END. 


tion in June, 1861, 136; strength of, March, 
1862, 333; investment of, by McClellan, 334; 
assaults on, 335; evacuation of, 337. 

Young, Bennett H., raid of, on St. Albans, Ver- 
mont, 797. 

Yulee, U. S. senator from Florida, letter of, to 
J. Finnegan, containing the resolutions of 
Southern senators, and revealing their design 
to retain their seats to prevent resistance to 
rebellion, 31; fac-simile of letter, 32. 


Zagonyi, Major, commanding Fremont’s body- 
guard, brilliant charge of, 175. 

Zollicoffer, Felix, operating in Southeastern Ken- 
tucky, 170; repulse of, at Camp Wild Cat, 
Kentucky, October, 1861, 170; defeat and 
death of, at Mill Spring, Kentucky, 224, 

cert and Black Horse Cavalry at Bull Run, 

52. 


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